North Korea has successfully tested a new, high-powered rocket engine, state media said Tuesday, a move experts say will bolster its already burgeoning weapons program.
The ground test comes after more than 20 missile launches and two nuclear explosions this year, and adds to the sense that the isolated state is quickening the development of its arsenal, despite fierce global opposition.
State-run news agency KCNA said the engine would give the country “sufficient carrier capability for launching various kinds of satellites”.
After supervising the test at the country’s Sohae satellite-launching site, leader Kim Jong-Un called on officials, scientists and technicians “to round off the preparations for launching the satellite as soon as possible”, KCNA news agency reported.
Kim also called for more rocket launches to turn the country into a “possessor of geostationary satellites in a couple of years to come”, according to KCNA.
Pyongyang regularly parades homegrown missiles and boasts of its plan to develop long-range missiles capable of targeting the United States.
South Korea’s military Joint Chiefs of Staff also said the test was to verify the performance of “a high-power engine that can be used for long-range missiles.”
North Korea has already carried out a series of long-range missile tests presented as satellite launches, most recently in February. It has also fired missiles from a submarine.
Earlier this month it said an underground nuclear test — its most powerful yet — was of a miniaturised device that could be mounted on a missile.
Source: AFP
