Photos suggest new missile designs for North Korea

TOKYO — North Korea’s state media released photos Wednesday that appear to show the designs of one or possibly two new missiles.

Concept diagrams of the missiles were seen hanging on a wall behind leader Kim Jong Un while he visited a plant that makes solid-fuel engines for the country’s ballistic-missile program.

One of the photos clearly showed a diagram for a missile called Pukguksong-3, which appears to be the latest in its Pukguksong, or Polaris, series. The other was harder to dis- cern, but it carried a “Hwasong,” or Mars, designation name.

The photos were carried in the morning edition of the Rodong Sinmun, the ruling party’s newspaper, and released by the Korean Central News Agency two days after the United States and South Korea began annual military exercises that the North alleges are a rehearsal for war.

The KCNA report on the visit said Kim called on workers at the plant to produce more solid-fuel rocket engines and rocket warhead tips.

Michael Duitsman, a research associate at the Center for Non-proliferation Studies, said the first missile has not been seen before.

“The Pukguksong-3 is definitely new,” he said in an email.

The missile might be designed to fly farther and to be launched from protective canisters, which allow missiles to be transported more easily and makes them more difficult to locate and destroy. Solid-fuel engines add to that difficulty because they allow for quicker launches than liquid-fuel missiles.

North Korea successfully tested the submarine-launched Pukguksong-1 in August last year. It then followed up with a successful test of the land-based Pukguksong-2 in February this year.