At a height of 90,000 feet in the sky, an echo was heard which neither radar could detect nor missiles could stop. This is the story of Lockheed Martin D-21 which had achieved a position in the 1960s itself which is a challenge even for today’s modern drones. When the world was in the early days of computers, America had prepared a supersonic spy which could run three times faster than the speed of sound without a pilot. But the twist in this story came when America’s most secret weapon fell into the enemy’s courtyard. After this, the game of reverse engineering between Russia and China started which changed the equations of the Cold War.
The capabilities of D-21 that shocked the world
· King of Speed: Its maximum speed was 3,200 km/h (Mach 3.3).
· Invincible Height: It could fly at a height of 90,000 feet, from where it could take photographs of enemy nuclear sites.
· Range: Its range was approximately 5,550 kilometers, which made it an intercontinental spy.
· Price: At that time, the cost of one D-21 was around 5.5 million dollars, which is around Rs 350-400 crore as of today.
· First Stealth in History: Due to its special design and coating, radars failed to detect it.
D-21 and Russia-China’s ‘theft’: 5 big questions and answers
Question 1: How did China acquire this secret US drone?
Answer: Between 1969 and 1971, while spying on China’s Lop Noor nuclear center, a D-21 crashed due to a technical fault and fell into the forests of China. China acquired its debris.
Question 2: How did its technology reach Russia (Soviet Union)?
Answer: China gave some part of the debris to the Soviet Union. Seeing this, Soviet engineers started ‘Project Voron’ so that they too could make a ramjet drone like America.
Question 3: What benefit did Russia-China get from reverse engineering?
Answer: Although they could not copy it completely, they came to know about America’s advanced ramjet engine technology and radar evading material (Stealth).
Question 4: What was the role of this drone in the Cold War?
Answer: Its main function was to capture high-resolution photographs of the most secret nuclear tests of the Soviet Union and China without risking the life of the pilot.
Question 5: How did this drone come back?
Answer: It did not land back. After the mission, it used to drop its camera module into the sea through parachute, which was caught in the air by American planes. The rest of the drone would destroy itself.
