The North Korean authorities’ exaggerated claims about their test launch of a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile called the Hwasong-16B, which was fired into the East Sea on Apr. 2, appear to be aimed at flaunting the North’s technological achievements while confusing the South Korean and U.S. militaries.
Asked about the North Korean media’s coverage of the Apr. 3 test launch, a high-ranking North Korean source told Daily NK on Monday that “the Rodong Sinmun report concerns the potential of the hypersonic missile technology that has been developed.”
“The hypersonic glide warhead [. . .] reached its first peak at an altitude of 101.1 kilometers and the second [at] 72.3 kilometers while making [a] 1,000-kilometer flight as planned to hit the waters of the East Sea of Korea accurately,” Rodong Sinmun reported on Apr. 3.
But South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the 1,000-kilometer flight distance claimed by North Korea appeared to be “exaggerated because it contradicts our military’s analysis,” while reporting that “analysis by South Korea, the U.S. and Japan found [a distance of] about 600 kilometers.”
Given the discrepancy of about 400 kilometers between North Korea’s claim and the Joint Chiefs’ analysis, some analysts raised the possibility that the South Korean military may not have fully detected the North Korean missile, given the characteristic course adjustments of a hypersonic missile.
“The distance announced in the newspaper was the target figure from the computer simulation. The target range was not achieved in the test because the [missile’s] altitude and speed were deliberately limited,” the source said.
The Rodong Sinmun also said that the test launch “was carried out in the way of verifying the characteristics of the glide-skip flight trajectory and cross-range maneuvering capability of the hypersonic glide vehicle [warhead] while limiting its range to less [than] 1,000 kilometers, taking safety into consideration, and forcibly controlling the speed and altitude by delaying the start of the second-stage engine and rapidly changing the flight trajectory in the active region.”
North Korea had three goals in mind in reporting on the launch