North Korea fires intercontinental ballistic missile after threatening US

[Kennah]

Source: BBC

The long-range missile has been in flight for more than an hour and is expected to land short of Japanese waters on Wednesday morning, Japan's defence minister said.

Pyongyang's launch comes after it threatened retaliation against alleged US spy plane incursions over its land.
...
On Wednesday, both Japanese and South Korean military officials reported detecting the missile's launch around 10:00 local time (01:00 GMT).

Both countries later reported the missile was believed to be an ICBM, a long-range missile that can traverse continents.


Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66172284

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It's going to land on Wednesday? This thing rubber band powered?

[blm]

1. ?

Huh?

[LudwigPastorius]

2. Hey Kim, eat a bag of dicks!

Go ahead and fuck up one of these missile launch trajectories and see how long before Pyongyang is glassy, flat, and glowing.

[Kennah]

3. Might end up self inflicted

[caraher]

4. International Date Line

It's Wednesday over there already.

[Kennah]

6. True. I am curious how long it was in flight.

[RandySF]

5. Maybe I should move inland.

[Kennah]

7. "flew for 74 minutes before landing 620 miles away"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/11/north-korea-missile-japan-united-states/

"The ballistic missile, fired from the Pyongyang area, flew for 74 minutes before landing 620 miles away, splashing into waters outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone."

The German V2 rocket in 1944 could hit 3,580 mph.

The Pyongyang Potato-E III launched today hit 503 mph.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. It's a ballistic missile - the altitude is important as well as the horizontal range

In this case, they fired it mainly upwards (which does mean they avoided international incidents of crossing other nations' territories).

Japan’s coast guard and defence ministry also detected the weapon, with Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno telling reports it flew for about 74 minutes, reaching an altitude of 6,000 km (3,728 miles), in what would be the longest ever flight time for a North Korean missile.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/12/north-korea-fires-unidentified-ballistic-missile-south-korea

That's basically enough to get into orbit (ie unlimited range), if they used the speed sideways instead of upwards.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

13. When someone detonates one in space or on atolls, as the nuclear powers did wantonly, call me!

[Kennah]

16. "reaching an altitude of 6,000 km (3,728 miles)"

How is that possible? That's Medium Earth Orbit height.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Because it's a very powerful rocket

I do wonder if the figures of 6000 km and 74 minutes are going to be corrected, however - a purely ballistic trajectory would have to go significantly higher than 6000 km to stay up for 74 minutes (the acceleration phase, and deceleration during re-entry would add a bit to to the time, but enough to make the difference, I think).

We also don't know how heavy the payload was - it may have been empty (though I would have expected some sort of re-entry vehicle, since that's the kind of thing you'd want to test when you haven't done many ICBM launches).

[Kennah]

18. If it got to 6000 km, would it not then be heading out into space?

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Sure, it was in space, by all usual definitions

That would be true of an ICBM on almost any trajectory (manned suborbital flights like Bezo's Blue Origin are counted as reaching 'space' when they get just 100 km up). But it's still subject to gravity at 6000 km - just not as much as at ground level (I've realised what was wrong with my calculations about height and time - I was using constant acceleration due to gravity, which works roughly just 100 km up (compared to the Earth's radius of 6370 km), but this almost doubled the distance from the centre of the earth, so the acceleration was almost quartered at the top of the trajectory).

[Kennah]

21. OK, that makes sense.

It's been a while since I've done any physics, and I was thinking a gravity-dependent missile at that altitude would be off on a journey to the sun.

[sarisataka]

19. Physics

Extremely simplified, if the rocket reaches zero kinetic energy and is within earth's gravitational field, it will return.

More energy = higher altitude

[C Moon]

8. Where does N. Korea get all the money and resources for this stuff?

[cstanleytech]

12. Either Russia or China is my bet. After all the missile launches from N. Korea does help both Russia

and China by distracting the Western nations a little from what the two countries are doing.
Plus a few missiles are a relatively cheap method that helps China and Russia by causing the Western nations to waste a lot more money and resources by keeping troops in S.Korea.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

14. Guesses aren't helpful in international analysis.

Map says….China is a neighbor with a land border,,,.not sure of the logic of supplying crazy man ruled nation anything other than food, which they do.

[cstanleytech]

15. Russia has a land connection to N. Korea as well so transfering the materials to

build things like missiles is not to hard.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

25. Evidence requires facts, again, not rank speculation...that's what republicans do!

And the Pentagon when it comes to China…a giant white balloon with no transmitters is definitely a spy balloon! …panic!

And so a nation did as commanded by media and military. Right on cue.

[cstanleytech]

26. I never said it was a fact I merely pointed out that China or Russia could

be doing it if they thought it would benefit them by distracting various nations.

[sakabatou]

22. Mostly China

[Hassin Bin Sober]

9. It's 5 O'clock Charlie

[Kennah]

10. Here's our money, mister. Don't staple us.

[Cheezoholic]

23. Japan be like Mr. Wilson

and mini Trump be like Dennis the Menace with a slingshot over the fence.

[leftyladyfrommo]

24. He's feeling ignored again. He sabre rattles if he isn't

Getting enough attention.