North Korea launched two KN24 short-range ballistic missiles.

On Saturday 21st March, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the country’s armed forces had tracked two North Korean short-range ballistic missile launches into the Sea of Japan. The launches took place from a launch site near North Korea’s Sonchon county in North Pyongan province. The launches were five minutes apart, with the first at 6:45 a.m. and the second at 6:50 a.m. local time, Ankit Panda reports in The Diplomat.

“The fire clearly proved the characters of different flight trajectories and falling angles, the accuracy of guided shells and their power,” the KCNA report said. (Picture source: KCNA)

The two missiles flew to a range of around 410 kilometers, with a maximum in-flight altitude of 50,000 meters. The tests followed two other test events earlier this month that featured testing of a large-caliber close-range ballistic missile system, known as the KN25, in joint artillery drills. The missiles launched Saturday struck an island off North Korea’s East Coast.

On Sunday, North Korean state media confirmed that Kim Jong Un, the country’s leader, had overseen a “demonstration fire.” Images released showed that the system tested on Saturday was what U.S. intelligence agencies called the KN24, a short-range ballistic missile that bears an outward resemblance to the U.S. Army’s MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). The test was successful, according to the North Korean account. “The fire clearly proved the characters of different flight trajectories and falling angles, the accuracy of guided shells and their power,” the KCNA report said.