Norks' parade rocket fails to fly, again

Japan and South Korea have had another live training exercise turn to disappointment, with another North Korean missile launch failing.

Both countries had put their militaries on alert after they detected preparations for a launch, according to Reuters. That included Japan deploying Patriot anti-missile batteries and telling its destroyers to make ready for a launch.

South Korean wire Yonhap now reckons the launch failed.

A statement from South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff says the launch attempt happened in the eastern city of Wonsan in Gangwon Province, at about 5:20am local time. “Official sources” told Yonhap it was a Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile.

Yonhap drily notes that the “back-to-back launch failures stoked skepticism on the reliability of North Korea's Musudan missiles”.

There's no word on the nature of the failure in the medium-range Musudan missile. While popular as a parade rocket, the Musudan's flight performance is sub-par: it hadn't been fired until this year, with one failure on April 15 and two on April 28.

In 2013, The Register noted that there is “no indication that the Musudan is operational or that it has ever been tested”.

It's been tested now, but not yet successfully. ®