India successfully tested the 'Prithvi' Air Defence (PAD) missile for the third time in just over two years.
India on Friday inched closer to joining the elite club of nations with missile shields by successfully testing an indigenously developed ballistic missile interceptor system for the third successive time.
The interceptor missile shot down a mock incoming enemy missile over the Bay of Bengal, to cheers in the mission control room on Wheeler Island off the Orissa coast.
A missile shield essentially means a capability to destroy enemy missiles in the air before they strike their targets.
Such a missile shield was on display during the first Gulf War in 1991, when millions of people across the world could see on their television sets footage of American Patriot missiles destroying Scuds fired by Iraq into Kuwait and Israel.
The cent per cent success of Indian interceptor missiles has boosted military scientists’ confidence of developing a robust indigenous shield against ballistic missiles.
Only the United States, Russia, and Israel are known to have effective anti-ballistic-missile missile shields.
India is developing a two-tier ballistic missile defence (BMD) system, comprising the Prithvi air defence missile for high-altitude interception and the advanced air defence (AAD) missile for interception at lower altitude. It was a Prithvi air defence missile that was successfully tested on Friday.
Scientists of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) flight-tested the two-stage third ballistic missile interceptor at 4:24pm from the Integrated Test Range on Wheeler Island. It “successfully achieved mission objectives”, a senior military scientist said.
The two-stage interceptor missile neutralised the target, a mock enemy missile, at an altitude of 75km.
Mocking an enemy missile, a Dhanush missile was fired from a ship, some 100km off the coast. The interceptor missile was launched from a mobile launcher at the Wheeler Island Launch Complex.
“The third consecutive interception of ballistic missiles once again demonstrated the robustness of the Indian BMD system,” a DRDO statement said. Two tests had already been conducted: one, an exo-atmospheric test at an altitude of 48km on November 27, 2006; the second in the endo-atmospheric region at 15km using an AAD missile on
December 6, 2007.
Friday’s trial was witnessed by top military scientists, among others. A defence ministry spokesman said that “India today inched closer towards its endeavour to put in place its own home-grown ballistic missile defence system”.
He said the mission control room on Wheeler Island “burst into raptures as the radar display indicated the interception and destruction of the decoy enemy missile by the interceptor”.
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