North Korean leader Kim Jong Un celebrated a test of the “perfect weapon system” after his engineers launched what they said was a new kind of intermediate-range ballistic missile system capable of carrying “a large-size heavy nuclear warhead.”  

The missile, launched Sunday morning, appeared to show substantial progress toward developing an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the mainland United States, U.S. rocket scientists said.   

“North Korea’s latest successful missile test represents a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile,” said John Schilling, an aerospace engineer who specializes in rockets. This means North Korea might be only one year, rather than the expected five, from having an ICBM, he said.  

Releasing the first photos of the launch - something Pyongyang does with missiles it deems successful - North Korea’s state media said that it was a “new ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic rocket” that it called Hwasong-12.   It used a reentry vehicle capable of delivering a warhead to a target, the Korean Central News Agency reported.   

It flew for 30 minutes, much longer than other recent missile launches, meaning that it went straight up rather than trying to fly as far as possible - a path that would have sent it over Japan. KCNA said the launch was “conducted at the highest angle in consideration of the security of neighbouring countries.”

TOKYO -  c) 2017, The Washington Post · By Anna Fifield · May 15, 2017 -