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On March 19, it said it had conducted a ground jet test of a solid-fuel engine for a new hypersonic IRBM.

Given that the Nuri space rocket’s booster stage is equivalent to that of an intermediate range ballistic missile, or IRBM, the country may also be proofing itself against distant, future enemies.

According to the Oxford documents, in May researchers received a vaccine delivery from Italy’s IRBM/Advent — one of the contract manufacturers Oxford enlisted to complement its own vaccine production.

IRBM/Advent told Reuters there was no manufacturing issue with the batch.

Indeed, while Oxford's Jenner Institute is mostly UK government-funded, Advent Srl, a subsidiary of Italian research organization IRBM, provided some funding to the coronavirus vaccine research project, as is common with research grants.