DRDO: India's Missile Defence Shield Ready | TechTree.com

DRDO: India's Missile Defence Shield Ready

Claims to be capable of protecting two cities up to a 2000 km radius, brings India on par with an elite group of nations.

 
Gallery: DRDO: India's Missile Defence Shield Ready

India is now capable of protecting two cities against airborne missile attacks, using its newly developed defence shield, according to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). This effectively puts it on par with an elite group of nations sporting such technology. The defence organisation has successfully tested and destroyed incoming missiles within a range of up to 2000 km using this system, and has stated that this range will be upgraded to 5000 km by 2016. Prithvi missile variants were used as incoming missiles during the tests. This is a big step forward for the country, which successfully tested its first ICBM, Agni-V last month.

Commenting on the event, DRDO Chief VK Saraswat said, "The Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) shield is now mature... We are ready to put phase one in place and it can be put in very short time". He further claimed that it can shield two cities simultaneously in its current iteration. Although he declined to identify the names of these cities, he did mention that this selection will be made at the political level. He added, "We have carried out six successful launches and demonstrated the capability for 2,000 km targets... We have demonstrated it in two layers that is endo-atmospheric [inside the earth's atmosphere] and exo-atmospheric [outside the earth's atmosphere]".

The operational requirements of the system, namely long-range radars and tracking devices, a real-time data link, and mission control system are said to be in place. Phase-II is currently under development, and is expected to be completed by 2016. The agency stated that the system is automated to an extent, thus requiring minimal human intervention; except where it is critically required. DRDO has said that this is comparable to America's PATRIOT Advanced Capability-3 systems that were used to intercept and bring down missiles during the 2003 war against Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Here are a bunch of official DRDO slides from mid-2010 that show this technology, which was then under development.


TAGS: Government, Science, Security, Jayesh

 
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