India successfully tests two nuke capable missiles

BHUBANESWAR - India early Saturday successfully tested two nuclear capable missiles Dhanush and Prithvi II in Orissa, an official said.

“Both the missiles were successfully lunched same time at 5.30 hours,” S.P. Dash, director of Integrated Test Range of Chandipur in Balasore district, told IANS.

While Prithvi II surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of 350 km was launched from Chandipur, some 230 km from state capital Bhubaneswar, Dhanush, a naval version of Prithvi with the same range was launched from a naval ship off Orissa coast.

Prithvi is India’s first indigenously built ballistic missile. It is one of the five missiles being developed under India’s Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP).

The missile with a flight duration of 483 seconds reaching a peak altitude of 43.5 km has the capability to carry 500 kg of warhead.

The missile which has the features to deceive any anti-ballistic missiles uses advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory and reaches the targets with a few metres’ accuracy.

Two versions of the missiles have already been deployed with the army and the air force. Saturday’s test was conducted by the Indian Army as part of user trial to gauge accuracy in the presence of several defence scientists, sources said.

Dhanush, which means archer’s bow in Sanskrit, was launched by a team of the Indian Navy personnels trained by the DRDO, from a naval ship in the Bay of Bengal near coastal town of Puri, 56 km from here.

Dhanush gives Indian Navy a capability of launching a missile onto enemy’s targets with great precision.