A French M51 SLBM test with a 6000 km range on June 12

click image to enlarge

On the morning of June 12, 2020, the French Navy test launched an unarmed M51 SLBM from the Triomphant-class submarine Le Téméraire.

The launch was from a spot near the French coast just south of Audierne Bay in Bretagne, not far from the French Naval port of Brest, according to a French Government bulletin. Navigational Warnings place it around 47^o.65 N, 4^o.15 W. The launch direction was towards the Caribean, with impact in the Atlantic Ocean near 24^o.4 N, 66^o.1 W according to the same Navigational Warnings.

The locations of the hazard areas from these Navigational Warnings point to a 6000 km flight trajectory (see figures above and below):


HYDROLANT 1882/20

EASTERN NORTH ATLANTIC.
CELTIC SEA.
BAY OF BISCAY.
FRANCE.
DNC 08.
1. MISSILE OPERATIONS 0200Z TO 1100Z DAILY
11 JUN THRU 11 JUL IN AREAS BOUND BY:
A. 47-12N 010-25W, 47-49N 004-31W,
47-39N 004-01W, 47-24N 004-11W,
46-44N 010-17W.
B. 46-17N 019-54W, 46-50N 017-09W,
45-07N 016-29W, 44-35N 019-01W.
2. CANCEL THIS MSG 111200Z JUL 20.//

Authority: NAVAREA II 167/20 042002Z JUN 20.

Date: 060713Z JUN 20
Cancel: 11120000 Jul 20


 
NAVAREA IV 485/20

NORTH ATLANTIC.
1. MISSILE OPERATIONS 0200Z TO 1100Z DAILY
11 JUN THRU 11 JUL:
A. IN AREA BOUND BY
39-37N 040-14W, 40-40N 037-48W,
39-41N 037-07W, 38-39N 039-31W.
B. IN AREA WITHIN 92 MILES OF 24-24N 066-06W.
2. CANCEL THIS MSG 111200Z JUL 20.//

Authority: AVURNAV BREST 070808Z JUN 20.

Date: 070851Z JUN 20
Cancel: 11120000 Jul 20


I have plotted the Navigational Warnings on the map below. The line shown is a simple STK-modelled ballistic trajectory, which fits these area's well. Assuming a 1200 km apogee, the flight-time should have been around 23 minutes.

Click map to enlarge

The M51 is  the newest French SLBM. It is in service since mid-2010. It has three stages and can carry up to 10 RV's. It's maximum range is said to be near 11 000 km, i.e. comparable to the Trident-II SLBM of the US Navy and Royal British Navy. This is the 5th succesful test of an M51 SLBM (a 6th test attempt in May 2013 ended in failure).

A nice summary of what is known from public sources about this test is provided in this article by Tyler Rogoway on The Drive.


Note added
For those interested in these issues: last year, I did an in-depth analysis of several Trident-II SLBM test launches, including one that was serendipitously photographed by an astrophotographer from the Canary Island. The latter observation allowed to estimate the apogee altitude of that test.

A reanalysis of the Trident SLBM test of 10 September 2013 and other tests

9 May 2019 Trident-II D5 test launch from USS Rhode Island in front of Florida
Photo: John Kowalski/US Navy

NOTE: This post reanalyses a case from September 2013 that turned out to be a Trident SLBM test launch. New information on the launch trajectory allows to glean information on the missile's apogee. The 10 September 2013 test launch trajectory is compared to those of several other Atlantic Trident test launches in subsequent years. 

Elements of this re-analysis were already published in May of this year in two Twitter threads here and here. As Twitter is highly ephemeral in nature, this blog post serves to preserve and consolidate the two analysis.

*********

On 9 May 2019, I noted a Maritime Broadcast Warning issued for the period of May 9 to 12, that clearly defined the trajectory of  a Trident-II SLBM test in the Atlantic (this was was later confirmed to be a Trident test launch from the submarine USS Rhode Island):

NAVAREA IV 394/2019 

(Cancelled by NAVAREA IV 403/2019)

WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC.
FLORIDA.
1. HAZARDOUS OPERATIONS, ROCKET LAUNCHING
   091340Z TO 120026Z MAY IN AREAS BOUND BY:
   A. 28-53N 080-01W, 29-00N 079-35W, 28-55N 078-58W,
      28-38N 079-00W, 28-40N 079-37W, 28-50N 080-01W.
   B. 28-34N 076-26W, 28-24N 075-24W, 28-10N 075-27W,
      28-21N 076-29W.
   C. 27-45N 070-22W, 27-14N 068-45W, 26-48N 068-56W,
      27-18N 070-32W.
   D. 17-46N 045-38W, 16-22N 042-18W, 15-44N 042-36W,
      17-09N 045-55W.
   E. 15-47S 004-32E, 17-17S 007-04E, 17-10S 007-08E,
      17-29S 007-49E, 17-20S 007-52E, 17-19S 008-07E,
      17-28S 008-12E, 17-41S 008-04E, 17-45S 008-14E,
      18-27S 007-50E, 17-51S 006-44E, 17-43S 006-50E,
      16-11S 004-16E.
2. CANCEL THIS MSG 120126Z MAY 19.

071718Z MAY 2019 EASTERN RANGE 071600Z MAY 19.

The five hazard areas defined in the Broadcast Warning correspond to: the launch area in front of the coast of Florida; the splash-down zones of the three booster stages;  and the MIRV target area in front of the Namibian coast. This is what it looks like when the coordinates are mapped - the dashed line in the map below is a modelled simple ballistic trajectory between the lauch area and target area:

click map to enlarge

The case brought me back six years, to September 2013, when I was asked to look at photographs made by German astrophotographer Jan Hattenbach that showed something mysterious. I suggested it was a missile test, a suggestion which was later confirmed.

In this blog post, I revisit the 2013 analysis in the light of new information about this test, and compare it to other tests for which I could find trajectory information.

In the evening of 10 September 2013, Jan Hattenbach was making a time-lapse of the night sky near the GranTeCa dome at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands, at 2300 meter altitude.

Suddenly, a strange fuzzy objects producing cloudy "puffs" moved through the sky. I wrote about it in two blog posts in 2013 (here, and follow-up here), identifying the phenomena as a Trident-II SLBM test launch conducted from a US Navy Ohio-class submarine.

This is Hattenbach's time lapse of the phenomena: the fuzzy cloud moving from bottom center to upper left is the missile (the other moving object briefly visible above the dome is a Russian satellite, Kosmos 1410). The distinct "puffs" are likely the missile's Post-Boost Control System (PBCS) reorienting while deploying RV's during the post-boost phase:





Here is a stack of the frames from the time-lapse, and a detail of one of the frames:

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

At that time, Ted Molczan had managed to dig up a Broadcast Warning that appeared to be for the MIRV target area:

( 090508Z SEP 2013 )
HYDROLANT 2203/2013 (57) 
(Cancelled by HYDROLANT 2203/2013)

SOUTH ATLANTIC.
ROCKETS.
1. HAZARDOUS OPERATIONS 091400Z TO 140130Z SEP
   IN AREA BOUND BY
   09-18S 000-26W, 09-50S 000-32E,
   12-03S 002-39E, 13-40S 004-09E,
   14-09S 003-49E, 13-06S 001-56E,
   11-05S 000-58W, 10-55S 001-05W,
   09-56S 000-50W.
2. CANCEL THIS MSG 140230Z SEP 13.


The case of May this year made me realize there should be Broadcast Warnings for the launch area and stage splashdown zones as well. Searching the database for such Navigational Warnings, I indeed managed to find them, as a separate Broadcast Warning:

( 082155Z SEP 2013 )
NAVAREA IV 546/2013 (24,25,26) 
(Cancelled by NAVAREA IV 546/2013)

WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC.
ROCKETS.
1. HAZARDOUS OPERATIONS 091400Z TO 140130Z SEP
   IN AREAS BOUND BY:
   A. 28-57N 076-17W, 28-56N 075-54W,
      28-44N 075-11W, 28-29N 075-13W,
      28-43N 076-17W.
   B. 27-53N 073-02W, 28-14N 072-56W,
      27-58N 071-52W, 27-46N 071-08W,
      27-38N 071-11W, 27-39N 071-43W,
      27-39N 071-48W, 27-41N 072-04W.
   C. 26-42N 066-58W, 26-16N 065-36W,
      25-37N 063-38W, 25-18N 063-35W,
      25-06N 063-42W, 25-02N 063-52W,
      25-39N 065-51W, 26-07N 067-12W.
   D. 15-59N 043-47W, 16-51N 043-14W,
      15-54N 040-54W, 14-19N 038-09W,
      13-48N 038-28W, 13-30N 039-26W.
2. CANCEL THIS MSG 140230Z SEP 13.

When the coordinates of these two Broadcast Warnings are mapped, they define a clear trajectory for this test (map below). It is somewhat different from the hypothetical trajectory we reconstructed in 2013 (the launch site is at a different location, much closer to Florida) and it is very similar to that of the recent May 2019 test. The dashed line is, again, a modelled simple Ballistic trajectory between the launch area and MIRV impact area, this time fitting the hazard areas extremely well:

click map to enlarge

The trajectory depicted is for an apogee height of 1800 km. This altitude was found by modelling ballistic trajectories for various apogee altitudes, and next looking which one of them matches the actual sky positions seen in Hattenbach's photographs from La Palma best.

In order to do so, I astrometrically measured Jan Hattenbach's images in AstroRecord, measuring RA and declination of the missile in each image using the stars on the images as a reference. The starmap below shows these measured sky positions, as red crosses.

When compared to various modelled apogee altitudes (black lines in the starmap), the measured positions best match an apogee altitude of ~1800 km:

click starmap to enlarge

So, we have learned something new about the Trident-II D5 apogee from Hattenbach's La Palma observations. At 1800 km the apogee is a bit higher than initially expected (ICBM/SLBM apogees normally are in the 1200-1400 km range).

This is how it approximately looks like in 3D (green lines depict the approximate trajectories of the missile stages). The ground range of this test was about 9800 km:

click to enlarge

Out of curiosity, and now knowing what to look for in terms of locations, I next searched the Broadcast Warning database for more Broadcast Warnings connected to potential Trident-II tests. I found six of them between 2013 and 2019, including the 10 September 2013 and 9 May 2019 test launches. It concerns additional test launches in June 2014, March 2016, June 2016, and June 2018. Putting them on a map reveals some interesting patterns, similarities and dissimilarities:

click map to enlarge

The set of Broadcast warnings points to at least two different launch areas, and three different MIRV target areas.

The two launch areas are in front of the Florida coast, out of Port Canaveral. One (labelled A in the map) is located some 60 km out of the coast, the other (labelled B in the map) is further away, some 400 km out of the coast.

I suspect that the area closest to Florida is used for test launches special enough to gather an audience of high ranking military officials. The recent test of 9 May 2019 belongs into this category, as well as a test in June 2014, and also the infamous British Royal Navy test of June 2016 (I will tell you why this test has become infamous a bit later in this blog post).

As to why area A is tapered and area B isn't, I am not sure, except that the launch location for these tests could perhaps be more defined, restrained by the audience that needs a good, predefined and safe spot to view it.

Click map to enlarge

Not only are there two different launch locations near Florida, but likewise there are at least three different MIRV target areas near Africa.

Four tests, including the 10 September 2013 test imaged by Hattenbach, target the same general area, some 1000 km out of the coast of Angola (indicated as 'impact area 1' in the map below). Two of the tests however target a slightly different location.

click map to enlarge

One of these two deviating tests is the earlier mentioned infamous Trident-II test by the British Royal Navy from June 2016.

This test has become notorious because the Trident missile, fired from the submarine HMS Vengeance, never made it to the target area. Instead it took a wrong course after launch, towards Florida (!)  and had to be destroyed. That test had a planned target area (dark green in the map above) somewat shortrange from the other tests, closer to Ascension island. This is the shortest ground range test of all the tests discussed here, approximately 8900 km, some 1000 km short of most other tests. Incidently, the choice of launch area indicates this failed test had a launch audience, so I reckon some top brass was not amused that day.

The other is the recent 9 May 2019 test. This US Navy test had a target area (red in the map above) some 400 km out of the African coast, further downrange from previous tests. This is the longest range test of all the tests discussed here, with a ground range of approximately 10 700 km, about 700 km longer than the other tests. From the choice of launch area, this test too might have had a launch audience.

The other tests had a range of 9600 to 9900 km. The different ranges could point to different payload masses (e.g. number or type of RV's), different missile configurations, or different test constraints.

There have certainly been many more Trident-II tests than the six I could identify in Broadcast Warnings (e.g. see the list here). Why these didn't have Broadcast Warnings issued, or why I was not able to identify those if they were issued, I do not know.

The Trident-II is a 3-staged Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile with nuclear warheads. The missile is an important part of US and British nuclear deterrance strategies. The missiles are caried by both US and British Ballistic Missile submarines.

click to enlarge

Edit 23 Oct 2019:
Considering the Trident-II D5 range, the US Navy clearly needs to update it's own 'fact file' here (which at the time of writing lists a maximum range of 7360 km, well short of the distances found in this analysis)

The Chinese ICBM test of August 7 [UPDATED]

Just after local midnight of August 7-8, 2019, the South Korean amateur astronomer Mr Lee Won-Gyu was taking images of the night sky at Mount Jiri in Korea when he observed and photographed a cloud-like illuminating phenomena in Corona Borealis that to the expert eye is clearly the exhaust cloud from a rocket engine burn.

Mr Lee Won-Gyu's images of the cloud are featured in this article in the Korea Times, where they were presented as a 'UFO'. The images were taken between 00:14 and 00:24 Korean time (corresponding to August 7, 15:14-15:24 UT). Mount Jiri, the location of the sighting, is at approx. 35.34 N, 127.73 E. In this blogpost, I will identify this 'UFO' as a Chinese ICBM test.

Initial speculation on the internet was that this was perhaps related to the AEHF 5 geosynchronous satellite launch from Florida on August 8, 10:13 UT. The observation was however done 19 hours before this launch (there was some initial confusion due to the date difference in local time and UT), and the cloud was seen in a wrong part of the sky for a launch to geosynchronous altitude. So I suggested it could be a Russian or Chinese ICBM test launch.

As it turns out, additional evidence suggests this indeed was an ICBM test, by China. As the result of a private request by me, Twitter user @Cosmic_Penguin managed to dig up NOTAM's for the date and time of the event posted on a Chinese forum by a forum member nicknamed 'kktt'. These NOTAM's with temporary airspace closures from "ground to unlimited" in two parts of China corroborate an ICBM test launch:


A4092/19 NOTAMN
Q) ZBPE/QRTCA/IV/BO/W/000/999/3909N10940E019
A) ZBPE B) 1908071449 C) 1908071511
E) A TEMPORARY RESTRICTED AREA ESTABLISHED BOUNDED BY:
N392016E1092107-N391413E1100213-N385819E1095815-N390419E1091716
BACK TO START.VERTICAL LIMITS:GND-UNL. ALL ACFT SHALL BE FORBIDDEN
TO FLY INTO THE RESTRICTED AREA.
F) GND G) UNL


A4094/19 NOTAMN
Q) ZWUQ/QRTCA/IV/BO/W/000/999/3712N08311E108
A) ZWUQ B) 1908071451 C) 1908071548
E) A TEMPORARY RESTRICTED AREA ESTABLISHED CENTERED AT
N371133E0831033 WITH RADIUS OF 200KM. ALL ACFT ARE FORBIDDEN TO
FLY INTO THE TEMPORARY RESTRICTED AREA. VERTICAL LIMITS:GND-UNL.
F) GND G) UNL


The NOTAM's have a time window between 14:49 UT and 15:48 UT on 7 August 2019, which fits the phenomena observed from Korea (7 August 15:14-15:24 UT). They also fit the direction of the sky phenomena as seen from Korea: the exhaust cloud was seen at 30 degrees elevation in the sky at azimuth 290-291 degrees (west-northwest). This sightline points directly to the area designated in NOTAM A4092/19.

The map below plots the two areas designated in the NOTAM's. The smaller rectangular area from NOTAM A4092/19 represents the launch area near Hongjian Nur in Shaanxi province. The larger circular area from NOTAM A4094/19 at the southern edge of the Taklamakan desert represents the RV target area. The two areas are some 2300-2400 km distant from each other:

click map to enlarge

I have depicted the sightline from Mr Lee Won-Gyu's photographs from Mt. Jiri in Korea on the map as well (white): it points towards the launch area and it lines up with the direction of that rectangular area. Both time and direction therefore fit the Korean sighting. So does the character of the photographed cloud, which is similar to missile exhaust clouds observed during other ICBM launches.

This was an interesting ICBM launch in that it appears to have been highly lofted, with an apogee at approximately 3000 km altitude. This is based on both the estimated flightime (about 37 minutes) deduced from the NOTAM time window durations; and from an assessment of the exhaust cloud sightings from Korea, the direction and elevation of which point to a burn at 3000 km, close to apogee of the orbit, when combined with a ballistic trajectory between the two areas of the two NOTAM's. The launch happened near 15:00 UT (August 7), the missile engine burn seen from Korea happened some 15 minutes later close to mid-course and was probably meant to change the direction of the missile.

The situation is spatially depicted in the diagram below. The sightline from Korea crosses a 3000 km apogee trajectory twice, at about 2300 km altitude when the missile is ascending, and near apogee at 3000 km altitude. The latter altitude is the most likely location of the engine burn. At these altitudes, exhaust clouds are well above the earth shadow and hence brightly sun-illuminated.

click image to enlarge

When launched on a less lofted trajectory, this missile would have had a ground range of at least 6300 km. The reason to launch it into a lofted trajectory, rather than a more typical trajectory with apogee at 1200 km, is that in this way the test could be done completely within the borders of China. We have seen such lofted trajectories earlier with some early North Korean ICBM tests.

The ICBM appears to have done a dog-leg manoeuvre near apogee, changing the course just before mid-course. One piece of evidence for this is that the orientation of the launch hazard area from NOTAM A4092/19 does not match with a simple ballistic trajectory towards the target area. Neither does the sightline direction from Korea. They would result in a target area more to the north than the area from NOTAM A4094/19.

This can be well seen in the map, where I depicted both a direct ballistic trajectory (solid black line) between the two areas from the NOTAM's, as well as a 'dog-legged' trajectory (dashed black line), with the dogleg at the near-apogee burn imaged from Korea and initial launch direction according to the orientation of the NOTAM A4092/19 area:

click map to enlarge

The direct trajectory clearly does not fit the launch area direction and Korean sighting well, whereas a launch into the direction of the NOTAM A4092/19 area and a dogleg near apogee does, with the latter also clearly fitting the Korean sighting.

A reason for such a dog-leg manoeuvre might be to confuse and evade mid-course anti-Ballistic missile intercepts. So I am wondering if this perhaps was an anti-ballistic missile test as well.

This missile test must in theory (and ignoring cloud cover) have been widely visible over Eastern Asia. The Korean Times article presents one other observation, also from Korea, but I have not seen other observations so far.

UPDATE: Twitter user @LaunchStuff sent me this link to a Weibo page, which includes several photographs of the event from various parts of China and a very cool video shot from Inner Mongolia, showing the spiralling behaviour seen during other ICBM tests as well.


Acknowledgement: I thank Ravi Jagtiani for bringing the Korea Times article to my attention; @Cosmic_Penguin for digging up the NOTAM's; and Jim Oberg and Jonathan McDowell for discussions.

On PBS Newshour, about Open Source investigation of the North Korean missile program

In December of 2017, I was interviewed by Miles O'Brien for PBS Newshour, about Open Source investigation into the North Korean missile program.

The item aired on 28 February 2018. It is 9 minutes in duration and alternatingly features Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute and me showing what we can learn from analysing DPRK propaganda photographs and video imagery.

(the video above starts at the start of the item).

[UPDATED] Where to hide your nuclear missile submarine? (but be quick)

(Updated 20 Dec 2017 23:25 UT with a new plot that includes DSP)

Say, you are the leader of a nefarious country that is in posession of submarines equiped with long range nuclear missiles. You want to launch a stealth missile attack codenamed "Operation Orange Squeeze" on a northern hemisphere Super Power.

Where would you direct your submarine, and where would you best fire you missiles, from the perspective of an as-late-as-possible space-based detection of your missile launches?

The answer came to me today when, after a question by someone (in the context of a war crime investigation), I looked into the current global coverage of the Space Based Infra Red System (SBIRS), the US system of Early Warning satellites that looks for missile launches:

click map to enlarge

The red areas in the map above have an almost continuous coverage by SBIRS satellites (and often by multiple SBIRS satellites at the same time). The dark blue and black areas in the map by contrast have only a few minutes of SBIRS coverage each day, or even none at all.

As you can see, there is a clear gap in coverage in the southeastern Pacific, with lowest coverage in the area near the Galapagos islands. That is where I would park my nuclear missile submarine.

You might have to be quick to pull off your nefarious plan though. A new SBIRS satellite, the fourth satellite in the geostationary component, will launch in January. It wouldn't surprise me if it stops the gap, once operational.

Of course, this map is in fact somewhat deceptive anyway. It only shows the coverage by SBIRS. But there is also the legacy early warning satellite system called DSP (Defense Support System), which still has active satellites, and which is not taken into account here [UPDATE: but see the plot at the end of this post!]. It is less sensitive than SBIRS, but likely will detect your ICBM SLBM launch.

Back to SBIRS. SBIRS is made up of two components, each currently consisting of three satellites (so six in total): three geosynchronous SBIRS-GEO satellites at geostationary altitude, and three SBIRS-HEO satellites (TRUMPET-FO SIGINT satellites with a piggy-back SBIRS package) in 64-degree inclined Highly Elliptical Orbits with two revolutions a day.

click map to enlarge

The map above shows the coverage of the three geosynchronous SBIRS satellites (a fourth will be launched in January). Eurasia, Africa and the western Pacific Ocean has a continuous coverage by these satellites, with central Asia, Pakistan and India (the latter two known nuclear powers) particularly well covered.

The SBIRS-HEO coverage is more variable and depends on the date and time of day, but the system is designed such that at least one of the HEO satellites will have much of the Northern hemisphere in view at any time. Here are a few examples, for various times of the day: note how coverage of the Northern hemisphere is near-continuous (the HEO component also particularly covers the Arctic region well, which is at the edge of the GEO component's coverage).

click maps to enlarge

A SBIRS satellite typically has two modes: there is the scanning mode, which scans the whole visible hemisphere of the earth (as seen from the satellite) for infra-red heat signatures in less than 10 seconds. And there is the staring mode, a more sensitive sensor which can be used to observe a specific region or just detected infra-red event.

In the case of a missile launch, the sensors pick up the heat signal of the missile engine. Because of the large degree of worldwide coverage which the system now provides, an undetected stealth launch of a nuclear missile has become almost impossible.

SBIRS is probably an important source of  Early Warning capacity and information on the recent North Korean missile tests.


UPDATE 20 Dec 2017  23:25 UT:

I now also included the four DSP satellites that are still operational according to the database of the Union of Concerned Scientists. That leads to the following map:

click map to enlarge

As you can see, the gap has become smaller, but a gap is still there. Red October might be lurking in front of the South American west coast.

[UPDATED] My take on North Korea's hypothetical threath to Guam

click to enlarge

The sabre rattling between North Korea and the United States is continuing, with increasingly colourful and volatile language and threaths from both sides.

In response to Trumps statements on August 8 that North Korea better stop its threaths or else "they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen", the North Korean General Kim Rak Gyom, commander of the Strategic Force of the Korean People's Army, released a  statement through KCNA on August 10 that included a surprisingly detailed threath about firing four Hwasong-12 missiles towards the US island (and important Pacific Naval and Air Base) of Guam.

Two relevant parts of the statement read (emphasis added):

As already clarified, the Strategic Force of the KPA is seriously examining the plan for an enveloping strike at Guam through simultaneous fire of four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range strategic ballistic rockets in order to interdict the enemy forces on major military bases on Guam and to signal a crucial warning to the U.S.

 [...]

The Hwasong-12 rockets to be launched by the KPA will cross the sky above Shimane, Hiroshima and Kochi Prefectures of Japan. They will fly 3 356.7 km for 1 065 seconds and hit the waters 30 to 40 km away from Guam.

The details listed, allow to reconstruct the intended launch site for this scenario. It points to launch of the missiles in the vicinity of Sinpo, an important North Korean Naval Base that is home to its experimental SLBM force and according to satellite imagery analysts has recently seen "high levels of activity" (although that is not necessarily related to the issue under discussion).

The distance from the Sinpo submarine SSBA dockyard to Anderson AFB on Guam is ~3357.5 km, in agreement with the distance mentioned in the KCNA statement. Taking into account Earth rotation, the flight trajectories of the missiles when launched from Sinpo would indeed cross over the three Japanese prefectures mentioned, as can be well seen in the diagram in the top of this post. Together with the listed flight time, it would point to a flight apogee at ~865 km altitude and a launch elevation of ~31.4 degrees, i.e. a "normal" flight trajectory for an IRBM (as opposed to the "lofted", reduced range trajectories of previous tests).

click to enlarge

The map in the top of this post displays the flight trajectories based on this scenario, with the four missiles straddling Guam at ~40 km distance of its shores, uprange, downrange and lateral to both sides of the main flight direction needed to reach Guam.

While the language of the KCNA release is threathening, it is important to realize it is not threathening an actual "attack" on Guam. They talk about a strike that will "envelope" the island with the missiles, each of them impacting at a distance of 30-40 km of the Guam shore.

With the listed 30-40 km offshore impact distances, the missiles would land outside of Guam's territorial waters: but in its Exclusive Economical Zone (EEZ). While sensitive, this is something else than actually hitting Guam or the territorial waters directly surrounding it. The latter would be a real attack on US territory.

Targetting the EEZ has earlier precedents, as recent North Korean missile tests have landed in the Japanese EEZ. What makes it different this time is that it is the EEZ of the US itself, not of an ally, and involves a fly-over of Japan.

Rather than an attack, the scenario painted by the KCNA announcement would be best described as a missile test and demonstration. A test, because it would be the first flight of the Hwasong-12 on a "normal" battle trajectory rather than a "lofted" trajectory. A test, as it would for the first time have the Reentry Vehicle (RV) face the atmospheric reentry conditions it would face if used in an actual conflict. A demonstration, as it would demonstrate that the Hwasong-12 can indeed reach targets at the distance of Guam. A demonstration, as straddling Guam with missile impacts obviously sends a very clear message to the US and its allies.

It would also potentially test the Hwasong-12's performance against US missile defense measures. And it would be a (risky) political test to see how the US and its allies would react to such a demonstration of military power.

How likely is it that it will happen? On the face of it, not that likely. It most likely is hollow rethoric. Firing missiles towards a US military base and US territory is very risky as it could provoke a disastrous counter-attack. A full scale US counter strike would mean the end of the North Korean regime.

However, the oddly detailed August 10 KCNA announcement (which as some analysts on Twitter mentioned almost reads like a NOTAM) could also be seen as a way to mitigate this risk. It clearly signals the intention to not hit Guam itself, just fire near it in a demonstration of power. It is in essence a (tough worded) notice of an upcoming missile demonstration, not an actual war threath.

We should also realize that a US counter-attack would be disastrous for both North Korea and the US and its allies. If the US counter-attacks, North Korea will respond by shelling Seoul into oblivion and, if it can, firing missiles towards targets in South Korea, and possibly towards Japan and US bases in the Pacific. The carnage will be incredible. Hence, a military strike on North Korea as a gut-reaction to North Korean missiles landing near Guam is not as likely as it might at first glance seem. A sane US response would be to restrain from such a counter-attack unless there are strong reasons to do so, like missiles actually hitting targets on Guam. North Korea might have made a similar assessment. But it is a risky one (also taking potential missile malfunctions into account).

North Korea however has taken bold calculated risks before. They recently fired missiles into the EEZ of Japan, a key US ally. They took a risk in sinking the Cheonan in 2010, and shelling Yeonpyeong island that same year.

It is important to note the recent impact of North Korean missiles into the EEZ of Japan, given that the August 10 KCNA announcement points to targetting the EEZ of Guam. This firing into the EEZ of Japan did not lead to military retaliation by the US and allies (and in a sense perhaps might be seen as "testing the waters"). This might embolden North Korea to fire into the EEZ of Guam, expecting (rightfully or not) a similar non-response.

What could the US realistically do in response? As mentioned, a counter-attack in response to the missile firings would lead to dramatic results for the US and its allies. Seoul and Tokyo and who knows Honolulu burning seems a steep price to pay for "acting tough" when the missiles provoking the response harmlessly landed in the Pacific Ocean outside of Guam territorial waters. I fail to see how the US can justify such a result to its citizens and allies when the target of the missiles is in the Guam EEZ and not Guam itself.

Alternatively, the US or allies could perhaps attempt to intercept the missiles. That sounds like a good middle ground but isn't, as it has its own risks. Intercepting missiles on a trajectory that would not reach Guam territorial waters would provide political fuel to North Korea, who can claim their missile test was attacked. Moreover, there is a serious risk that an intercept attempt partly or wholy fails. That would seriously damage the credibility of the US and its capacity to defend itself and its allies, and with that seriously undermine the faith of US allies in the region (apart from the general loss of face). An attempted missile intercept would therefore be unwise in my opinion, as it would be a win-win situation for North Korea no matter the outcome.

So to me, it seems that North Korea is playing a high level (if dangerous) game of chess here, and has managed to checkmate the US. There seems very little the US realistically can do about it, apart from denouncing it. And the tougher the talk from Washington, the more face they will lose if it happens. "Hold my beer", you can hear Kim say in response, knowing he got them cornered.

In case North Korea does go forward with the announced missile demonstration, I expect Trump to do what he has done before: back-peddle on his earlier tough talk and grand-standing. And obscure this by making some unrelated outrageous policy decision or statement in order to deflect attention away from this political defeat, just as he has done with earlier political defeats.

Maybe the North Korean announcement is just a hollow threath. Maybe it is not. More likely than not it will not happen. But I would not exclude it entirely from happening, if North Korea made a similar assessment as outlined above. We will see.

UPDATE  15 aug 13:25:

The North Korean KCNA published a  bulletin on August 15, also carries by Rodong Sinmun. Apart from some interesting statements that might suggest North Korea has put a test fire towards Guam on hold for a while, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper contains some interesting photo's (pdf here via KNCA Watch):

images: KCNA/Rodong Sinmun

Two items on these photographs are of interest: the image on the wall at right, which depicts Anderson AFB on Guam. The other one is the map in front of Kim Jong Un (I put it upside-down here to have north up in the map):

image: KCNA/Rodong Sinmun

This map clearly depicts a missile trajectory towards Guam, that is very close to the trajectory I presented earlier in this blog post. The point of origin of the trajectory indeed seems to be Sinpo on the southeast coast.

UPDATE 2 & 3, 16 Aug 2017 00:30 & 2:45 UT:

Some claims appeared on Twitter that according to South Korean analysis, the map points to launch from Musudan-ri rather than Sinpo:

I do not agree. I used my GIS skills to georeference and reproject the map in front of Kim Jong Un. Below is the preliminary final result:

click to enlarge

What can be seen is that the drawn trajectory points clearly and unequivocally to Sinpo, not Musudan-ri.

What also can be seen is that the line drawn on Kim Jong Un's map is a simple straight drawn line rather than a real missile trajectory. The blue line I have drawn in the map is a true trajectory, including earth curvature and earth rotation and taking the map projection into account. The dashed red line I have drawn is merely a straight line (ignoring map projection).

The country outlines have been added in by me to show how the georeferenced image matches a true map.

North Korea's July 28 ICBM test

On 28 July 2017 around 14:45 UT, North Korea tested another ICBM. Early reports from US Military sources indicate a night-time launch from a new location (Mupyong-ni), an approximately 45 minute flight time, and launch into a highly lofted trajectory with an apogee as high as 3700 km and a range of about 1000 km, with the launch direction towards Hokaido.

These ballpark figures allow us to estimate a ballpark maximum range for this ICBM. Because this was (again) a lofted test with an almost vertical launch, the true range of the missile is much more than the ~1000 km of the test when it would have been launched on a more normal trajectory.

The results I get are shown in the figure above: using the same delta V impulse as the lofted test but putting the apogee at 1200 km (a typical ICBM apogee) and roughly same launch direction, I get a range of ~8700 km.

That is probably a conservative figure. The true range depends on various factors (including the weight of the warhead, but also whether this test was at maximum missile performance. Reasons why it was perhaps not, is that North Korea might have shown some restraint and  taken precautions in order not to land their missile in or too much near Japan. This is also why they launch in a lofted trajectory).

In the figure above, I have drawn what this cautious reconstruction of the real range entails. It surpasses the distance to Hawaii. It brings San Francisco on the US West Coast in range. Today's test therefore implies that North Korea can strike the US mainland.

Towards the other direction, it brings Moscow in range, and if the true maximum performance of the missile is slightly larger, also Western Europe (*).

By the way, just as with the previous July 4th test, the Russians have come with maverick data for this test again, quoting a much smaller range and lower apogee (732 km and 681 km) based on their own Early Warning Radar observations. There are suspicions that their data only pertain to observations of the ICBM's first stage, explaining the discrepancy.

The analysis in this post is based on the first released ballpark figures for this test. If better data are released, the outcome might slightly change.


UPDATE: North Korea has now published the following figures for their test: apogee  3724.9 km, range 998 km, flight time 47m12s. They say it was a Hwasong-14 tested to simulate maximum range. Photographs published indeed show a missile similar to the one launched on July 4.

photo: Rodong Sinmun

photo: Rodong Sinmun

* the maximum range is (unlike depicted above) not a neat 8700 km circle. The maximum range depends on which direction is launched into, due to Earth rotation effects. Due to this, when launched towards the east the missile will have a somewhat larger range than when launched towards the west. Launched towards the east it gets an extra "push" from the rotating Earth.

The range of North Korea's Hwasong-12

Hwasong-12 launch. Source: Rodong Sinmun

On 13 May 2017 at 20:58 UT (May 14 in local time, just after local sunrise), North Korea launched a new type of IRBM, the Hwasong-12. It is probably one of the surprise mobile launcher missiles seen during the April 15 parade. A North-Korean Rodong Sinmun communique on the launch is here.

Hwasong-12 on mobile launcher. Source: Rodong Sinmun

In this blogpost, I try to find the maximum range of this missile, going from released information about the missile's trajectory by Western and North Korean sources. I should ad that my analysis is not original: it is inspired by earlier similar analysis by David Wright on the All Things Nuclear blog and a later analysis by Ralph Savelsberg on the 38 North blog.

Hwasong-12 being erected. Source: Rodong Sinmun

My analysis was sparked by three things. One was that I wanted to see whether I could reproduce David Wright's results. The second was that I wanted to visualize the situation (I am a visually oriented guy).

The third was a recent exchange on Twitter between me and Dutch science journalist Martijn van Calmthout of the Volkskrant. He had written a newspaper piece on North Korea's recent missile and atomic activities that seemed to underplay the significance of the May 13 test, choosing wording to suggest North Korea could not reach Japan with this missile. I then pointed him to David Wrigth's analysis.

Van Calmthout is a good journalist, so as a result of our Twitter conversation he actually followed up with a new Volkskrant piece where he corrected himself later:

As pointed out by David Wright, the May 13 test missile was not launched on a standard trajectory but on a so-called 'lofted' trajectory: North Korea released info that the missile travelled a ground distance of 787 km and reached an apogee altitude of 2111.5 km. Western military sources quote similar figures, so I see no reason to doubt them.

Such a lofted trajectory brings the missile very high and shortens the ground track. Fired on a more normal trajectory, the same missile with the same impulse would fly a much larger ground distance. A more normal apogee altitude for a missile like this is 600 to 1300 km.

The reason that North Korea choose this 'lofted' trajectory, is in order to avoid that the missile overflies neighbouring countries, which could be mistaken for an attack and might evoke countermeasures. South Korea, Japan (for obvious reasons) don't like it when North Korea fires a missile over their territory.

The 13 May test missile was launched from Kusong in the western part of North Korea, into an E-NE direction overflying North Korea and then onwards over sea. As part of the photographs released by North Korea after the test, an image was released showing Kim Jong Un with a map of the missile's trajectory. Based on that map, I estimate the impact point of the missile to be near 41.64N, 134.27 E, which indeed is ~787 km from Kusong (I have taken the airport near Kusong as the launch location). This is a bit further away from Vladivostok than earlier reports suggested: about 250 km. Of course these could perhaps be the intended test results rather than  the true test results.

Kim Jong Un with map (click to enlarge). Source: Rodong Sinmun

blow-up of part of previous picture

I used these parameters (estimated impact point, 2111.5 km apogee altitude) as input in STK in order to model the trajectory. It suggests that the missile delivers an impulse of 5.59 km/s. The launch was towards azimuth 72.5 degrees under an angle of 81 degrees, almost vertically. The resulting time of flight would be 28 minutes, very close to the ~30 minutes reported by western sources.The resulting trajectory is (as it should be) very similar to that on the photographs above.

Next, I used the same parameters (in terms of impulse), but with the launch angle adjusted from 81 degrees to 45 degrees, consistent with a more normal trajectory optimized for maximum range. This is the visualized result:

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

The red line shows the 'lofted' trajectory from the May 13 test. The blue line shows the trajectory the same missile with the same impulse would travel using a 'normal' launch angle.

The resulting maximum range I get is about 4200 km (with an apogee altitude at ~1300 km) - close to Wright's original figure of 4500 km, somewhat less than his later revised figure of ~4800 km, and slightly larger than Savelsberg's 3700 km. Given the uncertainties, all results mentioned are in the same ballpark figure.

A distance of 4200 km brings this area into range of the Hwasong-12:

click to enlarge

This range circle reconstructed for the Hwasong-12 includes Japan, almost the whole of China, east Russia and the Phillipines. The US bases in Guam would also be in reach, i.e. this means that in theory (and if North-Korea has developed a working re-entry vehicle to match the missile - interestingly, their Rodong Sinmun communique mentions that the test also verified "the homing feature of the warhead under the worst re-entry situation") North-Korea would have the power to strike US bases outside of South Korea with this missile.

click to enlarge

Outside of Hwasong-12 reach would remain Hawaii and the US mainland: the 4200 km range falls just short of reaching Alaska.

click to enlarge

Edit:  The actual range of a missile depends on several parameters. One of these is what you put on it, i.e. the warhead used.

The STK analysis is also slightly simplified as it treats it as purely ballistic and ignores atmospheric drag during initial launch phase and reentry.

SBIRS, SIGINT and the MH17 tragedy (updated)

Yesterday 17 July near 13:15 UT, 298 people including at least 173 189 192 of my countrymen perished when Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed over the eastern Ukraine, reportedly after being hit by a missile.

This is a terrible tragedy. Among the victims are complete families, including children. It is the start of the holidays in the Netherlands, and the flight carried many Dutch families on their way to their holiday destinations in southeast Asia. My thoughts are with these highly stricken families.

For me personally, it is an unnerving fact that I was about to fly the same route from Amsterdam to southeast Asia only a few days later.

In the wake of the incident, accusations fly between the Ukrainians, pro-Russian separatists and Russians, all accusing each other of being responsible for this tragedy. At the moment it is difficult to say which bits of information floating around are true and which are false. I strongly suspect that the current suspicion against Russian-backed separatists will hold though. Some less ambiguous evidence (e.g. the location of the crash, which is close to the locations where separatists earlier downed two other (military) aircraft) certainly seem to suggest this. But we will see: at the moment, nothing is certain.

Of interest to this blog, is that US Intelligence officials have confirmed that the aircraft was hit by a surface-to-air missile, according to several US media. Senior US officials appear to have told CNN that they detected a radar signal from a surface-to-air missile system being turned on right before the crash, and that they also detected a 'heat signature' at the time the aircraft was lost.

If the CNN report is correct, it is highly likely that the 'heat signature' detection was a space-born detection by the SBIRS system of infra-red early warning satellites. I have written about this satellite system before, in the context of that other recent tragedy with a Malaysian Airlines flight, the disappeared flight MH370.

click image to enlarge

Three of the four SBIRS satellites, SBIRS GEO 1 (2011-019A) and SBIRS GEO 2 (2013-011A) in geostationary orbit and USA 184 (2006-027A) in HEO, had coverage of the area where MH17 went down at the time this happened (17 July 14:15 GMT, see image above).

SBIRS and SIGINT platform USA 184, imaged on 20 March 2014

SBIRS GEO 2 imaged on 20 June 2014

It is possible that the quoted detection of a missile radar tracking system activation around the time of the disaster was done by satellites too. Several SIGINT and ELINT satellites cover this area, including various MENTOR (ORION) satellites and one MERCURY satellite in GEO, and USA 184, which is both a TRUMPET-FO SIGINT satellite and a SBIRS platform, in HEO. That these SIGINT satellites amongst others serve to detect and monitor signals from military radar and missile systems, is known. Given the interest of the USA and NATO in closely watching military developments in the Ukraine conflict, it is almost certain that some of these are targetting the area.

The question is, whether these satellites can help pinpoint the location from where the missile was launched, and hence provide an indication of who did it (Ukrainian forces, separatist militia, or the Russians).

I suspect they can. If the SIGINT detections were indeed done by satellites, it is known that the US recently made large progress in geolocating the origin of detected signals. In a speech from September 2010 available on the NRO website, NRO director Bruce Carlson specifically remarked on the NRO's increasing capability to geolocate using SIGINT:

"I will tell you that just in the last 24 months, we’ve improved the accuracy of geo-location by nearly an order of magnitude, and we’re going to continue to do that and bring it down. We’re getting to the point where here very, very shortly, within the very near term, we will be able to target using signals intelligence". 

If they indeed have a SIGINT detection of the missile's radar system (and the CNN quote seems to say that), the character of the signature might yield information on what missile system was used (i.e. if it was indeed an SA-17/BUK).

Likewise, and although as far as I know no exact public information is available on the accuracy of this kind of detections (update: but see the update at the end of this post!) , I suspect that the  'heat signature' detections of the missile launch,  if indeed SBIRS infra-red detections, are also accurate enough to geolocate the launch site (and whether that is in Ukranian held, or separatist held territory).

A SBIRS platform has two sensors: one in staring mode, and one in scanning mode. The staring scanning mode sensor watches for heat signatures over a wide semi-global area. The scanning staring sensor targets specific regions, and when the staring scanning sensor detects a signature, the scanning staring sensor (at least according to some sources) can be employed to further pinpoint and track this event (more sources amongst others here, here and here). The goal of SBIRS reportedly is to be able to track launches, pinpoint launch sites and accurately predict potential target locations from the tracking data. That needs quite accurate tracking.

(note added: a 1-hour timezone conversion error in the original version of this post has been corrected)

Update 19/07/2014: Daniel Fischer managed to dig up this unclassified presentation from 2006, which shows that SBIRS indeed can detect SAM. Pages 2 and 3 mention the capability to pinpoint the launch location. 

Rainer Kresken has raised the legitimate question of the cloud cover present at the time of the shootdown. Water vapour obscures Infra Red, which means the cloud cover might have blocked detection of the initial launch phase of the SAM. The SIGINT detection of the missile system radar does not suffer from this problem.