North Korea is just one obstacle away from developing a ballistic missile capable of reaching the US, warns expert
Specialist on Kim Jong-Un’s army has warned the nation is closing in US threat
North Korea has been routinely testing missiles to see if they can reach America
Now the expert believes they are just on obstacle away from achieving their goal
Last thing needed is to produce warhead capable of withstanding extreme heat
By GARETH DAVIES
DailyMail.com
12 June 2017
North Korea is just one obstacle away from developing a ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States, an expert has warned.
American specialist Jeffrey Lewis said as soon as Kim Jong-Un’s army figure out how to attach a warhead that can withstand the heat of being launched from Pyongyang to Washington DC their mission will be complete.
The isolated nation has been building up to a position of being able to launch weapons of mass destruction over the Atlantic and has routinely fired test rockets this year.
Mr Lewis told The Sun North Korea ‘almost certainly’ has a warhead capable of being fit onto the missile, and now it’s a case of making the necessary tweaks.
‘The major question now is not whether the warhead is small enough to mount on an ICBM but whether it is rugged enough to survive the shock, vibration and extreme temperatures that a nuclear warhead would experience on an intercontinental trajectory, in which it would be shot into space and then re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere,’ he said.
A month ago North Korea marked a significant step forward towards Kim Jong-un’s regime producing an ICBM capable of hitting the US mainland.
The dictator’s defence ministry fired a missile named Hwasong-12 on Sunday night which soared 489 miles (787 km) reaching a height of 1,312 miles (2,111 km).
The test ‘represents a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile’, John Schilling, an aerospace expert, said in an analysis on the US-based 38 North website.
‘It appears to have not only demonstrated an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that might enable them to reliably strike the US base at Guam, but more importantly, may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).’
The missile was deliberately fired at the highest angle to avoid affecting neighbouring countries’ security, but had it been launched at a standard trajectory, it would have reached at least 2,500 miles (4,000km) – almost half the 5,500 miles (8,851 km) required to reach the US mainland.
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