North Korea's Missile Launch Ended in Explosion, Says South

A suspected hypersonic missile launched by North Korea exploded in flight on Wednesday, South Korea's military said, a development that comes as North Korea is protesting the regional deployment of a US aircraft carrier for a trilateral military drill with South Korea and Japan. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that North Korea launched a ballistic missile from its capital region around 5:30am on Wednesday. It said the missile was fired toward the North's eastern waters, but the launch ended in failure, the AP reports. The Joint Chiefs of Staff later told South Korean journalists that the missile blew up as it flew over the waters of the North's eastern coastal Wonsan city. It said the fragments of the missile were scattered in the waters, up to 155 miles away from the launch site. No damages were immediately reported.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff suspected the weapon is a solid-fueled hypersonic missile. It said Wednesday's launch spewed larger amounts of smoke than normal launches because of a possible engine fault. It said the test was probably aimed to improve the capacity of a hypersonic weapons system. Since 2021, North Korea has performed a series of hypersonic missile tests in an apparent bid to penetrate its rivals' missile defense shields. But foreign experts question if North Korean hypersonic vehicles have proved their desired speed and maneuverability during test-flights. (Read more at the AP.)