North Korean Arm Factories race to show progress ahead of the Party Congress.

Oct 2025 : North Korea has accelerated construction at various weapons factories in recent weeks, demonstrated by satellite images, which is likely a push to fulfill leader Kim Jong Un’s five-year arms production goals ahead of the Ninth Party Congress early next year. The imagery shows efforts to finish roofing after stalled construction at factories suspected of being involved in producing military drones, rocket engines and missile launch vehicles, while large-scale work has picked up pace at a short-range ballistic missile plant after a likely Kim visit last month.

DRONES:

Kim Jong Un said he will announce a policy at the upcoming congress of simultaneous nuclear and conventional weapons development, and he has made small suicide drones a top priority on the conventional side. He has publicised inspections of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) on numerous occasions in the last two years, most recently earlier this month at Panghyon Airbase, the headquarters of North Korea’s drone program or what state media calls the Unmanned Aerial Technology Complex (UATC).

One factory, called the Machine Plant managed by Jon Tong Ryol was reportedly involved in light aircraft production at the time, which was converted to carry out the leader’s newer drone production goals. One section of the factory complex was demolished in summer 2024, and new production facilities began to sprout up in its place. But work largely stalled soon after. Now, Planet Labs satellite images shows rapid efforts to add roofing to the largest of the new likely production buildings in the second week of September, right around the time of Kim’s visit to the nearby airbase, with the work appearing almost complete by Sept. 29.

Though at least four more large buildings require roofing, and the task of outfitting the factory with production equipment remains, workers at the factory may be setting it up to carry out stated aims of serial production by next year under a new five-year weapons plan to be introduced at the party congress. Construction is also speeding up at another aircraft plant nearby to the west, likely also in relation to production plans for large or small drones.

ROCKET ENGINES:

Workers have begun roofing a cluster of buildings at the older west complex of the Thaesong Machine Factory, a facility suspected of being involved in liquid-fuel missile and rocket engine production in the past. Planet Labs images shows roofing being installed in early September on two large buildings on a hillside adjacent to underground facility entrances, after construction started on the project in July 2024 before pausing. The accelerated work again suggests workers are rushing to complete a stalled job ahead of the party congress, expected to take place in January.

More demolition of large production halls took place this past spring in the main ground-level area of the factory complex, where new buildings to replace them are still in the early stages of construction.

It’s possible that the recent construction push at the Thaesong plant is related to new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) engine production plans, though this remains unconfirmed. State media reported earlier this month on plans for “specialised serial production” of the engines while stating an unspecified “Missile Engine Production Factory” was involved in a static engine firing test.

SHORT-RANGE MISSILES:

North Korea reported in early September that Kim Jong Un inspected an upgraded Hwasong-11 Short-Range Ballistic Missile (SRBM) factory, likely one known as the February 11 Plant in Hamhung. According to Planet Labs images on February 11 Plant complex has undergone significant construction since spring this year, including the demolition of buildings near underground facility entrances from June to July and new work in the same area since August.

Following Kim’s recent visit, work appeared to accelerate in September on a large building in a valley at the north end of the complex, where work started last fall but stalled around June this year.  A worker camp was also developed this month near separate underground facility entrances at the southeast end of the complex. In its report on Kim’s Hwasong-11 plant visit, state media quoted the leader as saying that “various kinds of missiles were put into serial production” there recently, without elaborating on the goal of even newer ongoing construction.

LAUNCH VEHICLES:

One of the more mysterious arms plant projects of recent years is a factory in Pyongyang that appeared in a May 2024 report on Kim inspecting mass production of Hwasong-11D SRBM transporter erector launch vehicles (TELs). What was unusual is the fact that construction of the Mount Ryongak area factory was far from finished at the time of Kim’s visit, with roofing installed on only three of five large production halls, no administrative buildings at the complex and no paving or landscaping of the surroundings.

This suggest unprecedence urgency behind Kim’s demands for deploying the missile launchers, though it’s also possible that the 99 TELs shown inside one of the large production halls were not produced there but rather moved in from one of two other nearby factories previously linked to production of the vehicles. Construction had commenced way back in July 2018. One of the production halls was roofed in 2020 and two more in late 2023, while activity indicative of production appeared ongoing around the buildings in the last few years.

Planet Labs images further reiterates that the fourth production hall was roofed in June 2024 and the fifth one in late Aug. 2025. Workers have roofed over the areas in between the buildings this month, though the complex still lacks finished administrative buildings, landscaping and a proper security wall.  

Team Maverick