Agni-3 ready for induction after second successful flight test

Mumbai: India today successfully test-fired a 3,000-km-range surface-to-surface Agni-III missile for the second time, establishing the missile's erformance repeatability.

The Agni-3, which is ready for induction in the armed forces, will induct India to the select group of nations with intermediate range missile capability.

The intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) was test-fired from a mobile launcher from the launch complex (LC-4) of the integrated test range (ITR) at the Wheeler Island off the Orissa coast, at about 0956 hours, defence sources said.

The 16 metre-long and 1.8-metre wide missile blasted off into the sky, leaving behind a thick plume of orange and white smoke and, within hit the target within 800 seconds.

It was a text book launch and followed the trajectory with single digit guidance accuracy. All the subsystems of the Missile functioned in a copybook manner giving an outstanding integrated performance of the missile in terms of range and accuracy.

The missile reached the pre-designated target in a time of 800 seconds, travelling through a peak height of 350 km with a velocity of more than 4,000 metres per second. Two Indian Naval ships positioned near the target location south of equator, have confirmed the impact of the missile.

This is the third flight test in the series of Agni-3, which was carried out to establish the repeatability of missile performance.

The Agni-3 missile system is equipped with sophisticated navigation, guidance and control systems along with advanced distributed architecture based on-board computer systems.

The missile was tracked by various telemetry stations, electro optic systems and radars located along the coast, Port Blair and by the downrange ships positioned near the target location. The data from the various stations is transmitted in real time through an advanced communication network of DRDO for online performance evaluation and range safety.

Agni-3 Missile is a two-stage solid propellant system with a length 17 metres, diameter of 2 metres and launch weight of 50 tonnes, carries a payload of 1.5 tons.

The Missile Re-enters into the atmosphere with a very high velocity and experiences a deceleration of more than 35 g and a temperature of more than 2500 °C. The payload is protected by carbon-carbon all composite heat shield. Agni-3 is a rail mobile system, capable of being launched from anywhere in India.

The complete Integration and launch activities are carried out under the leadership of Agni programme director Avinash Chander. With this flight, the developmental flights of Agni-3 are complete and the system is ready for induction, he said.