By IANS
Balasore (Orissa) : The Indian Army is all set to test the surface-to-surface medium range Prithvi-1 missile next week, officials said.
The missile, which went into production after a series of testing, will be launched from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) located at Chandipur in Orissa's Balasore district.
"This is a limited stock production (LSP) test by the users (Indian Army). A Prithvi-1 missile has been randomly selected from the already prepared missiles and will be used for the test," an official source told IANS.
Prithvi is one of the five missiles under various stages of development by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). However, Prithvi-1 has been inducted with the missile regiment of Indian Army based at Hyderabad.
"The recent successful test firings of Agni, BrahMos, Dhanush and Astra missiles have moved us to go for a user trial of Prithvi-1," a military scientist said.
The 8.56-metre-high and one metre thick missile, with a launch weight of 4.4 tonnes excluding the payload, has a minimum range of 50 km and a maximum of 150 km. It has the capability to carry a payload of 1,000 kg.
The missile has two liquid propellant motors side-by-side, providing aerodynamic control as well as thrust vectoring. It stops climbing when it reaches an altitude of 30 km and dives at the target at an 80-degree angle.