Nuclear-capable Agni-II missile test fired

Balasore: India on Sunday successfully test-fired its medium-range nuclear-capable Agni-II missile with a strike range of more than 2,000km from the Wheeler Island off Odisha coast as part of a user trial by the Army.

“The trial of the surface-to-surface missile was conducted from a mobile launcher from the Launch Complex-4 of Integrated Test Range at around 9.40am,” defence officials said.

Describing the test of the state-of-the-art missile as fully successful, ITR Director MVKV Prasad said, “It was a user trial conducted by the Army.”

Agni-II Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) has already been inducted into the services and Sunday’s test was carried out by the specially formed Strategic Forces Command of the Army as part of a training exercise with logistic support provided by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the officials said.

The two-stage sophisticated missile equipped with advanced high accuracy navigation system, guided by a novel scheme of state of the earth command and control system, was propelled by solid rocket propellant system, they said.

“The entire trajectory of the trial tracked by a battery of sophisticated radars, telemetry observation stations, electro-optic instruments and naval ships located near the impact point in the down range area of the sea,” said a DRDO scientist.

The 20-metre long Agni-II missile is a two-stage, solid-propelled ballistic missile. It has a launch weight of 17 tonnes and can carry a payload of 1,000kg over a distance of more than 2,000km.

The Agni-II missile was developed by Advanced Systems Laboratory (ASL) and integrated by the Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), Hyderabad.

Agni-II is part of the Agni series of missiles developed by DRDO which includes Agni-I with 700km range, Agni-III with 3,000km range, Agni-IV with 4,000km range and Agni-V more than 5,000km range, they said.

The last trial of Agni-II conducted on April 7, 2013 from the same base was a total success.