North Korea's latest ICBM test failed critically in the last few seconds before impact

pulse

July 31, 2017 10:01 PM

"From there on it should continue to glow and increasingly glow until it impacts the ground..." But suddenly the warhead turned "very dim."

North Korea's July 28 launch of the Hwasong-14.

North Korea launched an intercontinental-ranged ballistic missile Friday that spent a whopping 47 minutes in the air, demonstrating a range that could easily strike the United States' West coast — but it failed critically in its last few seconds.

The missile's reentry vehicle, or where North Korea would put its warhead, burned up during the final seconds before touching down on the ground,

Elleman said that footage of the

The North Korean reentry vehicle, however, became "very dim," according to Elleman, indicating that it went to pieces before impact.

While North Korea could have been using a lighter reentry vehicle to boost its perceived range, or purposefully designing the reentry vehicle to disintegrate to avoid the US or Japan from recovering, Elleman said those scenarios are unlikely.

"The reentry vehicle sees its highest stress level at elevations above ten kilometers. They would need to test it in that environment. Purposefully destroying it before it has the opportunity to survive or fail would defeat the purpose of the test," said Elleman.

North Korea can now range US cities, but it can't expect to hit them with any reliability or accuracy, Elleman said, who added that the country would need two or three more tests to get the technology reliable.

Shooting a missile straight up and down, as North Korea has done in recent tests, doesn't have the same challenges as shooting one on a trajectory that could actually cover ground.

If North Korea shot a missile at the US, it would enter the atmosphere at a shallow angle and undergo longer exposure to intense heat and pressure, which could destroy the missile or knock it off course.

This video shows what it looks like when an ICBM reentry vehicle lands.

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