North Korea is developing a secret launch base for long-range missiles on the outskirts of the capital Pyongyang, disguised as a golf course, said a U.S. research team.
The revelation about North Korea’s suspected missile facility comes amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, where on Monday, North Korea tested ballistic missiles as the U.S. military began a major exercise with ally South Korea.
The Open Source Team at the Middlebury Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, analyzing satellite imagery provided by Planet Labs and Airbus, said that the base had facilities capable of storing and launching the North’s latest intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs.
The site is near the Winter Palace, or Ryokpo residence, of the Kim political dynasty that was demolished last April, likely to clear land for military use.
As well as a storage and checkout facility suitable for ICBMs, there is a wide new road connecting the facility with a launchpad that was made to look like a golf course. A checkout facility is where the missiles are given a final examination before deployment.
Using near-infrared to analyze the surface at different stages of construction, the research team discovered that the newly built roads and circular launchpads were first fortified with concrete then covered with soil and grass making them look like putting greens.
The work likely began in the middle of last year, with concrete being poured over the ground to accommodate heavy vehicles in June and July. Soil was dumped on top in August. By November the site looked like a golf course.
Facility fit for ICBMs
The James Martin Center’s Open Source Team discovered the complex that it said was likely to be a missile storage and checkout facility.
Its most notable feature is a high-bay building that is 36 meters tall, used for inspecting missiles in an upright position.
The Hwasong-19 solid-fuel ICBM, which North Korea tested last October, is about 30 meters long. The Hwasong-18 is a little shorter at 25 meters.
“While this facility could be used for shorter range systems like the Hwasong-11/KN-23/KN-24 series of missiles, the height of the high-bay building suggests it is also built to allow longer-range systems to operate from it,” said Sam Lair, a member of the research team.
“You would not need a 36 meters high building for just short-range systems.”
Next to the building there’s a bermed storage annex, covered in earth to help disguise it, the dimensions of which are about 30 meters by 18 meters, that could fit four ICBM-class launchers.
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The researcher told Radio Free Asia that the discovery of the site was “a bit surprising.”
Ryokpo, in southern Pyongyang, has a population of more than 80,000.
“I am not sure why they picked a location so close to the capital as most of the long-range missile bases in the DPRK are far in the north, closer to the border with China,” Lair said. He referred to North Korea by its official name the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“I am sure they are aware that people like us are looking for sites like this,” Lair said. “That may be why they chose to camouflage the launch sites.”
There’s no indication that the new site has been used.
Tensions are high between North Korea and the South, and its ally the U.S.
On Monday, North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles into the Yellow Sea in response to the U.S.-South Korea annual Freedom Shield drills that began hours earlier.
Pyongyang’s foreign ministry called the drills an ‘’aggressive and confrontational war rehearsal” and warned against a ‘’physical conflict'' on the Korean peninsula.
The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the missiles were launched from North Korea’s northwestern Hwanghae province.
This month, when a U.S. aircraft carrier visited the South Korean port of Busan, leader Kim Jong Un’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, said Pyongyang would consider increasing its nuclear deterrent in the face of increased U.S. “provocations.”
Edited by Mike Firn.