Private company Stratolaunch said late on Saturday that it tested its Talon-A hypersonic vehicle successfully, publishing a short video of its release and the start of its flight. 

"Today was a great day for the Stratolaunch team. I am extremely proud of their perserverance to reach this point," company President Zachary Krevor said in the statement. 

The company said the primary targets of Saturday's flight had been "accomplishing safe air-launch release of the TA-1 vehicle, engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb in altitude, and a controlled water landing." 

It released a video showing the first few seconds of the test off the coast of California. The massive six-engined twin-fuselaged carrier Roc released the Talon from the mounting in the middle of its wing, it dropped a short distance before the engine fired and it flew ahead.

Hypersonic weapons and defenses in development

The flight concluded with a controlled landing in water. Though the TA-1 is not reusable, the company said new models designed for reuse after runway landings are in development.

"While I can't share the specific altitude and speed TA-1 reached," Krevin said, "we reached high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5 and a great amount of data at an incredible value to our customers." 

Defense contractors in several countries are hoping to capitalize on the shift both towards hypersonic weapons and also to the development of new systems designed to detect and defend against them. 

Stratolaunch said it hoped the TA-1 vehicle's development would be complete this year and noted work had begun on two newer models. 

Hypersonic weapons tend to be defined as ones that travel in Earth's upper atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5, equivalent to roughly 1.7 kilometers or just over 1 mile per second). 

msh/wd (AP, Reuters)