A pile picture on North Korea's SLBM launch.[Yonhap News Photo]
North Korea test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile Wednesday in waters off its east coast amid high cross-border tensions over joint war games staged by US and South Korean troops, military authorities said.
The SLBM, launched near North Korea's submarine base in Sinpo at around 5:30 am (2030 GMT), flew about 500 kilometers (310 miles) and fell 80 kilometers into Japan's air defense identification zone, according to the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
"It appeared to be an improved launch, compared to previous ones," the JCS said, adding Wednesday's SLBM launch was seen as "a show of power" in response to the joint military exercise that began this week in South Korea.
It was North Korea's sixth SLBM launch since May 2015 and the third this year. Last December, Pyongyang said it has successfully conducted an SLBM "ejection" test, but US and South Korea experts said it was a failed test.
In April this year, Pyongyang claimed to have conducted a successful SLBM test from a strategic submarine, but military officials in Seoul said the test probably had failed. The last SLBM test was done in July.
An initial military assessment showed that Wednesday's missile might have used solid fuel and is capable of traveling more than 1,000 kilometers because it was launched at a steep angle. The 1,000-kilometer range covers the entire Korean peninsula.
38 North, the website of a US research institute, said in an earlier report that the North's SLBM program represents "an emerging rather than a current threat", although deployment of such operational systems is an expensive, time-consuming endeavor and there is no guarantee of success.
Now military officials in Seoul speculated North Korea has apparently made a breakthrough in SLBM technologies, posing a grave security threat to South Korea which has struggled to introduce an advanced missile shield to intercept North Korean missiles.
Aju News Lim Chang-won
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
![[FOCUS] S. Koreas SLBM program shows progress through consecutive launch](https://image.ajunews.com/content/image/2022/04/22/20220422140050648995.jpg)
