India on Sunday test fired its Agni-III, a nuclear-capable ballistic missile with a range of more than 3,000 km. It is the fourth test for the 17 m long market –pen like missile with a diameter of 2 m and weight of 50 tonnes. Barring the first test three years back, all the other tests have been successful, defence research officials said.
The launch is part of the pre-induction trial. The test was carried out from a rail mobile launcher near the Wheeler Island off Indian east coast in the Bay of Bengal. The site is about 100 km from Balasore.
The missile is powered by a two-stage solid propellant system. It can carry a payload of 1.5 tonnes which is protected by carbon-carbon all composite heat shield. The missile is equipped with a state of the art computer system, navigated with a most advanced Navigation system and guided with an innovative guidance scheme. The Navigation system used for guidance is first of its kind.
The latest flight test has sought to establish the "repeatability" of the missile’s performance. During the course of flight the Missile reached a peak height of 350 kms and re-entered the atmosphere successfully tolerating the skin temperatures of nearly 3000 degree Celsius.
It hit the target with pin-point accuracy and met all the mission objectives, defence scientists said, adding that the entire trajectory was monitored through a network of telemetry stations, electro-optic systems and sophisticated radars located along the coast, and at Port Blair in the Andamans besides by Naval ships anchored near the impact point.
