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China has released footage of its first interception test of a mid-air ballistic missile, destroying a target miles above Earth .

Video shows the land-based rocket blast off into the sky in a blinding white light, before hurtling towards what looks like a small white dot above the planet's atmosphere.

Upon impact, the missile explodes into a huge fireball .

Footage of the experiment, which took place in 2010, has never been made public until now.

According to Chinese news agency CCTV , Xu Chunguang, an expert working at a military base in northwest China, said: "All of our research is meant to solve problems that may crop up in future actual combats."

It took researchers another three years to develop core technologies to improve the system.

A second successful test was reportedly conducted in January 2013.

China's decision to finally release the footage could be seen as a warning shot to the US, which was critical of China for not notifying the Pentagon of the tests at the time.

In May, China announced it would send submarines armed with nuclear missiles into the Atlantic Ocean, arguing it had little choice if America continued to advance its weapons systems.