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An image from the June 23 Rodong Sinmun newspaper of the launch of a Musudan missile. The newspaper reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un provided on-site instruction. (Yonhap News)

North Korea announced on June 23 that its test launch of the “Hwasong-10 intermediate-range strategic ballistic rocket” (presumed to be the Musudan missile) had succeeded after a string of failed launches since April.

A large number of North Korean media reports about the “successful” test launch (following five unsuccessful tests) are laying to rest some of the doubts that have been raised. There are some minor differences in the tentative assessments that the South Korean, American and Japanese governments have offered about whether the test was really successful, as North Korea is claiming.

First, North Korea announced that the missile that was successfully test-launched is the “Hwasong-10 surface-to-surface intermediate-range strategic ballistic rocket.” This is presumed to be a reference to the Musudan missile.

The name “Musudan” was not chosen by North Korea but rather derives from the fact that the missile was in Musudan Village in North Korea’s North Hamgyong Province when it was first detected by an American spy satellite.

“The ballistic rocket was launched at a high angle to approximate its maximum range. The rocket rose to its maximum elevation of 1413.6km and then traveled forward for 400km to strike the intended target in the ocean,” North Korea said. A high-angle launch is one in which the rocket and warhead separate at a higher angle than in a standard trajectory.

This is the first time that North Korea has referred to “maximum elevation.” If the missile rose to more than 1,400 km, than its engine output is comparable to the Musudan missile, which has a range of 3,000 to 4,000km at the standard angle of 45 degrees, experts say.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un observing a missile launch. North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun reported on June 23 that Kim had observed the launch of a Hwasong-10

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un claimed that the North has gained the capacity to attack the US military base on the Pacific island of Guam. “We now have the definite ability to attack the American bastards in their operational bases in the Pacific,” Kim said.

Guam is around 3,500km away from North Korea’s Hwasong-10 launch site in Wonsan, Gangwon Province. Should war break out on the Korean Peninsula, American bases on Guam and the Japanese island of Okinawa would be staging points for deploying reinforcements to South Korea.

North Korea appears to have had two reasons for choosing the technically challenging method of a high-angle launch. The first objective was to demonstrate its claim that it has developed ballistic atmospheric reentry technology. Pyongyang claimed to have “verified the warhead’s heat-resistant properties and stable flight during the [missile’s] reentry phase.”

But South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff have concluded that North Korea has not yet acquired reentry technology. “We need further analysis and assessment on the ballistic reentry question,” said a Joint Chiefs of Staff official.

The second objective was to provide technical grounds to support North Korea’s claim that it had taken into account the safety of neighboring countries. “The test launch was successfully carried out without affecting our neighbors’ safety in the slightest,” North Korea argued, implying that it had been mindful of Japan’s safety.

But while Kim Jong-un had given instructions for a nuclear warhead detonation test and a launch test of several kinds of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads during a test on Mar. 15 designed to replicate the conditions for ballistic missile atmospheric reentry, no mention was made of the nuclear warhead explosion test during this announcement.

“Considering North Korea’s use of the phrase ‘strike the intended target in the ocean’ in this announcement, it is possible that either they did not conduct a nuclear warhead detonation test during this launch or they did but it failed,” said Kim Dong-yeop, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University.

There have been some subtle differences in how Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have reacted to North Korea’s claims that its test launch of the Hwasong-10 was successful.

The South Korean military has reached the tentative conclusion that the test could not be called successful despite some technical improvement in engine performance.

“It would be difficult to categorically describe this as a success. That would require demonstrating that the missile is actually able to travel for a minimum of 500km on a standard trajectory,” said an official from the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the South Korean Defense Ministry’s regular briefing.

This position differed from the one expressed by Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda during the regular press briefing on Thursday. “I believe that it is undeniable that North Korea is advancing in its development of missile technology,” Hagiuda said. “The fact that we have seen a certain degree of functionality of an intermediate-range ballistic missile is seriously concerning for Japan’s security.”

The US is reserving its judgment for now. On June 22, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that the test’s success could not be determined.

By Kim Jin-cheol and Lee Je-hun, staff reporters

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