DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, North Korea is believed to have test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile towards the sea, South Korea reports.North Korea launched a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) towards waters off its eastern coast, South Korea’s military said, in what is believed to be the longest flight-time yet for a North Korean missile.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement that the missile launch towards the East Sea, which is also known as the Sea of Japan, was detected at about 7:10am local time (22:10 GMT).
“North Korea’s ballistic missile appears to be an ICBM fired on a lofted trajectory,” the JCS said in a text message, the country’s Yonhap news agency reports.
North Korea’s launch of longer-range missiles in “lofted trajectory” means firing the missile almost vertically. This allows a missile to travel to a very high altitude but then land a short horizontal distance from the launch site.
Such launches are said to enable Pyongyang to gather data sent back from missile tests to better understand the challenges faced when a long-range warhead re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere.
Japan’s Defence Minister Gen Nakatani said the missile, which had been expected to land about 300km (190 miles) west of Japan’s Okushiri Island, off the country’s northern Hokkaido region, had flown the longest time of any of Pyongyang’s past missiles.
“It was the longest time flying of any missile so far,” Nakatani told reporters.
“I think it may be different from conventional missiles,” he said.
North Korea has not test-launched ballistic miss …
