Image: Missile launch in July 5th, 2006 by North Korea. Blue area means where the Taepodong seems to have impacted on Sea of Japan. - Wikipedia
Image: Missile launch in July 5th, 2006 by North Korea. Blue area means where the Taepodong seems to have impacted on Sea of Japan. - Wikipedia

U.S. official: North Korea tests long-range missile, CNN, 4 July 2006

“U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said there were five missile launches in all. One was the Taepodong-2 missile, and the other four were short-range. A short time after Hadley spoke, North Korea launched a sixth missile, U.S. military sources said.”

4 July 2026 Update: On July 4th 2006 I was on CNN in the DC bureau with Miles ‘Brien up in NYC to cover the launch of STS-12. While we were waiting for that the text crawler on my monitor in the studio started talking about North Korea. Then it became clear that they launched a bunch of missiles. So we were suddenly covering it. Miles asked “what do you know about North Korean missiles?” and I replied “the exact as much as you do”. We then winged it for half an hour until a bunch of generals arrived in the green room from their holiday picnics. Fun times.

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...