By successfully testing the flight of made-in-India hypersonic technology demonstrator vehicle (HSTDV), India joins an elite club of countries – the US, Russia and China, which possess the bleeding-edge tech.

“In a historic mission today, India successfully flight tested Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV), a giant leap in indigenous defense technologies and significant milestone towards a #sashaktbharat and #atmanirbharbharat,” tweeted DRDO. The tweet

also added, “DRDO with this mission, has demonstrated capabilities for highly complex technology that will serve as the building block for NextGen Hypersonic vehicles in partnership with industry.”

As this marks adjoining a golden feather in the stellar crown of India’s Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO), the whole country has been eulogizing, pouring the R&D division of defense with warm words.

“I congratulate to DRDO on this landmark achievement towards realizing PM’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat. I spoke to the scientists associated with the project and congratulated them on this great achievement. India is proud of them,” tweeted Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

PM Narendra Modi also praised the achievement in a tweet, “Congratulations to DRDO for successful flight of the Hypersonic Test Demonstration Vehicle today. The scramjet engine developed by our scientists helped the flight achieve a speed 6 times the speed of sound! Very few countries have such capability today.”

An unmanned scramjet demonstration aircraft for flights with hypersonic speed, HSTDV is used as a carrier vehicle for hypersonic and long-range cruise missiles. The cruise speed of an HSTDV can be six times the speed of sound, while it can also reach an altitude of 32.5km in just 20 seconds after take-off. The technology in addition has a wide range of civilian applications like launching of small satellites at low cost.