SpaceDaily.com reports: “North Korea has successfully tested a ‘high-thrust solid-fuel motor’ with the aim of developing a new weapon, state media said Friday.

Despite heavy international sanctions over its weapons programmes, Pyongyang has built up an arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

All its known ICBMs are liquid-fuelled, however, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said last year that developing solid-fuel engines for more advanced missiles was a strategic priority.

On Thursday, he oversaw the successful test fire of a ‘high-thrust solid-fuel motor’, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

KCNA described it as an important test ‘for the development of another new-type strategic weapon system’…”