Total Manpower Strength 46,000

PICTURES

STATUS

Nearby North Korean launch facilities were modified for use with the large missile as of July 1999. U.S. intelligence detected a Taepo Dong-2 vehicle stored near the pad in August 1999, but it reportedly had not been detected on the pad itself.

One likely launch site for testing the Taepo Dong-2, Musudan-ri, was seriously damaged in 2002 during a test flight of a liquid-fuel rocket that exploded. The launch site was back in operation by January of 2003.

Flight Test Timeline

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  June 1994 - U.S. satellites detected static engine tests for the Taepo Dong-1 and Taepo Dong-2.
  
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  July 4, 2006 - Pyongyang launched a Taepo Dong-2 missile from Musudan-ri at about 5 a.m. local time. According to some reports, tracking by U.S. forces indicated that the missile had been aimed to impact off the coast of Hawaii However, the missile reportedly exploded 42 seconds after launch (o ther reports indicate the missile failed 35 seconds into flight). This was less than half the rocket's burn time. Some reports claimed that the missile actually flew for two or even seven minutes. These longer periods could reflect the time that the missile took to fall to the ocean as it broke up. The crash was a setback to its development program, but the launch was expected to assist North Korea engineers in refining the Taepo Dong-2. This test utilized the Taepo Dong-2/C design, see "Variants" for more information). Prior to launch, the missile had been placed on its launch platform for more than a month, ample time to be viewed by reconnaissance satellites. The co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, M.I.T. physicist David Wright, told Aviation Week & Space Technology, that it was likely the July 4 test utilized four clustered N o Dong engines.
  
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  April 5, 2009 - North Korea launched a test flight of the Taepo Dong-2C/3 (or Unha-2, see "Variants," below) from the Musudan-ri launch site. The test was considered a failure since it did not result in placing a satellite in orbit. Reports suggested the second and third stages did not separat e successfully or the third stage failed to fire. The first stage fell into the Sea of Japan approximately 335.5 mi (540 km) from the launch site; the second and third stages fell into the Pacific Ocean approximately 2,392 mi (3,850 km) from the launch site.