(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporters Kwon Soo-hyun, Kim Hyo-jeong, and Kim Cheol-seon = North Korea recently asserted that the hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), which the South Korean government successfully test-launched, may have failed in hypersonic flight based on the fact that 'soot' was not visible on the surface.
However, the Ministry of National Defense immediately refuted that it had achieved excellent thermal protection performance that did not generate soot even in a supersonic flight environment.
North Korea's Missile General Director Jang Chang-ha responded to a request for evaluation of the HGV, which South Korea announced on the 8th, in a question-and-answer session with reporters on the 15th, the Korean Central News Agency reported.
Regarding the photos released by our government, Director-General Jang said, "I also saw some very interesting photos," and pointed out, "If you look at the photo of the aircraft falling vertically right before falling into the sea, you can see that there is no soot on the surface of the glide vehicle and the paint color is clean, making it difficult to believe that it has passed through a hypersonic flight environment accompanied by extremely high temperatures."
He continued, “People who have not tested a hypersonic gliding vehicle cannot know the changes that occur on the surface of the vehicle,” and added, “The photos can serve as evidence that the vehicle may not have been able to fly at hypersonic speeds as they announced.”
He said, “These photos and unclear announcements released by Korea will raise various suspicions.”
When asked why many countries around the world are competing to develop hypersonic weapon systems, Director General Jang responded, "Don't ask me about such issues, but if you're interested, it's better to look at military technology magazines."
However, the Ministry of National Defense immediately refuted that the HGV test launch at the time was conducted normally in a hypersonic environment, and that the 'soot-free appearance' that North Korea used as the basis for raising suspicions was South Korea's technological prowess.
The Ministry of National Defense said, "The HGV that our military first test-fired this time was robustly designed based on domestically produced heat-resistant materials with excellent heat resistance, and achieved heat protection performance without soot even in a hypersonic environment."
He added, "In the future, our military plans to further advance related technologies during the weaponization process of HGVs, which are key strategic assets for future security."
Previously, the Blue House announced the success of the HGV minimum test launch and introduced that this test launch was to verify the performance of ultra-high temperature and heat-resistant materials, a core technology for gliding aircraft.
North Korea's unreasonable questioning of South Korea's HGV test launch performance based solely on unclear images of low-quality photos can be interpreted as an attempt to show off its technological achievements while justifying the development of weapons such as ballistic missiles.
Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, speculated, "If South Korea has been analyzing the performance and specifications of North Korea's weapons tests and raising questions, this time North Korea is taking issue with South Korea's HGV test launches and raising questions about its performance. Through this, North Korea appears to be trying to set up a two-way structure in which 'South Korea is also making weapons to threaten us and our weapons development is justified.'"
Hypersonic missiles fly at a speed of Mach 5 or higher and perform irregular maneuvers that are different from the normal parabolic ballistic trajectory, making them difficult to track and intercept, so they are called 'game changers' on the battlefield.
On the 20th of last month, North Korea conducted a launch test of an improved short-range hypersonic missile 'Hwasong-11ma' in the presence of Chairman Kim Jong-un.
Then, on the 3rd, they continued their show of force by launching a 'mid-range hypersonic missile' while repeatedly rejecting the South Korean government's request for an apology and offer of dialogue for the recent North Korean mine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
On the 8th of this month, 17 days after the mine explosion in the DMZ, the Korean government conducted its first test launch of an HGV being developed with Korean technology from a sea barge at the Anheung Test Site of the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) in the presence of President Lee Jae-myung.
It is known that our hypersonic missile launched at the time flew hundreds of kilometers and was fired at a reduced range of at least mid-range. The Blue House also released a photo showing the HGV launching and hitting the target point.
