Despite what US Defense Secretary Robert Gates or other security experts think, and despite any such project seeming quite loony, David Wright, senior scientist and co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), thinks North Korea’s new launch facility at Tongchang-dong is for launching satellites, not ballistic missiles.

The bottom line is that while North Korea may use its new launch site to develop ballistic missiles, neither its location nor the size of its tower seems to indicate that it was optimized for that purpose. In fact, both are consistent with its use for space launches.

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Filed under: Academia, Korea, Military, Space Tagged: ballistic missiles, david wright, musudan, north korea, rockets, tongchang