A South Korean defense expert said that the Hwasong-18, a new type of solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile(ICBM) tested by North Korea last month, appears to be a missile capable of multiple warheads.

Shin Seung-ki, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, presented the analysis in a report released on Wednesday.

Shin said that the North seems to have developed the Hwasong-18 with the goal of achieving the performance of Russia's multi-warhead Yars ICBM, which is an improved version of the single-warhead solid-fuel Topol-M ICBM developed between the 1990s and 2000s.

The researcher said that the payload weight compared to the launch weight of the Hwasong-18 was estimated to be around two percent, which means up to one-point-two tons of warhead can be loaded onto the missile, whose weight is estimated at 55 to 60 tons. 

Shin added that the Hwasong-18 is presumed to be an early model of a solid-fuel ICBM, projecting that its improved model, which is likely to be disclosed in the future, will have an extended range and may be equipped with a single high-powered warhead or five or six multiple warheads.