Failed Musudan missile launch burned mobile launcher

North Korea's failed Musudan missile launch caused considerable damage to one of its mobile launchers, official sources here said Wednesday, the latest sign of shortcomings in the country's military capabilities.

Pyongyang launched a ballistic missile, believed to be a Musudan, last Thursday from an airfield in the northwestern city of Kusong. The intermediate-range ballistic missile is known to have exploded soon after liftoff. This launch appeared to have been an attempt by the North to save face from another failed Musudan test conducted less than a week earlier on Oct. 15.

"The exploding missile caused the launcher to catch fire and it was seriously scorched," a government official told Yonhap News Agency.

South Korean military and intelligence authorities believe that North Korea was testing a Musudan missile with a modified liquid-fuel rocket engine when the missile exploded. They believe the explosion was caused by defects in fuel conduits.

The shape of the missile's warhead was not disfigured in the blast, which suggests that the recent failure was not caused by warhead overload, a government official said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's push to demonstrate missile capabilities appears to be to blame for a series of failures of Musudan IRBM launches, he speculated.

The latest launch is the eighth Musudan missile fired off this year by the reclusive country. Of the eight, a missile launched on June 22 flew 400 kilometers and reached an altitude of over 1,400 km. Others blew up immediately after being launched, which may indicate that Pyongyang has not fully mastered the necessary missile technology.

"The North is likely to test more Musudan missiles soon so as to fix the faulty parts and correct problems discovered so far," another government official said. (Yonhap)