The unmanned vehicle was launched around 5:50 am (1550 GMT Thursday), from Christmas Island in the Pacific nation of Kiribati, the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) said.

The shuttle reached an altitude of around 600 meters (1,980 feet) and a speed of 290 kilometers (181 miles) per hour during the nine-and-a-half minute flight, it said.

The jet-powered vehicle is 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) long and weighs 735 kilograms (1,617 pounds).

It was the first flight experiment under the agency's High Speed Flight Demonstration program.

NASDA said the flight enabled it to confirm the vehicle's auto pilot capability and the basic performance of its equipment.

"It landed near the targeted landing point. We believe it did what we wanted it to do. Now, we will make detailed analyses," NASDA said in a statement issued after the experiment.

In addition to the data collected from the test flight on the craft's navigation and communication systems, the agency also hopes to gain technical know-how about unmanned autonomous flight.

The experiment was being conducted purely to collect data rather than as a stepping stone towards putting a shuttle into space.

Japan's program to actually build its own version of the space shuttle has been frozen following a series of costly early setbacks with its H2-A rocket program, which is now on track to eventually compete for commercial satellite launch contracts.

High Speed Flight Demonstration
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