Tag: ICBM

If North Korea continues with their heavy flight testing schedule this seems like it could be a realistic estimate:

North Korea’s missile launch was a “partial success” that suggests the provocative country could have a road-mobile ICBM capable of reaching the U.S. mainland by early next decade, a U.S. think tank says.

After failing in four previous tries, the North fired back-to-back Musudan missiles in just over two hours Wednesday. The first was considered another failure, but the second flew 620 to 880 miles high before falling into the Sea of Japan.

The actual distance traveled — 250 miles — was well short of its potential range that would put it within range of Japan and U.S. bases in the region. Experts said the missile was fired at a high angle to avoid provoking Japan, but the ability to achieve that altitude shows that the North Koreans are making technical progress.

The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, in its 38north.org blog, called the test a “partial success.” But it noted that six tests since mid-April despite repeated failures suggest the Musudan is not the North’s long-term focus.

“This isn’t so much an engineering program so much as an exercise in tossing a coin or rolling a die until it comes up with the result they like,” analyst John Schilling wrote in Thursday’s post.

However, he said, it was the first time the Musudan’s engine, which is shared by North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles, was flight tested. Previous tests either crashed or exploded prematurely.

“This partial success increases the likelihood that North Korea’s KN-08 and KN-14 road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) will reach operational status early in the next decade,” he said.
“We still don’t expect them to have those missiles operational before 2020, but early flight testing by that date is increasingly likely,” he added.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Could North Korea be showing off its nuclear and ICBM weapon tests to simply make people think they have more capability than they really have?  That is what some researchers think:

 

Ahead of a rare ruling party Congress next month, secretive North Korea is revealing details of its weapons development program for the first time, showcasing its push to develop long-range nuclear missiles despite international sanctions.

Until recently, information on the North’s weapons program was hard to come by, with foreign governments and experts relying on satellite imagery, tiny samples of atomic particles collected after nuclear tests and mangled parts and materials recovered from long-range rocket launches.

No longer. In just over a month, the North has published articles with technicolor photographic detail on a range of tests and other activities that point to fast-paced efforts to build a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

The reason for the revelations, many analysts say, is that Pyongyang believes convincing the world, and its own people, of its nuclear prowess is as important as the prowess itself. Nevertheless, isolated North Korea’s true capabilities and intentions remain unknown.

“Close-up pictures of ground test activities are almost unprecedented from the DPRK,” John Schilling, an aerospace engineer specializing in satellite and launch vehicle propulsion systems, told Reuters.

DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name. The reclusive state has conducted four nuclear tests in the past 10 years, the last in January.

“The openness suggests that the underlying strategy is as much diplomatic as military: it is important to Pyongyang not only that they have these capabilities, but that we believe they have these capabilities,” Schilling said.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link.

Even if the North Koreans successfully put a satellite into orbit if they do launch their rocket, it still does not validate their ICBM technology since they haven’t tested a reentry vehicle:

It is believed that North Korea may launch a rocket with a range of 13,000 kilometers during its purported satellite launch scheduled for later this month, according to analysts and officials, Wednesday.

It will likely be a three-stage rocket capable of carrying a satellite weighing up to one ton. If the test succeeds, North Korea could load a nuclear warhead onto the rocket that could theoretically hit a city on the U.S. mainland.

It remains to be seen whether the rocket can withstand heat of up to 7,000 degrees Celsius caused if it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere after making it into outer space.

The re-entry phase of a rocket to the Earth’s atmosphere is essential as part of the inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) technologies that Pyongyang has pursued.

It is also questionable whether North Korea’s ICBM can hit a targeted area, most likely one on the U.S. mainland, even after it successfully re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

That is what the National Interest answers for its readers:

But as with almost all North Korean developments and proclamations from the exalted “supreme leader” Kim Jong-un, it’s hard to say what’s real and what’s a delusional fantasy. Nonetheless, Washington has to take the possibility of a nuclear-tipped North Korean ICBM seriously. What, then, can the United States do to stop a North Korean ICBM that’s headed towards the American homeland?

To a large extent the United States has prepared from this eventuality. The best way to stop a North Korean ICBM would be to eliminate the target before it’s launched. But if the regime in Pyongyang—in a move that would guarantee a devastating U.S. nuclear retaliation—manages to launch a missile towards an American city, Washington has an operational missile defense system in place.

The Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) element provides Washington the ability to destroy a limited number of incoming intermediate and long-range ballistic missiles threats in space to defend the United States. There are interceptors already in place at Fort Greely, Alaska, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Right now there are a total of thirty interceptors deployed, but there are plans to add fourteen more missiles.   [National Interest]

You can read more at the link about other missile defenses the US has, but first of all launching an ICBM at the US would be a weapon of last resort since the US response would be so devastating against the North Koreans.  Additionally the rocket they are threatening to fire now would be easy to destroy left of launch since it takes days to prepare it for launch.  That is why the North Koreans have fielded the KN-08 ICBM that is road mobile and much more easier to launch.  However, it has never been tested and many have claimed they are mock ups.

For all we know the Kim regime could be playing the same games that Saddam Hussein did with exaggerating his military capability.  However, military leaders have to prepare for the worst case a threat poses and thus why the Kim regime’s threats are taken so seriously.

The North Koreans continue to tinker with their road mobile ICBM which is their primary strategic deterrent against the United States:

Design changes to a North Korean missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland should increase its reliability but are likely to delay deployment for at least five years, according to a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

The KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile, which was publicly displayed during an October military parade, has been shortened and simplified, according to 38 North, a website run by Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies that monitors North Korean activities. A blunt warhead that is more likely to survive re-entry replaces a narrow, pointed design, and the missile’s three stages have been reduced to two.

“The underlying technology is mostly the same — a blend of North Korean engineering and Cold War leftovers from the Soviet Union — but the structural design has been substantially improved,” the report said Tuesday. “There is reason to suspect that the new structural technology was illicitly obtained from Ukrainian sources.”

The new KN-08 would have a range similar to its predecessor — about 5,600 miles, enough to reach the U.S. West Coast — with an estimated success rate of 50 percent to 60 percent, the report said. The previous model’s rate was estimated at 30 percent to 40 percent.

“The new design is simpler and more reliable, and thus a more credible threat,” 38 North said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

Analysts at 38North have a good posting up about why the Unha-3 rocket that North Korea has threatened to launch again is likely intended for space launch purposes:

But if the Unha-3 is intended for use as an ICBM, it’s not a very good one. The second- and third-stage engines don’t have enough thrust to efficiently deliver heavy warheads; a militarized Unha might deliver 800 kilograms of payload to Washington, DC. The North Koreans can probably make a nuclear warhead that small, but it would be a tight fit. With bigger upper-stage engines, which we know the North Koreans have, they could deliver substantially larger payloads. This would allow bigger and more powerful warheads, more decoys to counter US missile defenses, and a generally tougher and more robust system.

The Unha is also too heavy and cumbersome to be survivable in wartime. Too big for any mobile transporter, it can only be launched from fixed sites. Its highly corrosive liquid propellants require hours of pre-launch preparations. That’s a bad combination for North Korea; their fixed launch sites are going to be watched very closely, and particularly in a crisis, any indication that an ICBM is being prepared for launch could trigger a pre-emptive strike.

The same could be said of the old Soviet R-7. As an ICBM, it was pretty much a dud—the USSR never deployed more than 10, and retired them after less than a decade. As a space launch vehicle, its descendants are still in service today.

The North Koreans could press the Unha-3 into limited service as an ICBM, just as the USSR did with the R-7—a temporary measure, until something better is available. They can almost certainly build something better, and they appear to be trying. The KN-08 missile mock-ups, twice paraded through Pyongyang, are exactly the sort of thing a nation like North Korea would build if it wanted to use its eclectic mix of early 1960s rocket technologies to build an ICBM. It is small enough to be mobile and therefore survivable but with the performance (barely) to reach the enemy’s homeland. The Unha-3, by comparison, looks like it was designed to launch satellites rather than warheads.  [38North]

It is worth reading the whole thing at the link.