Satellite Photos Show North Korea Preparing Another Missile Launch

North Korea carried out its first missile test in more than two months earlier this week, ending the longest stretch of calm since President Trump took office. But according to satellite images exclusively obtained by Fox News, the North Korean military is already constructing another launch pad at the Panghyon Airbase in North Pyongyang - the same site where it carried out its July 4 launch of an ICBM.

This suggests that the North is already preparing for its next missile test.

Analysts at Image Sat International spotted the construction just days after the rogue nation launched an ICBM that North Korea claimed was powerful enough to carry a “super-heavy nuclear warhead” that could strike the “mainland of the U.S."

According to the ImageSat analysts, who are closely following North Korean military activity, this is “the first time that they have decided to rebuild a site that they have used before."

The photos, dated Nov. 23 and 24, appear to show the development of another launch pad just a few yards away from the one used during the July 4 Hwasong-14 ICBM launch, as well as a newly renovated access road.

Constructed in the 1980s, the Panghyon site is North Korea"s primary aircraft production, repair, and research facility.

The satellite images also show the construction of an aircraft hangar, as well as airplanes being moved and stored in hangers on the tarmac.

With the recent launch of another ICBM and the construction of additional launching pads, North Korea continues to defy the US-led world outrage over its nuclear program and is determined to bring it to completion.

The Hwasong-15 rocket tested by the North Tuesday was themost powerful of the three ICBMs tested by the Kim regime so far. Furthermore, the mobile night launch appeared aimed at testing new capabilities and demonstrating that Pyongyang would be able to strike back to any attempt at a preventative strike against the regime. The missile"s peak height and record flight time also helped confirm the Pentagon"s worst fears: The North now possesses the capability to strike nearly any target on the continental US.

North Korea Seen Moving Missiles As US Admits For First Time It Is In "Direct Contact" With Pyongyang

North Korea has again been observed moving several missiles from a rocket facility in the capital Pyongyang, according to a report late on Friday by South Korea’s Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) rising speculation that the North is preparing to take more provocative actions. The last time a similar report emerged was at the start of September, which was followed just days later by a ballistic missile launch which flew over Japan.

Officials did not say where the missiles were being moved, nor the make: according to Reuters, the missiles could be either intermediate range Hwasong-12 or intercontinental ballistic Hwasong-14 missiles, according to the report, though the missile facility at Sanum-dong has been dedicated to the production of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

As previously reported, South Korean official have speculated that the North could launch another nuclear or missile test to coincide with the anniversary of the founding of its communist party on Oct. 10, or possibly when China holds its Communist Party Congress on Oct. 18. Meanwhile, US Pacific Command revealed on Friday that the US and South Korea had recently completed their first joint short range air defense training exercise in South Korea, though it did not say when or exactly where the exercises had taken place.

Separately, on Saturday Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged for the first time that the US is in direct communication with the government of North Korea over its missile and nuclear tests – a stunning revelation considering that administration officials have until this point insisted that there has been only limited, indirect contact between the White House and the Kim regime. According to the New York Times, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson revealed as much during a speech at the residence of the US ambassador to Beijing after a meeting with Chinese leaders. Tillerson is in China on Saturday for what the NYT described as a “brief visit.”

“We are probing, so stay tuned,” Tillerson said when pressed about how he might begin a conversation with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, that could avert what many government officials fear is a significant chance of open conflict between the two countries.

Tillerson wouldn’t say if the North Koreans had responded to the US’s overtures.

After noting that this was the first time a US official had confirmed that the US was directly communicating with the North, the NYT compared the secret backchanneling to a strategy used by the Obama administration to help forge what became the Iran deal – a comparison that Tillerson swiftly pushed back against. “We are not going to put a deal together with North Korea that’s as flimsy as the one in Iran,” he said. He added that the situation is different and that the North already has nuclear weapons, while Iran was still years away from obtaining them.  

“We ask, ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communication to Pyongyang – we’re not in a dark situation, a blackout. We have a couple, three channels open to Pyongyang,” he added, speaking at the residence of the US ambassador to Beijing after a meeting with China’s top leadership. He would not say if the North Koreans had responded, beyond a heated exchange of threats in recent weeks. Trump has repeatedly threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, while the North has threatened to conduct a nuclear test over the Pacific Ocean, and to shoot down US aircraft flying in international waters if they come uncomfortably close to North Korean territory.  

"We can talk to them," Tillerson said "We do talk to them."

When asked whether those channels ran through Chia, he shook his head. “Directly,” he said. “We have our own channels.”

Tillerson added that the most important thing was to lower the tensions between the two countries.

"I think everyone would like for it to calm down."

Reactions to the admission of bilateral contacts were mixed: that the United States would be in contact with North Korea is not surprising, said Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, “But it sounds a little too early.”

“The timing is unexpected,” he said. “It was perfectly clear that both North Korea and the United States, and others, are in the prenegotiation bargaining process.”

Meanwhile, in Japan, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently dissolved the lower house of parliament and called a snap election, the news that the United States is already in direct contact with North Korea could give ammunition to Mr. Abe’s opponents. The Japanese leader has steadfastly maintained that it is not the time for dialogue, arguing in a recent Op-Ed article in The New York Times that “emphasizing the importance of dialogue will not work with North Korea.” “Now,” Mr. Michishita added, “the opposition party members can say ‘Look, you have been talking about pressure, but the U.S. is just leaving you behind.’ ”

Discounting North Korea’s ICBM Capability

[image: Reuters/KCNA]Based on its ballistic missile tests so far, including its most recent ones last month, Russia believes the DPRK hasn’t yet achieved ICBM capability.

Noted ballistic missile/rocket expert Theodore Postol partly agrees, along with German rocket experts Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker.

In an analysis for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, they called Pyongyang’s Hwasong-14 ballistic missile, tested twice in July “a ‘sub-level’ ICBM that will not be able to deliver nuclear warheads to the continental United States.”

“Our analysis shows that the current variant of the Hwasong-14 may not even be capable of delivering a first-generation nuclear warhead to Anchorage, Alaska, although such a possibility cannot be categorically ruled out.”

“But even if North Korea is now capable of fabricating a relatively light-weight, ‘miniaturized’ atomic bomb that can survive the extreme reentry environments of long-range rocket delivery, it will, with certainty, not be able to deliver such an atomic bomb to the lower 48 states of the United States with the rocket tested on July 3 and July 28.”

Postal, Schiller and Schmucker called the DPRK’s July tests “a carefully choreographed deception…to create a false impression that the Hwasong-14 is a near-ICBM that poses a nuclear threat to the continental US.”

While it’s unable to manufacture sophisticated rocket components so far, the skill and ingenuity of its scientists in using Soviet Russia-era rocket motor components “has grown very substantially,” they said.

The July tests carried reduced payloads – able to reach a much higher altitude than possible if carrying a nuclear warhead and protective heat shield.

Pyongyang achieved its objective, creating the false impression of being able to strike US territory – what it’s unable to do based on the authors’ analysis.

Yet technological progress it’s made indicates it’s heading toward eventually achieving what it can’t now accomplish.

The authors cautioned that no one outside North Korea has reliable information on the characteristics of its nuclear weapons designs – including whether miniaturization was achieved to permit their mounting on a ballistic missile, despite suggestions otherwise.

According to the authors, we’re “left to speculate (on Pyongyang’s nuclear expertise) based on intelligence information that we have from other sources and on an understanding of the very significant technical problems of design and implementation that must be solved to be able to build and deliver atomic bombs by ICBM.”

Based on available information, they estimate Pyongyang could only deliver a nuclear warhead as far as Anchorage, Alaska weighing 500 – 550 kg.

To reach Seattle, it could weigh no more than 300 kg. They believe “an advanced North Korean weaponized atomic bomb would be unlikely to weigh less than 500 to 600 kilograms.”

“So it is entirely possible that this variant of the Hwasong-14 (tested in July) will not be able to deliver an atomic bomb to Anchorage, Alaska,” they said.

If the Hwasong-14 upper stage was “fitted with the more capable vernier motors from the SS-N-6 submarine launched ballistic missile (known in Russia as the R-27), it could potentially deliver an atomic bomb to Anchorage, if the bomb weighed less than between 650 and 750 kg,” according to the authors.

“The same upgraded variant of the Hwasong-14 could only deliver an atomic bomb to Seattle if the bomb weighed less than between 400 and 450 kg,” they added.

Regardless of current or likely more advanced DPRK capability later on, the nation’s history shows it threatens no other nations.

Its nuclear and ballistic missile weapons are solely for defense – deterrents against feared US aggression.

The real menace lies in Washington, not Pyongyang.