Agni 5, India's Longest Range Ballistic Missile, Successfully Test-Fired
File photo: Agni 5 is launched from Wheeler Island during its firts test launch in 2012. (Associated Press)
NEW DELHI: India today successfully test-launched Agni-5, its longest range ballistic missile, for the third time off the Odisha coast. The missile was launched from a canister from Wheeler Island, giving it higher road mobility.
With a range of 5000 km, the nuclear-capable missile can carry a warhead in the east as far as all of China and in the west all over Europe.
The three-stage missile is about 17 metres long and weighs 50 tons.
India carried out two successful tests of the basic version of Agni-5 in 2012 and 2013.
The development of Agni-5 began in 2009 and according to DRDO it will likely be inducted in 2015.
Agni-5 gives India the ability to launch nuclear weapons from land at will from anywhere in India. It will give India the ability to hit back or have second-strike capability even after a nuclear strike.
Story First Published: January 31, 2015 09:32 IST
Canister-based Agni-V missile successfully test-fired
Rajat Pandit,TNN | Jan 31, 2015, 09.22 AM IST
India's most formidable strategic missile, the over 5,000 km Agni-V, was tested from the Wheeler Island off Odisha coast on Saturday morning.
NEW DELHI: India's most formidable strategic missile, the over 5,000 km Agni-V, was tested from the Wheeler Island off Odisha coast on Saturday morning.
The 50-tonne inter-continental ballistic missile, the country's first such missile, was tested for the first time in a canisterised version. This was the third test-firing of the three-stage missile, as was earlier reported by TOI.
Preliminary reports held that the test, conducted at 8.09am, was "successful" but a more detailed analysis was awaited. It also came on the last day in office of missile scientist Avinash Chander, who contract as DRDO chief was abruptly ended earlier this month by the Modi government.
A canister-launch system will give the forces the requisite operational flexibility to swiftly transport the ballistic missile and launch it from a place of their choosing. Consequently, the highly road-mobile Agni-V will be able to hit even the northernmost part of China if fired from close to the Line of Actual Control.
It will, however, take a couple of years for the Agni-V to be inducted into the Strategic Forces Command. The armed forces have already inducted the Pakistan-specific Agni-I (700-km) and Agni-II (over 2,000-km) as well as the 3,000-km Agni-III.
The 4,000-km Agni-IV and the Agni-V missiles, however, are in a different class with "much higher accuracy and kill efficiencies" to give teeth to the minimum credible deterrence posture against China. With a massive nuclear arsenal and missiles like the 11,200-km Dong Feng-31A capable of hitting any Indian city, Beijing is leagues ahead of New Delhi.
DRDO, too, is also working to make the solid-fuelled Agni-IV and Agni-V even more lethal by arming them with maneuvering warheads or re-entry vehicles to defeat enemy ballistic missile defence systems and MIRVs (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles).
An MIRV payload implies a single missile carrying several nuclear warheads, each programmed to hit different targets.
