India and China are both beefing up their aircraft carrier forces through the induction of new carrier-operated aircraft.

On Saturday India’s Defense Minister AK Antony commissioned the country’s first squadron of Russia-built MiG-29K at the INS Hansa Naval near Goa near the Southern tip of India. The squadron, which will be named INAS 303 Black Panthers, consists of 16 MiG-29K fighters some of which were inducted into the India military three years ago allowing Indian pilots to become comfortable flying the aircraft.

India’s Economic Times reported that, “The MiG-29Ks, with a range of 1,300km and a service ceiling of 58,000-feet, are capable of STOBAR (short takeoff but arrested recovery) operations. They are armed with R-73 and RVV-AE guided air-to-air missiles, Kh-35E anti-ship missiles, KAB 500KR/OD TV guided bombs and S-8KOM rockets.”

The 303 Blank Panthers squadron fighters are the first of what will be a total of 45 fighters India has agreed to purchase from Russia for over US$2 billion, including 29 more MiG-29Ks.

The newly commissioned fighters will continue carrying out training exercises until November or December when the Russian built INS Vikramaditya (formerly Gorshkov) aircraft carrier that is currently being refitted is scheduled to be inducted by India’s Navy. Delhi’s other aircraft carrier, the INS Viraat, is currently undergoing maintenance but will continue operating for at least the next few years and possible through 2018.

India also currently has plans to build two indigenous aircraft carriers (IACs). The first is a 40,000 ton vessel currently being constructed at Cochin Shipyard and is scheduled to be inducted into India’s Navy in the next four or five years. It will be placed in the water on August 12 of this year and will undergo its first sea trials 24 months after that, according to Antony.

While commissioning the new maritime aviation squadron on Saturday, Antony also marked the 60^th anniversary of India’s naval aviation.

The day before the ceremony that Antony attended, on Friday, China announced it had formed its first carrier-borne aviation force. Citing PLA sources, China’s state media reported that the forming of the force— which will consist of “carrier-borne fighter jets, jet trainers and ship-borne helicopters that operate anti-submarine, rescue and vigilance tasks”— demonstrates that “the development of China's aircraft carriers has entered a new phase.”

The reports also said that Admiral Wu Shengli, a Princeling member of the Central Military Commission—China’s highest military decision-making body— and the commander of the PLA Navy, attended the ceremony.

The media stories also focused heavily on the quality of the pilots that were included in the group. One report stated:

“The personnel of the force are more elite than the aviation forces within the PLA. To be able to fly fighter jets, the pilots should have flown at least five types of aircraft and their flight time must exceed 1,000 hours.

Rich experience in joint drills and major drills is also a prerequisite. The pilots also received training in courses like warship theory, nautical basics, and maritime meteorology.”

It also revealed that the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier, is capable of holding around 30 fixed-wing aircraft, expected to initially be the J-15s.

China has plans to build a second, larger aircraft carrier that is capable of carrying more fighters. In its annual report on China’s military modernization last week, the Pentagon suggested that it believed China would complete this indigenous aircraft carrier within a decade.

As The Diplomat reported on Monday, last weekend Israel carried out a number of air raids on missile deposits in Syria that were said to have been destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Officials said the missiles that Israel was targeting were Iran’s Fateh-110s, a precision guided, solid-fuel, short range ground-to-ground missile that is believed to be based off China’s DF-11A missile.The Fateh-110 was first tested in 2002 and is now in its fourth generation.

Interestingly, the Fateh-110 is also the basis for Iran’s most potent anti-ship ballistic missile, Khalij Fars (Persian Gulf). According to Iranian media outlets, “the supersonic projectile, which carries a 650-kilogram warhead, is immune to interception and features high-precision systems.”

The anti-ship variant of the missile was first tested in early 2011, and coincided with Iran announcing the completion of a long-range, passive radar covering a 1,100km-radius. Later that year Iran announced that the missile had entered mass production. In tests since that time Iran has said the missile registered a 100 percent success rate in hitting ship-like platforms positioned in the Persian Gulf.

Iran has long been interested in fielding anti-ship ballistic missiles, having fielded less sophisticated anti-ship missiles based on Chinese designs since at least the early 1990s, according to a 2011 report by the Royal United Services Institute.

Khalij Fars makes a number of improvements on these earlier ASMs, including a longer range, uses solid fuel (which only some of the past ASMs did), and, perhaps most importantly, uses a mid-course inertial guidance (INS) for improved accuracy while in-flight. Still, some naval analysts have doubted its ability to hit non-stationary targets.

Iran has not been bashful about declaring the purpose of the missile— to frustrate the U.S. Navy’s ability to operate close to Iran’s shores in the Persian Gulf. As Iran’s Deputy Defense Minister General, Majid Bokayee explained last month: “We managed to employ the ballistic missiles which had previously been designed and produced for ground-to-ground missions for targeting enemy ships, and then we witnessed the U.S. naval fleets' retreat in the Persian Gulf after the first test on the missile.”

 The semi-official Fars News Agency was equally blunt in describing the missile’s purpose as “designed to destroy targets and hostile forces at sea.”

Iran has been slightly less forthcoming in advertising another potential usage of the Khalij Fars— targeting oil tankers in the Persian Gulf in an attempt to shut down shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian officials have repeatedly threatened to close down the Strait of Hormuz in the past, which it would likely attempt to do by using a combination of anti-ship missiles, naval mines and swarms of small motorboats.

The U.S. Navy has taken a number of actions to prepare for this contingency. Just this week, the U.S. began a 41-nation anti-mining exercise, called International Mine Countermeasure Exercise (IMCMEX), off the shores of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. According to news reports, “More than 100 divers, 35 ships and 18 unmanned submarines will take part in the drills.”

It seems that fears earlier in the week that Russia might sell to Syria an advanced air-defense system have been shot down for now -- at least for new purchases. But will Moscow honor a possible prior contract?

On Wednesday, reports surfaced that Russia would sell the advanced S-300 air-defense system to Syria.

“There are concerns that this might happen,” noted a United States official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to the New York Times earlier this week. The same piece went on to report that "a western intelligence service has also warned that the Russians may soon send S-300 air defense batteries to Syria, said another American official who asked not to be identified because he was discussing intelligence reports."

The Wall St. Journal, who originally broke the story, noted:

"According to the information the Israelis provided in recent days, Syria has been making payments on a 2010 agreement with Moscow to buy four batteries for $900 million. They cite financial transactions from the Syrian government, including one made this year through Russia's foreign-development bank, known as the VEB.

The package includes six launchers and 144 operational missiles, each with a range of 125 miles, according to the information the Israelis provided. The first shipment could come over the next three months, according to the Israelis' information, and be concluded by the end of the year. Russia is also expected to send two instruction teams to train Syria's military in operating the missile system, the Israelis say."

 

Such a development would come at a critical time. Russia and United States recently announced they will hold a peace conference on Syria at the end of the month.

Reports yesterday said that Israel had requested that Russia hold off selling the S-300 system to Damascus.

"We have raised objections to this (sale) with the Russians, and the Americans have too," an Israeli official explained yesterday.

Today, a new twist to the story unfolded.

According to the Washington Post, "Russia’s foreign minister denied Friday that Moscow intends to sign any new contracts to sell surface-to-air missiles to Syria, although he said old contracts are being honored."

“Russia does not plan to sell” new systems to Syria, Foreign Minister Lavrov explained  at a press conference in Warsaw. “Russia has sold long ago and delivered hardware, which are air defense systems, under earlier contracts.”

The real question, do the old contracts include any new undelivered S-300 systems?

According to the Post, when questioned in particular about the S-300, his reply was not clear if the "earlier contracts" were for the S-300 or something else.

Lavarov explained Moscow had contracted for a system that allowed Syria “to protect itself from air strikes.”

The Diplomat has reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry for further comment.

Please see below some interesting video regarding the S-300 system:

Every Friday, The Diplomat’s Harry Kazianis looks out across the net to find the best articles and analysis involving defense, strategic affairs, and foreign policy. From America’s pivot to Asia, China’s growing military power, important defense trends, to the various territorial spats across the region, The Diplomat has you covered with what you need to know going into the weekend.

Here is our top five this Friday. Have we missed something you think should be included? Want to share an important article with other readers? Please submit your links in the comment box below! Happy Friday!

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: Simply A Phenomenal Flying Machine - (Telegraph) - " Last week Con Coughlin became the first British journalist to see a British pilot conduct a perfect test landing of Britain's new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Here he describes an aircraft that is set to become one of Britain’s leading strike fighters for the next generation."

The Technology China Wants in Order to Catch Up With Western Militaries- (Foreign Policy) - "The Pentagon's latest report on the capabilities of the Chinese military mentions an important aspect to its buildup: China's efforts to develop advanced technologies that have both civil and military use. This means that China is trying to acquire tech that can be used to drive modern aerospace, computing, and transportation industries -- as well as 21st-century military equipment.

How does it get this information? Everything from outright cyber theft to old-fashioned espionage to legitimate business partnerships."

U.S. Carrier Group To Take Part in S. Korea Drills - (DefenseNews) - "A U.S. naval strike group led by the aircraft carrier Nimitz will arrive in South Korea this weekend for sea drills, officials said Friday, following joint exercises that infuriated North Korea.

In addition to the nuclear-powered Nimitz, the group includes three guided-missile cruisers and destroyers, the US military said in a statement, without specifying the total size of the group."

Navy: Ohio Replacement Negotiations 'Have Not Progressed' (USNI News) - "The Navy’s top acquisition official told the Senate Armed Services Committee Seapower Subcommittee that talks with the Defense Department “have not progressed” in putting the Ohio-class ballistic-missile replacement program into a special National Capital Ships Account."

Cyber Attacks a Growing Irritant in U.S.- China Ties - (Sydney Morning Herald) - "Signs are growing that the sustained surge in cyber attacks emanating from China is straining its relations with the US, lending urgency to fledgling efforts by both governments to engage on the issue."

While tensions between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands continue to simmer, a new dimension has seemingly been added to the mix.

In an article written for the People's Daily on Wednesday-- widely considered the "mouthpiece " of China's government -- two academics, Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang, from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, appear to call into question Japan's sovereignty over the Ryukyu islands (Okinawa is part of this island chain).

The authors note that “Unresolved problems relating to the Ryukyu Islands have reached the time for reconsideration.”

There could be a small problem with the authors idea, regardless of any sort of historical debate on who owns the islands -- Okinawa is home to a large American military presence and Japan has held the islands for sometime.

On Wednesday, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga called the piece in the People's Daily "injudicious." On Thursday, Tokyo filed a diplomatic protest.

So far, the Chinese government has not exactly endorsed the idea, thankfully.

The New York Times, quoting a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, answered several questions concerning the issue but as the Times noted, did not "take a clear position on sovereignty."

“The history of the Ryukyu Islands and Okinawa has long been an academic problem,” Chinese spokeswoman Hua Chunying explained. “I’m willing to reiterate here that the Diaoyu Islands are China’s inherent territory, and have never been part of the Ryukyu or Okinawa.”

Shewwwww.

While China did not back the article, the trend lines here are certainly not good. Such an inflammatory piece at a time of heightened tensions between the world's number two and three economies makes little sense. The article, considering the content, would have presumably been green lighted by the censors who control China's press. Surely, it stands to reason, they would have surmised that the piece would only make matters worse, and not opened some sort of high minded academic debate over the historical nature of who owns the Ryukyus.

In fact, quite the opposite needs to happen at this point. If both parties wish to ease tensions and return to something approaching the prior arrangement of not allowing conflicting territorial claims over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands to damage bilateral ties, simple steps must be taken -- by both sides.

For starters, it would make sense to keep any military or non-naval maritime vessels or aircraft out of the area surrounding the islands. So both sides can save face, this could be done discretely.  Not every move needs to be completed with a press release. This would greatly limit the possibilities of an accidental collision on the high seas or in the air. Such an incident would make matters infinitely worse.

Next, both sides need to limit unhelpful statements -- official or close to it -- that only inflame tensions. Nationalistic talk on either side, whether about island claims or revisionist historical concepts do no one any good. While many would argue such talk is meant for domestic consumption, it nonetheless carries global ramifications. In an era where social media and a 24 hour news cycle repeats such talk over and over, both parties must be very careful in choosing their words. In this case, both sides simply keeping quiet on the issue could prove a powerful way to ease tensions.

Lastly, a path forward needs to be sketched out where both sides can enter into a sustained dialogue. Hopefully, this is already happening through back channels. Such talks need to be done in private -- away from domestic audiences and the media. Track 1.5 and 2.0 conferences could be a good place to start.

Dialogue is the only way both sides can come to an agreement, or at least attempt to return to the prior gentlemen's agreement to leave the issue to future generations. Neither side has any logical reason to keep escalating tensions, let's hope Tokyo and Beijing see it that way as well.

Like Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream, Park Geun-hye’s "trustpolitik" is intended for multiple audiences. Specifically, Park has put forward Korean, regional, and global visions of trustpolitik, with their common thread being a greater focus on ordinary people and civil society.

Already, the Park administration is rolling out efforts at all three levels.

In addressing North Korea, she has said she will remain resolute in the face of the regime’s threats and provocations, even as she continues to seek to establish a renewed dialogue with the Kim regime, and even offered to include Pyongyang in her regional level initiative.

Moreover, she has pledged that South Korea will not let the actions of North Korea’s leaders impact Seoul’s humanitarian policies towards ordinary citizens. Alongside this effort, she has pledged to continue pressing for greater people-to-people ties between Koreans on both sides of the DMZ. Most notably, Park has announced her intention to create an international park in the DMZ where Koreans from both countries could interact. As she explained the purpose of the international park to the U.S. Congress:

“It will be a park that sends a message of peace to all of humanity… There, I believe we can start to grow peace—to grow trust. It would be a zone of peace bringing together not just Koreans separated by a military line, but also the citizens of the world.”

Additionally, the Ministry of Unification just announced it has approved plans by 14 South Korean companies to invest in the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea, which was shuttered after a South Korean tourist was shot by a North Korean guard in 2008. Although the approval is dated February 15, right before Park’s inauguration, her administration is likely to have had a hand in this.

In tangent with this policy towards Pyongyang, the Park administration has announced it is launching a Northeast Asian Peace and Cooperation Initiative. Besides increasing institutionalism among Korea, Japan, and China, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry has said the initiative will “aim to turn mistrust and confrontation in Northeast Asia into trust and cooperation.”

In the beginning, Park noted in her address to Congress yesterday, this might require the parties focus on “softer” issues like the environment, disaster assistance, terrorism, and nuclear safety. By starting with these issues, however, “Trust will be built through this process. And that trust will propel us to expand the horizons of our cooperation.”

Like her North Korea policy, this effort has thus far been inhibited by the actions of other powers—in this case, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s historical revisionism. Whereas Park’s administration intended to send its foreign minister to Tokyo and had worked tirelessly to hold the annual trilateral finance meeting between Tokyo, Beijing, and Seoul on the sidelines of an ASEAN+3 meeting, the Park administration cancelled both of these in the wake of Abe’s offense rhetoric and his advisers’decisions to visit theYasukuni war shrine.

With the three nations unwilling to boost cooperation on political and financial matters, they nonetheless still held a Tripartite Environment Ministers Meeting in Japan on Sunday and Monday this week. Out of this meeting came a joint communiqué pledging more cooperation in addressing air pollution throughout Asia, and working together to"enhance the full effective and sustained implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change." Park will no doubt seek to leverage this small agreement to achieve breakthroughs in other areas.

The least noted aspect of Park’s Trustpolitik policy has been its international component. This is essentially a continuation of her predecessors, Lee Myung-bak’s, “Global Korea” policy, except Park will consider Northeast Asia separately from the rest of the globe. Thus, Park is likely to continue her predecessors’ effort to gain a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and to focus on South Korea’s development cooperation with developing nations instead of pure aid.

Thus far Africa has surprisingly been the focus of the Park administration’s efforts. As Park was en route to the U.S. over the weekend, Yonhap News Agency reported that Blue House was in talks with Parliament over the possibility of creating a Korea-Africa Center to coordinate South Korea’s policy towards the African continent. The proposed center would be modeled off the ASEAN-Korea center, with its central headquarters located in Seoul and up to four African based branches in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt.

But Park is not waiting for parliament’s approval to begin engaging the continent. On Monday Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kyou-hyun will travel to New York to participate in a high-level UN Security Council debateon security and terrorism issues in Africa; particularly the Sahel. Following that meeting, Kim will be in Brussels for a donor conference for Mali. The Foreign Ministry has already said Kim will arrive in Brussels with “detailed plans for development cooperation” in Mali, and a pledge of US$1 million of aid for the war torn country.

Surprise!

States (not to mention pundits) spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what other states thinks.  Discerning the intentions of a foreign government is no easy task; even understanding the basic structure of government can be a challenge, and states have a strong incentive to deceive others as to their intentions, beliefs, and capabilities. Even if the United States privately decided not to defend Taiwan from PRC attack, it would behoove American leaders to make Beijing believe the U.S. would rush to Taipei’s defense, in the hopes that the threat of intervention would deter an attack.  At the same time, state leaders regularly speak to different audiences; the President of the United States surely wishes to convey a different message of credibility and deterrence to Taiwan than to the PRC, as a “blank check” might encourage the former to become overly adventurous.

Accordingly, it’s hard to know what another state is thinking, even when that state sends costly signals of intent. But what if even the leaders of states don’t know how they’ll react to certain events? A recent International Organization article by Jonathan Mercer investigated the role of emotion in decision-making. Although the theory is somewhat complicated, the argument boils down to the idea that we use our own emotional reactions to events as evidence of our interests and preferences. A classic experiment along these lines involves a coin flip, with heads deciding one course of action and tails the other. By flipping a coin, you determine whether you’re happy or sad about the outcome; accordingly, you know which path you really prefer.

Mercer argues that the leadership of the United States sent costly signals of disinterest in the fate of South Korea, withdrawing all forces and de-emphasizing the possibility of intervention in case of a North Korean attack in 1950. When the attack came, however, U.S. leaders had an unexpected emotional reaction of alarm, which led to concern about how the rest of the world would interpret inaction.  As Mercer points out, U.S. policymakers used their own sense of shock and alarm as evidence that the world would see the United States as weak.  Consequently, the United States intervened in contravention of its own expectations. Later in the war, an emotional attachment to the idea of “reputation” prevented American policymakers from understanding the consequences of advancing beyond the 38^th parallel.

The bottom line is that an approach to decision-making that concentrates on interests and raw calculation will come up short.  As Mercer suggests, “Strategy depends on imagining not only how another feels, but how another will feel as a result of one’s policy.” This adds another layer of calculation to how, for example, China and Japan try to predict each others’ responses to moves in the Senkaku/Diayou islands. It is deeply difficult for policymakers to empathize with (or put themselves in the position of) the leaders of another state, and perhaps even more difficult to try to understand the emotional complexity associated with the intrigue and infighting associated with the internal deliberations of the other government. Similarly, there are stark limits on the practice of “Kreminology”, or the effort to discern intent from the governmental infighting, when emotional reactions may yield unpredictable behavior. Brinksmanship, whether over islands or high altitude deserts, may be even more dangerous than the players appreciate.

Northrop Grumman in cooperation with the U.S. Navy recently conducted the "first fly-in arrested landing" of the highly coveted X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS).

According to Northrop Grumman, the test "represents the first arrested landing by a Navy unmanned aircraft. It marks the beginning of the final phase of testing prior to carrier-based trials planned for later this month."

The X-47B is a tailless, strike fighter-sized unmanned aircraft now under development and testing. It is part of the U.S. Navy’s highly touted Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) program.

The aircraft sports a 62-foot wingspan.  It is also shaped like a "flying wing." For comparison to other popular aircraft, it is 17 feet wider than the F/A-18 Super Hornet.  Reports place the X-47B's top speed in the "high subsonic" range with a maximum capable distance of about 2,100 nautical miles.

The X-47B is a prototype designed to fly autonomously. This is different than drones or UAVs that are currently being used by America's military. Such systems are usually flown remotely by ground-station-based military personnel. The aircraft, while not intended for "operational use," is part of a an effort geared toward the development of other unmanned carrier-based aircraft intitatives.

Such aircraft with long range that will have the ability to operate from carriers are important. With many nations developing anti-access capabilities with long range missiles that could in theory attack multi-billion dollar carriers, remotely operated aircraft could be a prized asset that could place a carrier out of range of enemy shore based weapons.

"India will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, but if it is attacked with such weapons, it would engage in nuclear retaliation which will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage on its adversary. The label on a nuclear weapon used for attacking India, strategic or tactical, is irrelevant from the Indian perspective,” Shyam Saran, former Foreign Secretary and the current chairman of India’s National Security Advisory Board, said in a recent speech, the Times of India reported.

The key in Saran’s comments is the reference to tactical nuclear weapons. Pakistan is believed to be developing such weapons to counter India’s “Cold Start” military doctrine. In recent years, terrorist attacks on India originating from Pakistan—most notably the 2008 Mumbai attacks—have led many Indian policymakers to conclude that Islamabad, emboldened by its nuclear deterrent, is supporting certain terrorist groups based out of Pakistan who carry out attacks on the Indian homeland.

After the Mumbai attack Indian’s military leaders reportedly developed a new doctrine called Cold Start, which called for Indian troops to rapidly mobilize for limited conventional strikes on the Pakistani side of the border immediately following a terrorist attack. The rationale was that this would give Delhi the ability to retaliate against Islamabad without sparking a full-fledged nuclear exchange.

Lacking the conventional military power to confront India’s military, Pakistani military officials are believed to be building tactical nuclear weapons to deploy in the field for possible use against the invading Indian military forces.

Saran’s speech appears to be India’s response to Pakistan’s theatre nuclear weapons. As he explained it:

“Pakistani motivation is to dissuade India from contemplating conventional punitive retaliation to sub-conventional but highly destructive and disruptive cross-border terrorist strikes such as the horrific 26/11 attack on Mumbai. What Pakistan is signaling to India and to the world is that India should not contemplate retaliation even if there is another Mumbai because Pakistan has lowered the threshold of nuclear use to the theatre level. This is nothing short of nuclear blackmail, no different from the irresponsible behavior one witnesses in North Korea.”

Saran then shot down the notion that India would distinguish between theatre and strategic nuclear weapons usage.

"A limited nuclear war is a contradiction in terms,” He said. “Any nuclear exchange, once initiated, would swiftly and inexorably escalate to the strategic level. Pakistan would be prudent not to assume otherwise as it sometimes appears to do, most recently by developing and perhaps deploying theatre nuclear weapons."

Saran is a veteran diplomat with extensive experience dealing with nuclear issues. Before his current position, for instance, he served as the prime minister’s special envoy to the negotiations over the U.S.-India civilian nuclear deal—where he was the counterpart to R. Nicholas Burns—and the Nuclear Suppliers Group. He stepped down from that post in 2010.

A proponent of India’s Look East Policy, Saran also has extensive experience dealing with China including over the border issue. Last year, he called on India’s foreign policy establishment to develop a deeper understanding of China’s strategic culture.

During his recent speech Saran took aim at China directly stating, “Chinese assistance to Pakistan’s strategic program continues apace,” according to Michael Krepon at Arms Control Wonk.

Krepon also reported that Saran had some harsh words for Pakistan’s military:

“Pakistan is the only country where nuclear assets are under the command and control of the military and it is the military’s perceptions and ambitions which govern the development, deployment and use of these weapons. This is a dangerous situation precisely because the military’s perceptions are not fully anchored in a larger national political and economic narrative…. There is an air of unreality about the often adulatory remarks about the Pakistani military’s stewardship of the country’s military assets.”

While sequestration may have many wondering about the future of America’s military, amazing technological innovations continue nonetheless.

Case in point: Boeing’s X-51A WaveRider.

The unmanned hypersonic vehicle “achieved the longest air-breathing, scramjet-powered hypersonic flight in history May 1, flying for three and a half minutes on scramjet power at a top speed of Mach 5.1. The vehicle flew for a total time of more than six minutes.”

According to a Boeing press statement:          

“A U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress from Edwards Air Force Base released the X-51A from 50,000 feet above the Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center Sea Range at 10:55 a.m. Pacific time. After the B-52 released the X-51A, a solid rocket booster accelerated the vehicle to about Mach 4.8 before the booster and a connecting interstage were jettisoned. The vehicle reached Mach 5.1 powered by its supersonic combustion scramjet engine, which burned all its JP-7 jet fuel. The X-51A made a controlled dive into the Pacific Ocean at the conclusion of its mission. The test fulfilled all mission objectives.

The flight was the fourth X-51A test flight completed for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. It exceeded the previous record set by the program in 2010.

The X-51A program is a collaborative effort of the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, with industry partners Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. Boeing performed program management, design and integration in Huntington Beach, Calif.”

Such technology could have amazing civilian as well as military uses.

Boeing Phantom Works President Darryl Davis noted that: “This demonstration of a practical hypersonic scramjet engine is a historic achievement that has been years in the making. This test proves the technology has matured to the point that it opens the door to practical applications, such as advanced defense systems and more cost-effective access to space.”

Take a look at the videos below: