re: North Korea launches some missiles.
While we're all speculating, I'll add my two cents worth.
My guess is the NKs used both the shuttle timing and the multiple launches to both obscure the details of their test and to cover themselves in case it was a flop. It might also have been an attempt to
overwhelm any potential ABM action on our part. I doubt the latter, though, we would be a lot smarter watching their bird perform unopposed so we could gauge its capabilities and harvest some telemetry.