US sends another reconnaissance plane after North Korea launches hypersonic missile

The US has sent a second RC-135S Cobra Ball aircraft to Kadena Air Base to track North Korean missiles. This came after North Korea tested a new hypersonic missile, and the first aircraft failed to detect it.

The United States has deployed a second missile-tracking aircraft to an air base in the western Pacific after North Korea tested a hypersonic weapon, Newsweek reports.

Details

According to data obtained by the Flightradar24 tracking service, an RC-135S aircraft with registration number 61-2662 landed at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa on Tuesday after a non-stop flight from Offutt Air Force Base, a permanent base in Nebraska.

The aircraft, also known as Cobra Ball, joined another RC-135S that missed a recent North Korean missile launch. According to Newsweek, this is the second time since early December that the US military has deployed two Cobra Ball aircraft to Kadena.

Addition

On Monday, North Korea conducted its first major weapons test of the year, launching a new hypersonic missile that is designed to strengthen the country's so-called “nuclear deterrent.”

A hypersonic missile is capable of traveling at speeds more than five times the speed of sound.

When North Korea launched its new missile, a US Air Force RC-135S reconnaissance aircraft, capable of collecting data on ballistic missiles, was returning to the air base on the island of Okinawa in the southwestern waters of Japan and did not have time to detect the missile.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry condemned the launch of the DPRK missile and expressed solidarity with Japan and South Korea. The department recalled that Pyongyang is acting with the support of the Moscow regime.