(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.
samkim@yna.co.kr
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