China has developed the world’s most advanced wind tunnel, capable of simulating 30 times the speed of sound and handing Beijing an edge in the race for hypersonic weapons.
The JF-22 facility in Beijing could replicate speeds of up to 23,000mph, far outstripping its rivals in the United States. It is due for completion this year.
Han Guilai, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, estimated that it would place China 20 to 30 years ahead of the West. The US and Russia are
developing hypersonic missiles that can be launched into space carrying nuclear payloads. To do so they must first build wind tunnels to simulate conditions that the hypersonic weapons will experience in flight.
The new wind tunnel is said to use chemical explosions to generate high-speed air flow instead of mechanical compressors. This in turn creates shockwaves, temperatures and pressures similar to those experienced by high-velocity aircraft and weapons.
In contrast the most advanced wind tunnel in America, the Lens II in Buffalo, New York, is used by Nasa to recreate conditions of up to Mach 9 for a shorter time than the Chinese facility. There are wind tunnels using similar technology in Japan and Germany.
Russia has advanced testing facilities in St Petersburg. Its hypersonic weapons chief, Professor Alexander Kuranov, 73, was
arrested by FSB agents this month on suspicion of handing classified information to a foreign state. “Representatives of the US and China showed interest,” sources told state media after his arrest.
The Chinese breakthrough could fuel fears of a new nuclear arms race in space. Writing in
The Times in June,
Lord Hague of Richmond, the former foreign secretary, warned that hypersonic weapons represented a growing threat to the West. “If you think . . . that your hardened silo will be taken out by a hypersonic missile . . . then you have to decide at an earlier stage of a crisis whether to launch,” he wrote.
Announcing the development on state media on Monday, Chinese officials stressed its non-military capabilities. “The basic thought for this JF-22 wind tunnel is for our country’s space aircraft system,” Jiang Zonglin, head of the project, told China Central Television. “If we are successful we can reduce the costs of the satellite launches and spacecraft launches by 90 per cent.”
Jiang said that a hypersonic aircraft could easily reach anywhere in the world within two hours. “From now on, we will be testing, and problems are most likely to surface during this phase,” he said. “We will be very, very careful . . . to ensure safety.”
Western powers view China’s reach into space with concern. President Biden’s latest budget realigned defence spending priorities in favour of modernising its nuclear arsenal with money set aside to research and develop hypersonic weapons and “next generation” systems. “We must modernise if deterrence is to endure and I would seek to increase the speed and scale of innovation,” Kathleen Hicks, the deputy defence secretary, said in February.
The development is being hailed in China as a landmark moment in its burgeoning space programme, which has sent land rovers to the Moon and Mars. “A wind tunnel is like the cradle of the spacecraft,” Jiang said. “ Only with a wind tunnel can we build engines and build spacecraft. It’s been the goal of our team for the past five or six decades.”
The first wind tunnel built by Jiang and his team was the JF-12 in Beijing in 2012. “A lot of people said it was not feasible and that you would waste money, but after ten years of experiments we came to believe this technology would be usable,” he said.
The Chinese military has successfully tested two new missiles. According to the state broadcaster they “precisely hit the target with multiple protections several hundred kilometres away” and “effectively paralysed the crucial information point of the enemy’s defence system”.
The report did not reveal the types of the missiles, but observers believe that they are probably from the DF-16 family, which has a range of 500 to 900 miles. The missiles are most likely to be used in an armed attack against Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing wants to seize, according to observers.