2023.11.16.
At a time when the dynamic struggle is being accelerated to bolster up the country’s defence capabilities in every way, the missile industry of the DPRK has developed new-type high-thrust solid-fuel engines for intermediate-range ballistic missile again, which are of important strategic significance, and successfully conducted the first ground jet tests of the first-stage engine and the second-stage engine on November 11 and 14 respectively.
Examining the long-term plan for modernizing the DPRK’s defence capabilities, given the ever-changing unstable situation and security environment in the region, the Sixth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Fourth Enlarged Meeting of the Eighth Central Military Commission of the WPK set forth it as an important task of the missile industry to improve ICBM Hwasongpho-18 and IRBM in the 2023 plan for developing defence science and weapons systems.
The tests were aimed at evaluating the technical specifications of the newly developed high-thrust solid-fuel engines for IRBM.
The first ground jet tests of the first- and second-stage engines were very successful and the reliability and stability of the already-established Korean-style high-thrust solid-fuel engine designing and manufacturing technologies were clearly verified once again.
The tests provided a sure guarantee for reliably accelerating the development of the new-type IRBM system.
The DPRK General Missile Bureau attached great significance to the development of the new-type IRBM, considering that the recent tests are an essential process for further enhancing the strategic offensive capabilities of the DPRK’s armed forces in the light of the grave and unstable security environment facing the country and the future military situation in the region, in which the enemies will get more vicious in their military collusion and nexus.
Rodong Sinmun