Mars Artillery Type 17) is a North Korean two-stage ICBM, first unveiled on 10 October 2020, at the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) parade.

[6] The Hwasong-17 is assumed to be a two-stage, liquid fuelled road-mobile ICBM carried by a 22-wheeled transporter erector launcher (TEL) vehicle.

[13][14] Japan's defense minister Yasukazu Hamada estimated the operational range of the Hwasong-17 as 15,000 km or more, if mounted with a sufficiently light warhead.

[9][15] Ankit Panda of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace agreed that if the successful November missile test had been fired at the US instead of up into the air, it could easily reach anywhere in the continental United States.

[17] Since the Hwasong-15 was already capable of striking most of the contiguous United States, the development of an even larger missile suggests North Korea is pursuing MRV, or even MIRV, payloads.

As of 2020, the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system comprises 44 interceptors, requiring the launch of at least four to guarantee a hit, enabling it to protect against a maximum of 11 warheads.

This restricts fueling to once it arrives at the launch site itself, a process requiring several hours to complete, leaving the missile exposed and vulnerable to pre-launch attack.

North Korea has only fired long-range ballistic missiles on lofted trajectories, in part because tracking can only be done from land-based sensors.

[4] As an SLV, it could launch a satellite that would be in a position to monitor future ICBM flights and payload reentry from space, enabling more realistic testing by firing them on normal trajectories out to further distances.

The United States believed the tests were not intended to demonstrate the ICBM's range but conduct early evaluations of its capabilities.

[26] North Korea publicly claimed the launches were intended to test components of a reconnaissance satellite at operational altitudes without disclosing they had been lofted by the new ICBM.

South Korean intelligence alleges that the missile launched on 24 March was likely an improved and modified Hwasong-15, though according to NK News, there may be other reasons for using old footage, such as a camera failure.