North Korea appears to have failed its first missile test conducted since the election victory of the main opposition People Power Party's(PPP) Yoon Suk Yeol.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North's launch of an unidentified projectile from Pyongyang's Sunan area at around 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday is evaluated to have failed soon after takeoff.

While a military official said the current assessment is that the projectile failed to reach a certain altitude in its early stage, intelligence authorities in South Korea and the U.S. are conducting additional analysis to determine whether it had exploded.

They are also analyzing whether the projectile was the North's new intercontinental ballistic missile.

The latest projectile launch is Pyongyang's tenth launch of the year. The regime conducted two rounds of tests, believed to be of its new ICBM system, on February 27 and March 5.

[Photo : YONHAP News]