What happened in space on July 27 last year was a "Sputnik moment" for the United States, said Mark Milley, chairman of the United States military chiefs.

On that day, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) launched a Long March-type launch vehicle carrying a "Hypersonic Glide Vehicle" on its tip, according to a newspaper report.

It was the 78th test of a "Long March" rocket, but it did not appear in the official statistics - for good reason: the hypersonic glide vehicle detached itself high above the earth's surface, flew once around the planet and struck at only about 30 kilometers deviation from the planned destination in China.

"A technical masterpiece that has never been demonstrated by any other country,"

Henrik Ankenbrand

Economic correspondent for China based in Shanghai.

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“Sputnik moments” are events that trigger a mood of alarm in the political West, based on the success of the Soviet Union in 1957 in being the first country to launch a satellite into orbit.

For example, when a country in the political East demonstrates a technological superiority, as in the case of the hypersonic glider, which hardly any secret service had foreseen - or its own government ignored its warnings, as seems to be the case in the USA.

Hypersonic weapons fly at about 1700 meters per second, five times the speed of sound.

As they glide towards their target from the atmosphere without rocket propulsion, their direction can be controlled, which represents a nightmare scenario for any missile defense system because, unlike conventional ICBMs, the trajectory is hardly predictable.

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Has the balance of power in the world shifted as a result?

Will China's military be able to breach the anti-nuclear missile shield the US is working on and raze entire American metropolises along the country's coasts?

Many observers have doubts about this.

In order to bring a nuclear missile to its target, hypersonic gliders are too "cumbersome and exotic," said the Chinese armaments expert Zhao Tong of the FAZ, who observes China's nuclear weapons program for the American think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The government in Beijing has denied the report about the hypersonic glider.

It is by no means a weapon.