SEOUL/WASHINGTON -- North Korea said Wednesday that it conducted a successful test launch of a new hypersonic missile, a weapon that flies more than five times the speed of sound and makes tracking and interception far more difficult than conventional missiles.
The Hwasong-8 missile was fired by the country's Academy of Defense Science on Tuesday near the Chinese border, according to state-run Korean Central News Agency. Japanese and South Korean authorities had previously established that a missile was fired toward the Sea of Japan around 6:40 a.m.