N.Korea Makes Headway on Ballistic Missile Sub

North Korea is still building a submarine at a shipyard in Sinpo, South Hamgyong Province, the website 38 North at Johns Hopkins University said Friday based on commercial satellite imagery taken between March 23 and April 11.

The North has been building the sub thought to be capable of launching ballistic missiles there for the last three years.

Images from March 23 show what appear to be submarine hull sections as well as equipment and supplies near the yard, but they can no longer been seen on April 5, suggesting "that building of a submarine... is continuing," it said.

During this period, a vertical test stand for ejection testing of submarine-launched missiles was separated from its support structure and then reunited with it.

U.S. Under Secretary of Defense John Rood warned in a recent Senate hearing that the submarine technology "changes the defense equation in terms of where the origin could be, and what are other anti-submarine capabilities in a potential conflicts, how they could be utilized."