 "Hypersonic Technology Demonstration Vehicle")
Any contemporary list of cutting-edge military technologies has hypersonic, air-breathing, scramjet vehicles close to the very top. Only three countries — Russia, USA and China — have flown a vehicle in the atmosphere at a hypersonic speed: Six times the speed of sound (Mach 6), or 2 kilometres (km) per second.
On Monday, India entered that elite club when the Defence Research & Development Organisation’s (DRDO’s) experimental Hypersonic Technology Demonstration Vehicle (HSTDV) took off from the APJ Abdul Kalam Launch Complex, off the Odisha coast, and, after separating from its launch vehicle at an altitude of 30 km, flew at
