BALASORE: India on Friday created ‘history of sorts’ by launching two variants of a missile back-to-back within a gap of nearly an hour. While Dhanush missile was fired from a warship, its sibling Prithvi-II was launched from the integrated test range (ITR) off the Chandipur coast.
Defence sources said, both the missiles capable of hitting targets 350 km away and carrying nuclear warheads, were test fired by the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) as part of their ‘Mission Sankalpa’ to gauge the effectiveness of the weapons. With the test, India became the first country to launch missiles from ship and land based platforms in a quick succession.
Dhanush missile, the naval version of Prithvi ballistic missile, was fired from INS Suvarna anchored about 35 km from the coast between Paradip and Puri at about 10.03 am followed by Prithvi-II which was launched from the LC-III of the ITR at 11 am.
“Both the missiles maintained pre-coordinated trajectories besides meeting all mission objectives and parameters. It has achieved single digit accuracy reaching close to zero circular error probability (CEP),” said DRDO Chief V K Saraswat, who monitored the tests from ITR.
Defence sources said, the missiles were taken from the production lot and launched from both the locations by two independent teams under the supervision of missile systems quality assurance agency (MSQAA).
“The missiles’ trajectories were also monitored by all the telemetry, radars and electro-optical systems. Prithvi-II reached the designated target with accuracy of few meters, which can be achieved by very few missiles in the World,” a defence release stated. Both the missiles can carry warheads up to 500 kg.
The two missiles were test fired within five days of the successful demonstration of Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system on March 6 by DRDO.
The series of successful launches has boosted the morale of the scientists and armed forces.
The launch operations were monitored by DRDL Director P. Venugopalan, ITR Director SP Dash, programme director VLN Rao and DRDO scientists. Defence Minister AK Antony has congratulated all the officials involved with the
mission.