These scientists are hailed by North Korea as heroes. They work tirelessly day and night to help the country become a nuclear superpower.
Photos taken by the KCNA just hours before North Korea tested the thermal bomb on September 3 showed two scientists standing next to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on a nuclear warhead mission.
The identities of these two people were revealed as Ri Hong-sop, Director of the North Korean Institute of Nuclear Weapons and Hong Sung-mu, Deputy Head of the North Korean Labor Party's Pharmaceutical Industry Department.
Some North Korean experts said that these two scientists are just a part of a team of leading weapons scientists favored by Mr. Kim Jong-un and considered the "chief architect", to help the leader realize his ambition to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads capable of hitting the US.
"It seems that Mr. Hong Sung-mu is leading the nuclear development program as a senior official of the North Korean Labor Party, while Mr. Ri Hong-sop is responsible for nuclear and thermal bomb testing at the expert level," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the North Korean Research University in Seoul.
According to Reuters, in January 2016, Mr. Hong and Mr. Ri were the first two people to be awarded medals by leader Kim Jong-un at a ceremony marking North Korea's fourth nuclear test.
Mr. Ri is the former director of the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center, North Korea's main nuclear facility, which operates the first nuclear reactor and is North Korea's only facility capable of enriching uranium recognized by the international community.
Meanwhile, Mr. Hong Sung-mu was a senior engineer at the Yongbyon Center before moving to the Pharmaceutical Industry Department of the North Korean Labor Party.
