Indian Army test fires Prithvi-II missile

Balasore: India successfully test-fired an indigenously developed, nuclear-capable, short range ballistic missile, the Prithvi-II, from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, off the Orissa coast on Friday.  The missile blasted off from a mobile launcher at launch complex-3 in the ITR at around 6:50am, defence sources said.

"The trial of Prithvi-II, conducted by the Army, has gone through nicely," ITR director SP Dash said.

With a maximum striking range of 350 km, Prithvi-II is capable of carrying a pay-load of 500 kg.

The test was a user trial by the Army's specialised group "strategic force command" (SFC), sources said. The surface-to-surface missile has already been inducted into Indian armed forces and is part of the inventory of all three services. The Indian Navy fields a version that goes under the designation Dhanush. 

The entire trajectory of the missile was tracked by a battery of sophisticated radars and electro-optic sensors positioned in different locations with data fed to telemetry stations for post-launch analysis, sources said.

The trial was conducted in the presence of Army officials and scientists as part of an exercise to well acquaint the personnel with various aspects of the sophisticated missile, it was informed.