北, 원산에서 동해상으로 단거리 탄도 미사일 두발 발사

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast this morning,... the second such launch in a week.
The missiles flew a much shorter distance at a lower altitude than those fired last week.
We begin with Arirang's defense ministry correspondent, Kim Ji-yeon.
Just like last Thursday, the missiles fired on Wednesday morning were described by the South Korean military as both short-range and ballistic ... and were fired in the early hours in a northeasterly direction towards the East Sea.
An official from South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday the missiles, like the last time, are presumed to have been launched using a transporter erector launcher,... which is used to move missiles to a desired location.
That means the missiles are not bound to a fixed site and the North's movements are therefore harder to predict.
The military said it regards Wednesday's and last week's launches to be in the test-firing phase... and not fully operational... and that it's capable of intercepting all of the mentioned missiles with the existing Patriot anti-missile system.
What's starkly different this time though is the flight distance and altitude.
The latest launches flew a much shorter distance than last week's.... flying some 250 kilometers and reaching an altitude of around 30 kilometers from near North Korea's eastern city of Wonsan... which is lower than the 50 kilometers recorded last week.
The official says it's working with the U.S. to analyze the missiles further... including their trajectory and whether North Korea had succeeded in its test-fire.
"The official said the military's monitoring the situation while maintaining a defense posture in case of additional launches... adding that the military bears in mind that Wednesday's launches could be similar to last week's."
The military confirmed last week that the two missiles launched then... were both similar to Russia's Iskander-class ballistic missile system... which is known to be able to move away from its original trajectory to change its target or avoid being shot down.
Last week, the military pointed out the so-called "pull-up" maneuver in the missiles' final dive phase... as the main reason it took a day to finalize the missiles' flight distance.
It had initially presumed that last Thursday's missiles traveled some 430 and 690 kilometers last Thursday... but then corrected those distances to some 600 kilometers the following day.
Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.