Stratolaunch has completed the first powered flight of its unmanned, hypersonic test aircraft dubbed Talon-A.

Hypersonic refers to aircraft that can achieve speeds of at least five times the speed of sound, or 3,836mph.

The privately funded firm wanted to test various capabilities of its reusable aircraft including engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb in altitude and a controlled water landing.

Talon-A, which is powered by a liquid-fuel rocket engine, ended its flight by descending into the ocean as planned. While the aircraft was considered expendable in this testing phase, a future version will be capable of landing on a runway for reuse.

“While I can’t share the specific altitude and speed TA-1 reached due to proprietary agreements with our customers, we are pleased to share that in addition to meeting all primary and customer objectives of the flight, we reached high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5 and collected a great amount of data at an incredible value to our customers...