Video footage of North Korea’s latest missile test appears to show it breaking up before landing, says US expert.
Video footage of North Korea’s latest missile test appears to show it breaking up before landing, indicating that Pyongyang may not yet have mastered re-entry technology needed for an operational nuclear-tipped missile, a think tank reported on Monday.
The apparent failure of the re-entry vehicle in Friday’s test could mean North Korea will need to carry out several more tests of its intercontinental ballistic missile before it can be deemed operational, missile expert Michael Elleman told reporters.
Elleman, an expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, cited video footage taken by a weather camera in Japan’s Hokkaido Prefecture broadcast by Japan’s NHK television.
In a report for 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, Elleman said the video showed the re-entry vehicle shedding small radiant objects at an altitude of four or five kilometres before dimming and disappearing.
“Had the RV survived the rigors of re-entry, it would have continued to glow … A reasonable conclusion based on the video evidence is that the… re-entry vehicle did not survive, ” he said.
