WW3 FEARS: North Korean missile ‘capable of reaching United States’, officials confirm
A NORTH Korean missile has soared to an altitude five times higher than the International Space Station, bringing Kim Jong-un’s threats of striking the US closer to reality.
By VINCENT WOOD
Express.co.uk
Fri, Jun 30, 2017
Kim Jong-un looked on as the Hwasong-12 rocket was fired into the stratosphere in the early hours of a Sunday morning on May 14 near North Korea’s east coast.
The missile crashed into the ocean just 490 miles away from the launch site, with North Korean propaganda networks claiming the projectile had reached an altitude of 1312 miles (2,111.5km).
But despite Kim Jong-un’s state media having a track record for making false claims of success, the governments of South Korea and Japan confirmed the vast distance travelled by the rocket.
And while the test rocket was fired directly into space, research has revealed the same rocket could reach provinces of the United States including Alaska and Guam if fired at the correct trajectory.
At the time of the launch, North Korean state media said the missile had been launched at such a high angle “in consideration of the security of neighbouring countries”.
Joshua Pollack of the US based Nonproliferation Review confirmed the test missile was fired directly into space in a bid to avoid sparking all-out war within the Korean peninsula by striking another country.
He said: ”To avoid firing long-range missiles into or over Japan, the North Koreans have been launching them nearly straight up instead.
“They fly much higher into space that way, but come back down relatively close to their launch points.”
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