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India Test-Fires Agni-III IRBM
UPI Senior News Analyst Washington (UPI) April 17, 2007 India appears to have cleared the bugs out of its ambitious Agni-III intermediate range ballistic missile. The Agni-III, which has the range to hit targets in China, was successfully test-launched for the first time last Thursday. The missile was test-fired from a rail mobile launcher system on the Wheeler Island military facility at the Chandipur defense base off the Orissa coast in the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Defense Ministry said in a statement. "Agni-III has confirmed India's strategic capability for a minimum credible deterrence," Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony said in a statement. "The Indian Defense Ministry said the Agni III was about 50 feet long and weighed 48 tonnes with a range of more than 1,800 km with a 1.5 tonne payload that makes it capable of striking targets as far away as China. "The trajectory of Agni-III was computed by the onboard computer system based on the launch and target coordinates. During the flight, the missile had no communication with the ground systems and was fully 'intelligent' to reach its designated target," the Defense Ministry said. "The entire flight of approximately 15 minutes validated all mission objectives, primarily to establish the performance of the two-stage propulsion system and the flexible nozzle control system developed by DRDO scientists for the very first time," the statement said. Ground stations in Orissa and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and two Indian navy ships in the Indian Ocean monitored the missile's flight path, it said. "'With this success, the design team is happy that the problems faced in the previous attempt on July 9 last year have been fully understood and solved," the ministry statement said. "During that launch, the second stage of the missile did not disengage successfully and as a result the Agni III crashed into the Bay of Bengal well short of its target. The missile on that occasion also experienced problems with its protective heat shield, design and propulsion. However, mission director Avinash Chander said Thursday's flight test saw across-the-board success in key technologies on the missile developed by India's Defence Research and Development Organization. The statement said these included "the flexible nozzle controls of the rocket motor during the powered phase, the specially developed composite propellant for the rocket, guidance and control systems with inbuilt fault tolerant avionics, and the withstanding of the severe aero-thermal environment experienced during the re-entry phase, as also coordinated mission management."
Source: United Press International Email This Article
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