U.S. missile expert dismisses Pyongyang’s ICBM capabilities

U.S. missile expert dismisses Pyongyang’s ICBM capabilities. January. 06, 2017 07:12. by Sung-Ha Joo zsh75@donga.com.

It has been proposed that it will take at least five years for North Korea to deploy Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) for actual combats, refuting the claim from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who said Pyongyang is in the final stage of developing ICBMs in his New Year’s speech.

“North Korea might try to launch a large-sized military rocket comparable to satellite-launched rockets this year, but the first test will most likely fail,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) on Thursday. “In two or three years, the North may be able to launch an ICBM that will reach the U.S. soil only with very poor precision, but it will take more than five years to weaponized missiles.” He argued that North Korea does not have the capabilities to boost the strike range of missiles including large upper rockets, solid-fuel engines, and technologies for atmospheric reentry.

“While Pyongyang claims that it successfully launched the Kwangmyongsong rocket, the technologies for satellites and ballistic missiles are hard to interchange as the ways they are projected are very different,” he explained. Satellite projectiles, for instance, soar into the air at a very high speed and fly horizontally until they reach the orbit, but in the case of ICBMs, the missiles need to fly much higher and much farther. In other words, a success in launching satellites does not constitute the foundation for a successful development of ICBMs. McDowell pointed out that North Korea’s liquid-fueled engines are even poorer than the engines used by the Soviet Union decades ago, and that the regime has not succeeded in launching projectiles with solid-fueled engines on.

“Rather than satellite-launched rockets, the Musudan missiles (with the range of 3000 kilometers) or Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles are more likely to evolve into ICBMs,” the missile expert pointed out. “North Korea will be able to launch a missile loaded with a model nuclear warhead in about three years.” But he added that Pyongyang will have to invest much more money and resources to reach such goals, and that it will take a significant amount of time to weaponize the missiles.