A detailed view of the Indian ABM project….. It also shows the advances of India in this field, I think other than USA and Russia no other country has gained/tested so much in this area…..

The interceptor

The target

The man behind the test : V.K. Saraswat, Programme Director, Air Defence, DRDO.

Hat-trick of hits

http://flonnet.com/stories/20090410260704100.htm

T.S. SUBRAMANIAN

The success of the DRDO’s March 6 test means that India will have a ballistic missile defence shield ready for deployment in four years.

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The interceptor missile Prithvi racing towards its target soon after its launch from Wheeler Island, off the Orissa coast, on March 6.

THE Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) prowess in advanced software that goes into the making of interceptor missiles was proved convincingly on March 6 when a Prithvi interceptor missile achieved a direct hit-to-kill on an “enemy” missile. The interception took place at an altitude of 80 kilometres when a modified Dhanush missile, launched from the naval ship INS Subhadra in the Bay of Bengal, was in its descent phase and hurtling towards Wheeler Island, off Orissa’s coast. Dhanush was simulating the final phase of the trajectory of ballistic missiles with a range of 1,500 km, such as Pakistan’s Ghauri missile. At the end of over five minutes of heightened suspense at the Launch Control Centre (LCC) on Wheeler Island, the Prithvi interceptor missile cut into the path of the incoming “Dhanush” missile, knocked it out and also pulverised the latter with its new manoeuvrable warhead.

Such was the accuracy of the interception that those scanning the plot-boards at the LCC celebrated like never before. India was finally on the way to acquiring a ballistic missile defence shield to thwart enemy attacks. In terms of strategic importance, the success established India’s capability to intercept Pakistan’s Hatf and Ghauri missiles.

“Our strength is our software,” V.K. Saraswat, Programme Director, Air Defence, DRDO, had declared in November 2008. “In the ballistic missile defence shield, if there are glitches in the software, it cannot be excused. It has to work thoroughly. There are a million lines of code. The onboard software runs in real time in the interceptor missile.”

Saraswat called the March 6 success “a major test in assembling the ballistic missile defence system as part of network-centric warfare”. He added: “In the next 25 years, you will see a growth in the direction of network-centric warfare. So we are making these building blocks.”

It was the third success in a row for the DRDO, which has been making all-out efforts to acquire a two-layered ballistic missile defence shield with interceptors that can shoot down incoming missiles. It tasted success in its first mission on November 27, 2006, when a Prithvi missile intercepted a Prithvi-II missile at an altitude of 48 km in what is called the exo-atmosphere. It was a direct hit. The interceptor was called Prithvi Air Defence (PAD-01). Again, on December 6, 2008, an Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile shot down a modified Prithvi missile at an altitude of 15 km in what is called the endo-atmosphere when the “attacker” was in the final stage of its flight. It was a direct hit too. With the March 6 direct hit, the DRDO has achieved a hat-trick.

If the interception on March 6 took place at an altitude much higher than in the previous missions, there are distinct advantages to it. The debris will take longer to fall through the atmosphere and become cinders because of re-entry heat. In an actual war, this will reduce the effect of any fallout of the debris of a nuclear warhead and the risks associated with radiation.

Three features stood out in the latest mission: the Prithvi interceptor missile’s gimballed/manoeuvrable warhead, which can rotate 360 degrees; the interceptor’s coasting phase, which can “take care” of the manoeuvres performed by the attacker; and the very advanced software residing in the computers of the interceptor. The warhead is called a directional one because it can be directed to explode towards the target. Only the U.S. and Russia have gimballed directional warheads.

Regarding the software used in the interceptor, Saraswat said: “The software of the guidance, control and navigation systems, which was generated by our scientists in Hyderabad, is practically the high watermark of the technology of our ballistic missile defence system. It will not be out of place to say that while many countries have been struggling for many years to get this kind of performance, it is to the credit of the young team at the DRDO that it made this mission a success. As far as the programme is concerned, this is a major milestone in proving the capability of our ballistic missile defence shield.” The computer controlled, navigated and guided the vehicle towards its target, besides performing a series of mission-sequencing tasks. Besides, the interceptor had a special software to discriminate the terminal phase of the enemy missile’s flight. Interceptions would take place in the terminal phase.

The test

Dhanush, the “enemy” missile, was a single-stage missile with a diameter of one metre, a weight of 4.5 tonnes, and a height of 9.4 m. Propelled by liquid fuel, it quickly climbed to an altitude of 150 km, cut a parabola and started heading towards Wheeler Island. About 50 seconds into its flight, radars at Konark and Paradip in Orissa tracked the missile and relayed the information to the Mission Control Centre (MCC) on Wheeler Island. The MCC then analysed whether it was a ballistic missile or an aircraft. Within five seconds, the MCC concluded that it was a “hostile” target which would impact close to Wheeler Island very soon. This information was received by the LCC, which used it to compute the trajectory of the interceptor to engage the incoming ballistic missile. It then decided that the interception should take place at an altitude of 80 km when Dhanush was in its descent mode. The LCC also quickly decided when the interceptor, named Prithvi Air Defence (PAD-02), should lift off. When the launch computer gave the command for it to blast off, the two-stage interceptor, 10 metres tall, weighing 5.2 tonnes and having a diameter of one metre, rose from a truck on the beach-head on the island. While its first stage was powered by liquid fuel, the second stage had solid propellants.

About five minutes and ten seconds later, when the interceptor had reached an altitude of 80 km, its homing seeker acquired the target when it was 25 km away. Using this information, the interceptor’s computer guided it towards the target and brought it within a few metres of Dhanush.

At this point of time, the radio proximity fuse (RPF) of the gimballed directional warhead calculated the distance from Dhanush and the time at which the warhead should detonate.

“When the interceptor and the target were practically colliding with each other, the warhead was detonated, which led to the fragmentation of the target and the interceptor. It was a direct hit and also a warhead detonation. A large number of fragments formed due to the collision and detonation of the warhead were tracked by ground radars and the radars on ships. We could see on our plot boards hundreds of new tracks being formed, confirming that it was both a direct hit and a detonation,” Saraswat said.

The highlights of the mission were proving the technology of the gimballed directional warhead and demonstrating the interceptor’s coasting phase, using a vernier thruster. This coasting phase in the interceptor’s trajectory helps it to decide at what stage it should intercept the “enemy” missile. If the attacker does a manoeuvre, the interceptor’s guidance system will take care of it. To make the seeker effective, the DRDO used a wide-beam RPF in the warhead, which was a mini-radar. “So even if there is a manoeuvre by the enemy missile in the last 500 milliseconds, the RPF will be able to take care of it. The directional warhead will be ignited on the basis of the data given by the RPF,” said Saraswat.

Another major element employed in the mission was the advanced battle management command, control and communication software, which resided in the MCC. The entire event was tracked by a number of ground stations with complete mobile and static communication systems provided by satellites, fibre optics and line-of-sight communication.

Saraswat said: “It was a mission planned, designed and executed with clockwork precision. It proves the robustness, reliability and repeatability of the design of India’s emerging ballistic missile defence system, which can take care of incoming missiles with a range of 300 km to 1,500 km. It demonstrates that the DRDO’s ballistic missile defence shield has reached a great level of maturity.”

COURTESY: DRDO

THE DHANUSH MISSILE being launched from the naval ship INS Subhadra in the Bay of Bengal.

W. Selvamurthy, Chief Controller, DRDO, predicted that in the wake of the “hat-trick of successes”, India’s ballistic missile defence shield would be ready for deployment in about four years. “It will take us a couple of more trials before our system is ready to be offered for deployment. In the next trial, we will do combined interceptions in both the exo-atmosphere and the endo-atmosphere,” he said.

Saraswat praised “the synergy” and “the collective skill and knowledge” of the DRDO laboratories which made the mission a success. They included the Research Centre Imarat, the Advanced Systems Laboratory and the Defence Research and Development Laboratory, all located in Hyderabad and collectively called “the missile complex”; the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory, the Armament Research and Development Establishment, and the Research and Development Establishment (Engineers), all located in Pune; the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment, Bangalore; the Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory, Chandigarh; and the Vehicle Research and Development Establishment, Ahmednagar. •

Ahh, this never-ending “let’s make a cruiser out of a corvette” quest… 😀

The IN considered PAAMS for the P-17s.

It looks like P-17 delays harming other projects as well ….bad sign for indian defence shipbuilding… i think the Navy should go for Private + PSU JV…

Sorry, Mumbai has no berth for Kolkata
SUJAN DUTTA

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090317/jsp/nation/story_10681349.jsp

New Delhi, March 16: The navy is all at sea because there is no room in Mumbai for Kolkata.

The INS Kolkata, the navy’s “stealth” guided-missile destroyer named after the Bengal capital, is floating — unable to sail — in the waters off the west coast metropolis.

Not a berth is available in the Mazagaon Docks where the INS Kolkata is to be moored so that it can be fitted with four gas turbines to propel it; given a landing deck and a hangar for two helicopters; armed with missiles and torpedoes to make it the most powerful warship of its class.

On schedule, the 6,700-tonne INS Kolkata would by now have been in a “hot start” mode with four Ukrainian M-36 Gas Turbine propulsion systems and ready for sea trials. Classified as Project 15Alpha, the INS Kolkata, the first of three in its class, would have “an updated weapons package and new-look exteriors and improved stealth (making it difficult to detect) and will be delivered beginning with the end of this decade”, says official literature distributed by the directorate of naval design.

But senior naval sources say a conservative delivery schedule envisages that the INS Kolkata will be ready only in 2013, at least three years after its deadline.

The INS Kolkata is not the only warship to be delayed. A parliamentary committee study has found that nearly all the stealth projects of the navy totalling worth more than Rs 19,000 crore are late. More than 30 ships and submarines are being built for the Indian Navy at home and overseas.

The INS Kolkata was “launched” three years ago. Its keel was laid in September 2003 when it was announced that it would be commissioned in 2010.

But now there is not a single shipyard in the country large enough to accommodate the INS Kolkata. Calcutta’s own Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers is too small to accommodate a destroyer. Even then, it has its berths full with orders for offshore and fast patrol boats and frigates.

In Mazagaon Docks (MDL), a senior naval officer told The Telegraph: “They do not have the manpower, design, capability, availability of berths, and the wherewithal to meet monthly targets — simply put, there does not seem to be the will.”

He said MDL makes a 12 per cent profit in any case and cost overruns add to its revenues and all projects, including the strategic, licensed-from-the-French Scorpene submarine venture, are running behind schedule.

Worse, the INS Shivalik stealth frigate project has been hit by an insidious bombshell after the new Obama administration instructed GE to stop work on a pair of gas turbine engines on the ship under US laws.

The Indian Navy is now trying to work around the laws by drawing in consultants from Italy and Germany by using the defence public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. The INS Shivalik is likely to be delayed by at least nine months.

The INS Kolkata is an advancement over the INS Delhi, the destroyer currently in service that also has the INS Mumbai and the INS Mysore in its class. The enhanced weapons package on the INS Kolkata will include twin-tube torpedo-launchers, anti-submarine rocket launchers, and 28 Long Range Surface to Air Missiles (LR-SAMs), possibly the Barak-NG (next generation).

The Barak-NG has run into a controversy itself with the CPM demanding that India should pull out of the joint venture project. A venture between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation and the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for which the cabinet committee on security has committed at least Rs 10,000 crore, the Barak-NG or Barak-II ship missile defence system is yet to be tried and tested.

The Indian Navy has armed its vessels with the first generation of Barak missiles with which it claims it is satisfied.

In keeping with the new look that the city it is named after aspires for, the INS Kolkata has been given a sophisticated design that compares among the best of warships in its class.

Indian Naval Headquarters asked its designers to come up with a destroyer that can operate with fully integrated multi-function radar systems and, for the first time, 16 silos — eight on each side — capable of launching Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles.

Estimated to cost nearly Rs 8,500 crore, the INS Kolkata “will be capable of exerting sea-control in a multi-threat environment”, says Rear Admiral M.K. Budhwar, director-general of naval design.

A good and informative article about the missile defence test…. I think they should reduce the reaction time (160 seconds) and the warhead detonation distance from the target for future missions. Good to see that they are developing radars enough to ‘look’ more than 2000 km inside enemy territory.

Aerial ambush

Graphics: N.V. Jose

India’s own ‘Star Wars’ programme clears its third consecutive field test
By Syed Nazakat

http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?sectionName=Current+Events&contentId=5260428&programId=1073754900&pageTypeId=1073754893&contentType=EDITORIAL

As ballistic missile Dhanush lifted off INS Subhadra on the afternoon of March 6 and swooped towards the Orissa coast 150 km away, only Dr V.K. Saraswat knew where it was going to strike. But he kept quiet.
In 50 seconds radars at Konark and Paradip picked up the incoming missile, which was racing out of the earth’s atmosphere, and ‘informed’ the mission control centre. The centre’s computers declared the missile ‘hostile’ and, from its flight path, assessed its target.

Within 160 seconds of the radars picking up the target, Saraswat’s newest missile lifted off and raced at a speed of 3,500 metres per second out of the earth’s atmosphere. The mission: kill the hostile missile before it reentered the atmosphere. As it climbed sharply, ground radars fed its embedded computers with the enemy’s position, trajectory and velocity-all this in 100 milliseconds. Soon the interceptor’s radio frequency homing seeker spotted the enemy and went for the kill. As chances of missing a direct hit are high, the interceptor’s new gimballed directional warhead burst within nine metres of the ‘hostile’ missile and blew it into smithereens-a safe 80km away from the intended target.

It was a hat-trick for Saraswat and the Defence Research and Development Organisation of which he is the chief controller of missile systems. In November 2006, he had killed an incoming missile 48km away from the earth and outside the atmosphere. And in December 2007, he had killed another one inside the atmosphere, just 15km from the target. And towards the end of this year, Saraswat wants to kill two birds with one stone: an endo- and an exo-atmospheric test in one go.

The third successful test has put India in an exclusive club-with the US, Russia and Israel-of countries which are developing their own ballistic missile defence systems. Saraswat hopes to have the system in place by 2011. It will also track Pakistani and Chinese atom-tipped missiles with a network of ground-based early warning radars.

The system can take care of threats from all Pakistani missiles, which have ranges less than 2,000 km. For taking care of ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) “you need interceptors which can fly 6,000 to 7,000 metres per second,” said a DRDO scientist. Saraswat wants to develop it as the next phase, while simultaneously planning for two more tests with the present capability. “You need at least five tests in this phase,” said he.

Can the enemy jam the system and mislead the interceptor? Yes, the enemy would try to jam the ?frequency of the data-link between the radars and the interceptor. “So ?we have catered for frequency diversity,” said Saraswat. “And the interceptor batteries would be distributed. Even if they jam one or two, the remaining would be working.”

DRDO officials concede that an enemy would be launching a volley of missiles. “My radar can handle 200 targets simultaneously,” said Saraswat. He is confident that with sufficient batteries of interceptor missiles, even volley attacks can be neutralised. DRDO has been working on ballistic missile defence technologies since the mid-1990s. “Some 400 industries are involved in various associated programmes,” said Saraswat.

But Saraswat’s big dream is to develop hypersonic missiles-which fly at five times the speed of sound-for the ballistic missile defence system. It is learnt that DRDO labs are working on two of them, and a hypersonic wind tunnel has been set up in Hyderabad to test them. :confused:

Meanwhile, with the impending acquisition of air-based surveillance platforms, scientists hope to extend the surveillance range beyond the present 600 km to more than 2,000 km into enemy territory. That, incidentally, is more than the distance between the two farthest points in Pakistan. “We have to look at our neighbourhood, our geography and the threat we have,” said Brigadier (retd) Gurmeet Kanwal, director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies. “That should determine what defence system we need to defend our country. It is crucial that we are on our way to having a missile defence system.”

With R. Prasannan

It’s called Sampson 😉

🙂 Actually i forgot the pronunciation.

A fit such as the one suggested by you was never going to happen on a smallish ship like the P-17, not to mention that we’d have certainly heard about a PAAMS sale to India before. Additionally, the Indian Navy is already committed to Barak-NG on a different class of ships as its area airdefence system, as pointed out by you.

I agree that the absence of VL-Shtil is a bit surprising though.

I think PAAMS was not too heavy for a 5000 ton ship!!! Yes we heard that PAAMS was considered by the IN for P-17 ships!!! What happened later i dont know!!!

Barak-NG is yet to be developed and tested!! I think it will cause a lot of delay to the P-15A.

Just think about PAAMS+Brahmos combo!!! wow… :dev2:

India may not have had any problem with EUMs at all if it was US ally and had stable relations with them, common foreign policy, even allowed US bases etc. But unfortunately none of this is true. i am not talking about present situation but over the last 30 to 50 years.

But if you take Europe and Russia, our main suppliers of arms, they not only have good relations but they don’t mind if India uses their fighters as nuclear weapon carriers, they didn’t mind if India waged war against Pakistan whenever she wants to, they don’t mind if india tests a nuclear weapon, they don’t mind if India builds long range ballistic missiles.

200% agreed!! While anyone has the choice to go for Eurofighter/Rafale/Mig-35 why he will go for a US fighter??!!! Even US’s closest allies like UK, Australia and Japan are not getting full support from US in various regards than forget India!!! They want to sell we want to buy, simple, they are not donating anything.

Ah, thank you, I’ve been looking forward to new imagery of these. Any more pics? Link?

Another photo from the same….

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zUe7sq7m3h0/SbPG5PGOgGI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/YjVv2Jqz1W8/s1600-h/Shivalik+mast.JPG

El/M-2221 STGR for Barak-1
Grapun BAL
Fregat Top plate
Orekh
BEL navigation radar etc

PAD test video

PAD test video (06-03-2009)

Excellent video of the PAD interceptor tested on 6th March 2009….. Specially the target EOTS view….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5g_XbY34oI