NEW DELHI, Dec 13 (Bernama) — India will have its own missile defence shield ready in three years, a development that will mark a big leap in securing the country’s high value assets and major cities like Delhi and Mumbai.
The two-layered Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system to cope with both threats from ballistic missiles as well as terrain-hugging cruise missile could be ready by 2010.
This assurance came from the country’s top missile scientist V.K. Saraswat in the backdrop of Pakistan building up an arsenal of missiles which would give India hardly between three and four minute reaction time.
“An integrated test trial of the interceptor missile and its sub-systems would be conducted in June next year,” the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted Saraswat as saying, to reporters on the recent successful test trials of the Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missiles in endo-atmospheric mode.
He said three to four more flight trials of the AAD and another four trials of exo-atmospheric missiles were required before declaring the system as “operational”.
The missile scientist said the AAD system could also be configured to take care of threats from terrain-hugging cruise missiles.
Asked when BMD could be mass produced to cover the whole nation, Saraswat said that within weeks of the system being validated the production lines would be ready to roll out the system in bulk.
He said there was a “substantial” private sector participation in the BMD development programme.
On the June test, Saraswat said a system was being developed to fire two missiles simultaneously at a single target to intercept it both in exo- and endo-atmospheric zones.
On comparison of the missile with the US PAC-III, DRDO officials said both were essentially interceptor missiles but while the PAC-III has a limited range of 15 km “our missiles can go up to 25 km.”
The new system, to be ready by 2010, would be capable of protection against existing threats to the country but “we are developing a system for Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile interception, which could take up to seven years.
He said the country’s indigenous AAD system would get a filip when India gets more AWACS, AEW and dedicated satellite-based tracking radars.
— BERNAMA