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Japan Supersonic Flight Successful

Japan`s space agency on Monday completed the first successful test of a prototype jet that can fly at twice the speed of sound, three years after an earlier test ended in a fiery wreck in the Australian Outback, an official said.

A breakthrough in supersonic flight could help Japan leap ahead in the aerospace field. The country, which manufactures high-tech components for U.S.-based Boeing Co., has only a limited domestic airplane industry. Kenichi Saito, a spokesman for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said Monday`s unmanned test flight went "as planned."

Monday`s $10 million experiment marked a crucial step in Japan`s plans to develop a larger supersonic aircraft that can carry 300 passengers between Tokyo and Los Angeles in about four hours. It also underpinned a June agreement between Japan and France to jointly research a possible successor to the Concorde over the next three years.