The North Korean regime confirmed this Tuesday that the projectile it tested on Monday was a Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), that runs on solid fuel, and detailed that the leader Kin Jong-un “observed the test launch on the ground” in order to “send a warning” to Washington and its allies.
“The launched missile reached a maximum apogee altitude of 6,518.2 kilometers, traveled a distance of 1,002.3 kilometers for 4,415 seconds (about 73 minutes), and landed precisely in the target area in the open waters of the East Sea ( name that the Sea of Japan receives in both Koreas)”, reports the state agency KCNA.
The flight data corresponds to those released the day before by the South Korean and Japanese military authorities.
The Hwasong-18, which was already successfully tested in April and July of this year, It is the most sophisticated ICBM in the North Korean arsenal by using solid fuel, which does not need to be loaded before launch unlike liquid fuel, which makes more difficult than detecting preparations to shoot it and become the target of preventive attacks.
As is usual for North Korea, the missile was launched with a very cambered trajectory, and it is believed that it could fly up to 15,000 kilometers on an operational trajectory, enough to reach any point on the planet, with the exception of southern South America.