On Wednesday, North Korean state media announced that the country’s Academy of Defence Science had test-fired a new missile known as the Hwasong-8. 

This was the first missile tested in the country to feature a “hypersonic gliding warhead,” according to state media. 

Like the recently tested new long-range cruise missiles, a hypersonic glider was one of the near-term modernization objectives that leader Kim Jong Un laid out at the 8th Party Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Jan. 2021.

While there’s reason to doubt that this glider is even close