Balasore (Orissa), March 27: ‘Prithvi-II’ ballistic missile, which has a maximum range of 295 km, was successfully test fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, about 15 km from here, off the Orissa coast early today.
The indigenously developed surface-to-surface missile was test fired at around 0548 hours from a mobile launcher from the ITR launch complex-3, defence sources said.
The test firing of the short-range, surface-to-surface ballistic missile, which has already been inducted into the armed forces, was a user trial by the Indian army. The sleek missile is “handled by the strategic force command”, the sources said.
Prithvi, the first ballistic missile developed under the country’s prestigious Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), has the capability to carry 500 kg of warheads and is thrusted by liquid propulsion twine engine.
It uses an advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory and reach the targets with few meter accuracy. It has a length of 9 meters with 1 metre diameter.
The entire trajectory of today’s trial was tracked down by a battery of sophisticated radars and an electro-optic telemetry stations were positioned in different locations for post-launch analysis, they said.
A naval ship had been anchored near the impact point in the down range of Bay of Bengal and long-range tracking radar (LRTR) as well as a multi-function tracking radar (MFTR) had been deployed to track the missile’s trajectory
—PTI