NEW DELHI: India is now finally ready to gatecrash into the exclusive club of the Big Five - US, Russia, China, France and UK - which field submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), the most reliable and deadly nuclear strike weapon.
India's SLBM, dubbed 'K-15' under the Sagarika project, is ready after 10 years of hits and misses, and four tests from "submersible pontoon launchers" over last year.
"The final test of K-15, with a strike range of 700km, will be conducted any day now (probably this month, off Visakhapatnam). Its development is complete. We are ready to integrate it with the mother ship," DRDO chief controller Dr Prahlada said.
The first of the three 6,000-tonne advanced technology vessels (ATVs), each designed to carry 12 vertical-launched nuclear-tipped SLBMs, will be "ready to go to sea" for trials by early 2009. It will, however, take two to three years for the two-stage solid-fuelled K-15 to be integrated with the first ATV and then be test-fired from it.
But when it does happen, India will finally achieve its long-standing aim to have an operational nuclear weapon triad. India already has Agni-I (700-km range) and Agni-II (2000-km-plus) ballistic missiles, as also the Agni-III (3,500-km) which has been successfully tested only once so far.
By 'mother ship', DRDO chief controller Prahlada meant the three indigenous nuclear-powered submarines being built at Visakhapatnam in the 25-year-old ATV project, which will overall cost around Rs 20,000 crore.
Fighters like Sukhoi-30MKI and Mirage-2000s, which can be jury-rigged to carry nuclear weapons, constitute the air-based leg. But the absence of nuclear-powered submarines, armed with the capability of fire nuclear-tipped missiles from under the sea, has been a gaping hole in India's strategic capabilities.
This third leg of the nuclear triad is especially important for India, which has a declared doctrine of 'no-first use' of nuclear weapons, unlike Pakistan or China. "We have custom-made the K-15 for the Navy. Naturally, it will complete the nuclear triad," said Prahlada.
A 700 to 750-km SLBM will, of course, still fall short of the over 5,000-km range SLBMs deployed by countries like US and Russia. But, as reported earlier, DRDO is already working on a submarine-launched version of Agni-III, which is to be followed by the Agni-III-plus missile with a strike range of 5,000km. "If the government wants it, we can extend the range of the Agni-III missile. We have the capability and technology," said Prahlada. This entails a third mini-stage, in the shape of another solid-propellant motor, being squeezed into the two-stage Agni-III missile to extend its range by another 1,500 km or so.
This again will mean that India will have a missile with near ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) capabilities, which are usually over 5,500-km in range and have largely remained the preserve of the Big Five countries till now.
On his part, Prahlada said the next launch of Agni-III would take place soon. "For a strategic missile, one needs to test it successfully at least three times," he said.
The first test of Agni-III in July 2006, incidentally, had flopped miserably. The second test, in April 2007, however, was successful. The missile, which will be able to hit targets deep inside China, will be ready for operational development only by 2010 or so.
India ready to join elite N-strike club-India-The Times of India
