North Korea Ready to Prove ICBM Progress

North Korea is ready to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at a normal trajectory, leader Kim Jong Un’s sister said Tuesday in state media, a flight pattern that could prove the weapons can threaten the continental United States.

In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim Yo Jong – the top official in her brother’s regime – also dismissed experts’ skepticism surrounding North Korea’s ICBM technology progress, specifically about the reentry capability of its weapons.

ICBMs are fired into space, where “they speed along outside the atmosphere before their payloads – nuclear warheads – undergo a fiery reentry process, much like a space shuttle or space capsule, before plunging down on their targets.”

“If the process isn’t executed with pinpoint accuracy and with materials that can withstand the immense heat generated, the ‘warhead would burn up’ before reaching its target.” The angle at which the warhead reenters the atmosphere can make the process more difficult.

To date, North Korea has fired ballistic missiles that go hundreds of miles into space then renter the atmosphere at steep angles, with most falling into waters between North Korea and Japan.

To successfully target the mainland US, a North Korean missile would have to take a much shallower flight path and a shallower reentry angle.

“For several years, so-called experts have been saying that our ICBMs reentry into the atmosphere has not been recognized or verified,” Kim Yo Jong said.

North Korea claims successful rocket test that could bolster its ICBM force “It seems obvious that they will try to disparage our strategic weapon capabilities with such a logic that it cannot be proven by a lofted-angle launch alone, and that it can only be known by firing at a normal angle…I’ll give an easy answer to that. We can try it soon and once you see it, you’ll know.”

In November, North Korea claimed to have launched a “new type” of ICBM, the Hwasong-17 – a missile that could theoretically reach the mainland US.

That was one of a record 35 occasions this year on which North Korea has tested missiles.

Western officials and experts are also expecting Pyongyang to test a nuclear warhead at any time. If that test comes, it will be its first since 2017.

CNN/Jide Johnson