Posted on 02/26/2009 2:09:49 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
(News Focus) N. Korea likely to have improved missile fuel technology
By Sam Kim
SEOUL, Feb. 26 (Yonhap) -- North Korea may have advanced its fuel type and injection systems for its long-range ballistic missile, allowing its leader Kim Jong-il greater freedom in choosing when to go ahead with a launch, officials and missile experts said Thursday.
North Korea said this week it is engaged in full-scale preparations to launch a space satellite that its neighbors believe is actually a missile capable of threatening Alaska and Hawaii.
It took the North Korean authorities several days to inject liquid fuel into a Taepodong-2 missile that crashed less than a minute after takeoff in a July 2006 test.
South Korean officials and experts say the fueling time could be reduced to a single day if the communist country has fully developed the capability to produce solid fuel for its long-range missiles.
"A launch would then be ready just as shortly as a firecracker," said Hong Il-hee, who leads research on rocket thrusters at the state-funded Korea Aerospace Research Institute.
Solid fuel, which is thicker than jelly but softer than a tire, can be instantly loaded into a missile, allowing authorities to drastically cut the time needed for launch preparations.
North Korea appears to have obtained the knowhow to produce solid fuel for its short-range missiles. A part of the multi-stage Taepodong-2 missile tested in 2006 is believed to have contained solid fuel, even though it was mainly thrusted by liquid fuel, South Korean intelligence officials say.
The North has produced "solid-fuel missiles that have great reliability, are easy to move around battlefields, have higher accuracy, potential," U.S. Gen. Burwell Bell said in 2006, describing the advancement as "a quantum leap."
"They are routinely testing these," he told the Congress then as head of the U.S. forces in South Korea.
About 28,500 American troops are stationed here as a deterrent against the North -- a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce rather than a peace pact.
Kim Byung-ryong, who studies arms acquisitions at South Korea's Agency for Defense Development (ADD), said solid fuel has "obvious strategic merits" compared to liquid fuel.
"Liquid fueling takes days, long enough for the enemy to know what's happening," he said, adding every country ultimately pursues solid fuel systems for all its rockets.
A South Korean official at the Ministry of National Defense cited a political motive behind the North's apparent pursuit of solid fuel technology for long-range missiles.
"We assume Kim Jong-il is monitoring outside developments to decide when to test-fire the suspected Taepodong-2 missile," he said. "When the right moment comes, he will want as little time lapse as possible between his order and the actual launch."
The official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, said he has yet to acquire substantial intelligence suggesting the North has perfected the solid fuel for its long-distance missiles.
Baek Seung-joo, a senior analyst with the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said the North is likely to have obtained the technology given the amount of time that has passed.
North Korea took part in Chinese missile development in the early 1970s, purchasing various types of short-range missiles, including scuds, and retroffiting the imports since.
Japanese media reported in 2003 that Tokyo nabbed a pro-Pyongyang company that allegedly exported devices used to produce solid fuel to North Korea in the early 1990s.
"The fact that South Korea and the U.S. have yet to detect a fuel tank or drum at (North Korea's) missile base leads us to think of other possibilities," Baek said, suggesting the North could have developed an underground facility to store its solid fuel.
Kim Myung-min, who studies North Korean arms at ADD, said the North may even try to supply liquid fuel from below ground.
"The North deploys a range of tactics to jumble outside speculation," he said. "If the solid fuel technology hasn't been completed, the North may even consider digging a tunnel below and sticking pipelines connected to the missile on the ground."
But the task would involve considerable technical steps and costs, he said. Experts are also split on whether the North has reinforced its missile surface enough to bear the volatile and acidic liquid fuel over a lasting period of time.
A senior South Korean intelligence official told reporters early this month that the North appears to have improved its technology to expedite the injection of fuel into a Taepodong-2 missile.
"They have tried to improve (the missile) for the last couple of years, and we believe there has been improvement," the official said, declining to elaborate on intelligence matters.
Experts believe North Korea is believed to have some 600 Scud short-range missiles and about 100 Rodong missiles. It has also developed the Taepodong-1 that can fly up to 2,500 kilometers.
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