China has tested a new space capability with hypersonic missile according to a report on Saturday

. Girish Linganna- Defense Analysist

Reports citing multiple sources familiar with the test said that the Beijing in August launched a nuclear-capable missile that circled the earth at low Orbit before descending towards its target, which the sources said it missed the target by 32 kms.

The report quoted sources saying that the hypersonic glide vehicle was carried by a Long March Rocket. Though the August test was kept under wraps along with China, U.S.A, Russia and at least five other countries are working on hypersonic technology.

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Hypersonic missiles like the traditional Ballistic missiles which can deliver nuclear weapons can fly at more than five times the speed of sound. But ballistic missiles fly high into the space in an arc to reach their target, while hypersonic flies on a Low trajectory in the atmosphere potentially reaching the target more quickly

Crucially a hypersonic missile is manoeuvrable like the much slower often Subsonic Cruise missile making it hard to track and defend against, while countries like United States have developed systems designed to defend against cruise and ballistic missile, the ability to track and take down hypersonic missile remains question.

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China has been aggressively developing the technologies seeing it as crucial to defend against US gains in hypersonic and other Technologies.

According to a recent report by the US Congress serial research service, the reported test comes as US Pentagon attention have mounted and Beijing has stepped up the military activity near the Taiwan the self-ruling US align democracy that Beijing considers a province awaiting re-unification.

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