North Korea Showcases ‘Hwasong-11Ma’ Hypersonic Missile in New Tests

SEOUL — North Korea announced Tuesday that its recent missile trials involved a weapon of “great significance,” releasing imagery that appears to show the launch of the Hwasong-11Ma, a system Pyongyang has previously characterized as hypersonic. According to the Korean Central News Agency, leader Kim Jong Un stated that the development enhances the nation’s war readiness and will serve as an “incurable headache” for its adversaries, though he declined to provide specific technical details.

Kim supervised the Sunday tests alongside his teenage daughter, who is widely regarded as a potential successor. South Korea’s military reported that two short-range missiles were fired from the eastern coastal city of Wonsan, with intervals of approximately three hours between launches. The Joint Chiefs of Staff noted that the projectiles traveled roughly 450 and 600 kilometers respectively before landing in waters outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Photos released by KCNA depicted two missiles equipped with conical, finned vehicles being propelled from mobile launcher trucks. A monitoring screen visible in the footage identified the missile as a Hwasong-11Ma and displayed trajectory data overlaid on a map. The graphics indicated a speed of 2,146 meters per second, an altitude of 35.8 kilometers, and a range of 908.2 kilometers, figures that exceed the distance initially reported by South Korea’s defense authorities.

Jang Do-young, a spokesperson for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that the military is evaluating the data provided by the North but cautioned that Pyongyang’s claims regarding missile performance “cannot be 100% trusted.” These launches continue a pattern of aggressive military posturing, including live-fire drills and the commissioning of new warships, despite calls from the United States for diplomatic engagement.

The demonstrations occurred against a backdrop of complex diplomatic maneuvering. U.S. President Donald Trump recently scaled back joint military exercises with South Korea in an apparent bid to revive dialogue with Kim. However, Kim’s sister and senior official, Kim Yo Jong, rejected the gesture, asserting that reducing the scale of the drills would not alter their “provocative, aggressive nature.”