Jan 6, 2022: North Korea says Wednesday’s missile test was a hypersonic weapon and successfully hit its target.

The discovery of the launch, made by Japan and South Korea, was the first since October and the second of a hypersonic missile, despite a UN ban on such activity.

Hypersonic weapons fly towards targets at lower altitudes and can achieve more than five times the speed of sound – or about 6,200 kilometres per hour (3,850 miles per hour).

According to KCNA state news agency, “The successive successes in the test launches in the hypersonic missile sector have strategic significance in that they hasten a task for modernizing the strategic armed force of the state.”

In Wednesday’s test, the “hypersonic gliding warhead” detached from its rocket booster and manoeuvred 120km (75 miles) laterally before it “precisely hit” a target 700km (435 miles) away, KCNA reported.

Photos of Wednesday’s test showed what analysts said was a liquid-fuelled ballistic missile with a conical-shaped Manoeuvrable Reentry Vehicle (MaRV) blasting off from a wheeled launch vehicle in a cloud of flame and smoke.

Although it has not tested an atomic bomb or long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) since 2017, North Korea has developed and launched a number of more capable missiles and warheads in recent years aimed at possibly being able to overcome missile defense systems of South Korea and the United States, analysts say. The country first tested a hypersonic missile, the Hwasung-8, in September.

The US State Department said this week’s experience violates a number of UN Security Council resolutions and poses a threat to North Korea’s neighbors and the international community. North Korea’s last missile launch was in October when it said it had fired a new short-range missile from a submarine.