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Agni III ready for launch, says DRDO
New Delhi, Feb 03: India’s most ambitious surface-to-surface missile with intercontinental reach capabilities, Agni III, is ready for launch, the country’s top defence scientist M Natarajan announced today saying it was for political leadership to give the nod.
“All technical parameters for the launch of the missile have been completed,” the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Secretary told a press conference here.
“We are ready for the launch today,” he said.
Agni III is a 3,000-km plus range missile capable of carrying one tonne nuclear payload.
Natarajan also said DRDO had made “tremendous progress” on the anti-missile shield for which India is currently in technology cooperation dialogue with the US, Russia and Israel.
Refusing to divulge details, he said progress has been made on various components for the shield and the surface-to-air Akash missile was being configured for developing this indigenous system.
For the first time, the DRDO Secretary came out with details about the various range of missiles being developed by the country in its integrated missile development programme, disclosing that the country’s first air-to-air beyond visual range (BVR) missile ‘Astra’ would be ready for test launch in two months.
He said the government approval for the Astra programme had come a year ago and efforts were to develop BVR missile capable of engaging targets as far as 80 kms away.
The top defence scientist also said that strides have been made in other major projects like development of indigenous weapon locating radar whose integration of components was going on and the system would be ready for field trial evaluation this year.
“The system would have similar capabilities as that of ANTPQ-37 radars acquired from the US army under the foreign military sales programme. The DRDO radars would be, on many counts, far more advance than American radars which are of older version,” he said.
On the missile devlopment programme, Natarajan said defence scientist were also working on the profile to develop 1,000 km range surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile by enhancing capabilities of already deployed Indo-Russian BrahMos Missile.
On the BrahMos missile, he said that the ship launched and surface-to-surface launched 300 km range missile was ready for deployment and was currently going through user trial with navy and army. He refused to comment on whether Indian and Russian scientists were developing a submarine launched version of the missile.
On Agni missile, though DRDO had claimed that India was ready for the launch of the almost ICBM capable missile a year and a half back, no trials were undertaken apparently keeping in view the international opinion.
To a barrage of queries on the repeated slippage and time over-runs on a number of key DRDO projects like main battle tank Arjun and Tejas Light Combat Aircraft programme, Natarajan, while admitting that these programmes were running far behind schedule, said that country’s defence scientist were working to check these factors.
“The defence scientists are conscious that there have been time over-runs on some of the projects,” he said assuring that emphasis now was being laid on keeping time factor in all the programmes. However, he claimed that MBT Arjun even today was much more cost efficient than tanks of same calibre being produced elsewhere.
Sidestepping questions on whether delay in the development of indigenous Kaveri fighter engine and any further slippage in induction of Tejas LCA might force the country’s defence planners to increase the number of proposed purchase of multi-role combat aircraft to more than 126, the DRDO Secretary assured that LCA programme was on schedule and that the first order of 20 LCA was awaiting cabinet approval.
On the weapons integration on the LCA, the DRDO Secretary said this was part of the delivery agreement arrived at with Indian Airforce. “We plan to do weapons dummy trials by next year.”
On the MBT Arjun Project, Natarajan said its induction was awaiting final army user and comparative trials. Though the government has cleared induction of 104 MBT Arjun, Army, which has some doubts, plans to undertake summer trials of the tanks pitting them against Russian acquired T-90 and T-72 main battle tanks.
Asked about whether DRDO had found buyers for its tank ex, Natarajan said it was a technology demonstrator of integrating a weapon system on a T-72 chasis and it was upto the users like army to induct them if it finds them attractive.
On the Bhim Project, mounting a 155 mm turret mountain gun, which was being undertaken with South African company Denel Cooperation, Natarajan said it had come stuck due to “political reasons”. “The country is looking for alternative sources and recently we have received offer from companies in Poland and Russia and we are evaluating these,” he said.
Bureau Report
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