North Korea May Soon Have More Powerful Rocket

SEOUL, South Korea — Satellite images indicate that North Korea is likely to have the ability to launch a longer-range rocket that can carry a heavier payload by the end of this year, according to an American research organization that monitors the North’s activities. The research organization, the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Affairs, reported Thursday on its website, 38 North, that North Korea’s expansion of its Sohae Satellite Launching Station was on track to be completed by fall.

The expansion, which began last year, will enable it to launch a rocket more powerful than the country’s Unha rocket, one of which was used in 2012 to put a satellite into orbit, the report said. “As a result, the North will be able to conduct new launches from this site before the end of the year should it decide to do so,” the report said.

North Korea displayed what appeared to be KN-08 missiles during military parades in Pyongyang in April 2012 and again in July 2013. But some analysts who studied images from the parades suspected that they were mock-ups. Rocket tests at the Sohae site, at Tongchang-ri in the country’s northwest, coupled with nuclear tests in Punggye-ri in the northeast, are seen as part of a North Korean effort to develop a long-range missile, fitted with a nuclear warhead, that is powerful enough to reach the United States mainland.

 It remains unclear how close North Korea has come to achieving that goal. But fears that it was making progress grew after its successful satellite launch in 2012. North Korea said the launch was part of a peaceful space program, but Washington considers it a front for developing and testing intercontinental ballistic missile technology. After the 2012 test, the United Nations tightened sanctions against the North for violating the organization’s resolutions banning it from testing technology used to develop ballistic missiles. The United States also beefed up its missile defense system along its West Coast. North Korea has not tested a long-range rocket since then. But in recent months, it has conducted an unusually frequent series of tests of short-range rockets and missiles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/world/asia/north-korea-may-soon-have-more-powerful-rocket.html