India has successfully tested its first long-range hypersonic missile after its strategic competitor China revealed its design of a similar advanced weapon.
A hypersonic weapon is capable of traveling at Mach 5 or faster—at least five times the speed of sound—and maneuvering within the atmosphere during its flight to the target. This type of superfast weapon is viewed as a “game-changer” as it can evade most air defenses.
India and China, which share a 2,100-mile de facto border known as the Line of Actual Control, have seen multiple military standoffs and skirmishes over the years. A melee involving two militaries in 2020 led to 20 Indian casualties and four Chinese deaths.
India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced on Saturday that the country had conducted a successful flight trial of a long-range hypersonic missile, which can carry a variety of warheads for ranges of more than 932 miles, from Dr. Abdul Kalam Island off India’s eastern coast,
Indian Defense Ministry
Flight data confirmed that the missile was impacted with high degree of accuracy. On X, formerly Twitter, Singh described the test as historic and significant because it “has put our country in the group of select nations having capabilities of such critical and advanced military technologies.”
China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and the United States have claimed to have hypersonic weapons in service or in development. Chinese and Russian weapons are potentially armed with nuclear warheads, the U.S. Congressional Research Service said in a report.
It was not immediately clear whether the Indian hypersonic missile is nuclear-capable. The South Asian nation is one of nine countries armed with nuclear weapons. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated in June that India has 172 nuclear warheads.
The Indian test came after a concept for a hypersonic boost-glide weapon was unveiled at an airshow in China last week, according to the specialist outlet The War Zone, where two new stealth fighter jets for the Chinese air force were displayed for the first time as well.
A hypersonic boost-glide weapon can accelerate to a high altitude and speed using its rocket motor, before detaching a glide body containing a warhead that uses kinetic energy and lift generated by movement through the air to coast to its target, according to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office.
The model shown at the Chinese airshow, which airshow visitor Michael Jerdev posted about on X (formerly Twitter), was a conceptual GDF-600 hypersonic weapon designed by the Guangdong Aerospace Research Academy in China. The institute was established in 2019 with a goal of making “significant contributions” to safeguarding China’s national security, according to its website.
The GDF-600 reportedly has a top speed of Mach 7 and a range of between 124 and 372 miles. It supports five different weapon payloads: supersonic missiles, subsonic missiles, loitering munition, aerial bombs, and unmanned aerial vehicles.
However, releasing payloads during a hypersonic flight presents “massive technological challenges” to the weapon itself due to physical and thermal stresses, The War Zone said.
The U.S. military said last year that China’s hypersonic missile technologies had greatly advanced during the past two decades. The Chinese military has put the DF-17 medium-range ballistic missile, which is equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle, in operational status.
