SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
North Korea fires unidentified projectile: South's military
Seoul, Sept 15 (AFP) Sep 15, 2021
North Korea fired an unidentified projectile into the sea on Wednesday, according to the South's military, days after Pyongyang said it had successfully tested new long-range cruise missiles.

The nuclear-armed North had "fired an unidentified projectile into the East Sea", Seoul's joint chiefs of staff said in a statement to AFP.

No further details were immediately available, including the device type, how far it travelled, and whether more than one projectile was involved.

It came days after the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported that it had test-fired a new "long-range cruise missile" over the weekend, calling it a "strategic weapon of great significance".

Pictures in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Monday showed a missile exiting one of five tubes on a launch vehicle in a ball of flame, and a missile in horizontal flight.

Such a weapon would represent a marked advance in North Korea's weapons technology, analysts said, better able to avoid defence systems to deliver a warhead across the South or Japan -- both of them US allies.

The missiles fired at the weekend travelled 1,500-kilometres (about 930 miles), on two-hour flight paths -- including figure-of-eight patterns -- above North Korea and its territorial waters to hit their targets, according to KCNA.

North Korea is under international sanctions for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, which it says it needs to defend itself against a US invasion.

But Pyongyang is not banned from developing cruise missiles, which it has tested previously.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Bearings Used in Space Technologies: Engineering for the Final Frontier
Orbex advances as UK contender in ESA launcher competition
K2 Space validates satellite systems in orbit and fires record-breaking thruster

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Ultrasound triggers nuclear decay anomaly hinting at flexible space-time
AI system accelerates aircraft concept design using language models
Autonomous sub explores unexplored trench depths to reveal critical mineral clues

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
PLD Space selected as leading contender for ESA sovereign launch initiative
UK opens competitive bid for GBP 75 million orbital cleanup mission
Boeing wins major contract to deliver new generation strategic comms satellites

24/7 News Coverage
UK thermal satellite firm wins ESA contract to deliver real time climate and security insights
Glacier retreat could drive a surge in volcanic eruptions worldwide
Beyond male dominance in primates new study redefines gender power roles



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.