Mighty India Power

The Indian Army on Sunday successfully test fired the land attack version of the supersonic BrahMos cruise missile at the Pokhran test range in Rajasthan. The missile took off successfully and hit the "bull's eye", an official statement said. The missile, a joint venture of India and Russia, was fired at 11.15 am on Sunday. "Today (Sunday) land attack version of BrahMos block-II was tested from a mobile autonomous launcher at Pokhran test range by the Indian Army. The missile took off successfully and hit the desired target at bull's eye meeting all mission parameters," a statement issued by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said. This is the second launch this month and third this year for the block-II version for the army. In the first test, the missile failed to hit the target. The army kept the results of the second test under wraps even though DRDO termed it successful. "With this launch, the requirement of army for the la...

India has signed a 1.4 million dollar air defence deal with Israel for the purchase and joint development of an air defence system. The Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has officially acknowledged that the defence deal between the two nations was signed on February 27. However, Indian Defence Ministry is yet to confirm the deal officially. According to business daily ‘Globes’, under this deal, Israel will create and manufacture sea-borne and shore-based systems against missile attacks on India. India itself has achieved success in developing a powerful missile in the same class. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has recently been successful in test firing Advance Air Defence (AAD) missile. India is currently Israel’s largest arms buyer. The two sides have even discussed on the schedule of payments. It has been agreed that part of the payment for the systems will be made during the development period and the balance will be paid during the 66-month delivery ...

Two weeks ago, a ballistic missile blasted off from a warship sailing in the Bay of Bengal. Its target was Wheeler Island, a small enclave of land off the coast of India and home to one of India's most important missile testing facilities. Within seconds of the launch, the Indian military's radars and computer banks began tracking the supersonic rocket. Several computations later, an alarm triggered another "hot" missile on the island that, once launched, began pursuing the aggressor warhead. Some 70 kilometers above the earth's surface, the two collided. The rocket's debris fell through the sky, most of it burned and vaporized. What little remained scattered like ash into the vast expanses of the Indian Ocean, marking India's third successful test of its nascent missile defense system. Over the past few years, the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), the Indian military's scientific arm, has been trying to push India into a very exc...

India is believed to have reached a 1.9 billion dollar deal with an Israeli company for the supply and joint development of medium-range surface-to-air missiles. The defence ministry is yet to officially confirm the deal, but sources in the department of defence research and development (DRDO) said it was likely to go ahead. The joint development of the 70-kilometre MR-SAM missile project would be carried out by India’s DRDO and the Israeli Aircraft Industries. The Israeli company also manufactures Barak missile systems and the DRDO is hoping that collaboration with the IAI will help it develop these missiles within four to five years. Indian left-wing parties have raised objections to the proposed deal. Two prominent Communist leaders Prakash Karat and A.B. Bardhan sent a letter to the prime minister in February alleging bribes were paid to clinch the Barak surface-to-air missile interceptor deal in 2000 and that there is evidence of remittances paid by Israel Aircraft Industries....

India, which is one of the few countries in the world to have significant space capabilities, is willing to work with the US to develop anti-satellite weapons, a top diplomat has said. "This is an area of convergence on which we would be happy to work together with the US and contribute to a multilateral agreement," Shyam Saran, Prime Minister's Special Envoy, said in his address to the Brookings Institution. Saran was referring to the recent announcements made by the US President, Barack Obama, about his intention to join multilateral efforts to prevent military conflict in space and to negotiate an agreement to prohibit the testing of anti-satellite weapons. India welcomes this, he said. "We have a large number of communications and resource survey satellites currently in orbit. Although this does not fall strictly within the nuclear domain, the need to ensure the peaceful uses of outer space, is important for nuclear stability and international security," S...

India has bought a spy satellite from Israel with day-and-night viewing capability to boost surveillance capabilities in the aftermath of the Mumbai militant attacks, a report said Friday. The satellite, which can see through clouds and carry out day-and-night all-weather imaging, has been one of the long-standing demands of the Indian military, the NDTV news channel said. The 300 kilogram (650 pound) RISAT 2 will be launched by India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket in the next few weeks, the report said. Indian scientists were in the process of integrating the satellite and the rocket at the Sriharikota space port in southern India, it said. The acquisition was fast-tracked after the November 26-29 Mumbai siege in which 10 gunmen went on a shooting spree. India says the attackers came by boat from the Pakistani port city of Karachi to Mumbai, based on its investigations and the confession of the lone gunman captured alive after the 60-hour siege, in which 165 people w...

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said Monday plans to develop the country's ballistic missile programme were on course and the first phase would be completed by 2011. Senior DRDO official, Dr VK Saraswat, said two more tests would be conducted to conclude this phase of the programme. With the successful third ballistic missile interceptor flight-test already conducted on Friday at the integrated test range, chief controller (Missiles Strategic Systems) and Programme Director (Air Defence), Dr VK Saraswat said, ''The third consecutive interception of ballistic missile demonstrated the robustness of the Indian BMD system. The DRDO have already conducted two interception trials, first in exo-atmospheric region at 48 km altitude on 27 November 2006 and the second in endo-atmospheric region at 15 km using AAD missile on 6 December 2007,'' he said. Briefing journalists, Dr. Saraswat said an integrated endo- and exo-atmospheric test was on the car...

India might deploy missile detection and tracking satellites as part of a next generation of missile defense technologies New Delhi hopes to begin fielding by 2014, the Times of India reported today . New Delhi is planning to develop interceptors capable of striking longer-range missiles that fly considerably faster than the weapons India's current missile defense are designed to defend against. Last week, the nation successfully tested a two-stage interceptor that destroyed its target flying 80 kilometers above the Earth. Another test of that system is scheduled for September, the Times reported. "What we are now perfecting are Phase-I interceptor missiles, which fly at 4.5 Mach high-supersonic speeds. We are already working on Phase-II interceptors, which will have hypersonic speeds of 6-7 Mach," said V.K. Saraswat of India's Defense Research and Development Organization. The more capable systems could also give India an antisatellite capability

Buoyed by the successful testing of its fledgling ballistic missile defence, India is pushing ahead with an ambitious version of the star wars project capable of shooting down incoming ICBMs in the 5,000 km range. The phase-II of the BMD systems, likely to be deployed by 2014, will be an important part of India's defence as both China and Pakistan possess nuclear capable missiles. Once the BMD is in place it will place India in a fairly exclusive club alongside US, Russia and Israel. India will be playing catch up with China which stunned the world by shooting down a weather satellite with a missile in January 2007. Putting in place a system capable of intercepting inter-continental ballistic missiles would enhance India's strategic prowess. While a BMD system can be overwhelmed by a flurry of missiles or a low-flying cruise, it would be a important part of India's defence against the danger of ballistic missiles. If the ongoing Phase-I BMD system is geared to tackling ...

Dr A Sivathanu Pillai, Chief Controller of Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO), said that the Brahmos Aerospace is working on hypersonic missile project, Brahmos II, which is expected to be ready by 2013. Talking on the sidelines after inaugurating a combat vehicles and engineering exhibition, organised as part of the DRDO’s golden jubilee celebrations, Pillai, who is also the CEO and the managing director of Brahmos Aerospace, Thiruvavanthapuram, said that the missile will have a speed between Mach 5 and Mach 7. He also claimed that the Brahmos cruise missile at Mach 2.8 is the fastest in the world. Asked about the failure of the Brahmos missile’s land attack version, which was tested some time ago, he said the reasons for the failures have been identified and efforts on rectifying the “problem with the software” was on. He revealed that work on the development of a universal missile launcher has started at the Brahmos Aerospace in Thiruvananthapuram. Speaking at the ...

A new version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile meant to attack a particular target out of a cluster on land was successfully tested at the Army’s range at Pokhran, Rajasthan, on Wednesday. This was its 19th flight and the launch took place at 10.35 a.m. In its previous flight on January 20 it missed the target following a software glitch. This variant is called the Block II version. BrahMos is essentially an anti-ship missile. Informed sources described it as “a difficult mission” because the target was just 50 km away instead of the normal range of 290 km. Besides, the missile had to perform “a discriminatory role”: it had to hit the desired target out of a cluster of small targets, resembling “a factory-type situation.” The time given to the missile to perform manoeuvres and hit the target was much less than the normal flight. But these “constraints were overcome” with the Global Positioning System (GPS) update coming in correctly and the missile homed in on the desired ta...

After failing to hit the target in the previous test, DRDO is planning to test-fire the Block II version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile on March 4. "We are planning to conduct the second test of the BrahMos Block II version at the Army's test range in Pokharan on March 4 this week," Defence Ministry officials said here. The earlier test of the Indo-Russian joint venture missile was carried out on January 20 where it took off successfully but deviated from its path and landed far away from its target. Speaking about the earlier problems with the missile, officials claimed that there was a "small defect" in the software of the homing device of the missile, which they claimed to have rectified for the test this week. Officials claimed that the technology in the Block II missiles was "unparallelled" and would help them hit even "insignificant targets" hidden in cluster of buildings.