Balasore (Orissa): A twin user trial of
India's nuclear-capable Prithvi-II missile by the Army was
deferred on Wednesday due to a technical problem at the Integrated
Test Range at Chandipur near here.
"The test was postponed due to a technical snag," ITR
director S P Dash said, adding that the date for future
trial would be decided after correcting the problem.
The ITR director's statement came in the midst of media
reports that two missiles had failed to take off during the
twin trial. "I don't know on what basis they have concluded
that the trial had failed," Dash said.
Defence officials and scientists associated with the
trial were tight-lipped on what exactly led to the
postponement of the test.
Two indigenously developed surface-to surface missiles
were planned to be fired from a mobile launcher in salvo mode
from the launch complex-3 of ITR as part of user trial by the
Army, Defence sources said.
The missiles were randomly chosen from the stock of the
armed forces and the entire launch activities were to be
carried out by the Strategic Force Command (SFC) and monitored
by the scientists of Defence Research & Development
Organisation (DRDO) as part of training exercise, they added.
Prithvi, the first missile developed under India’s
prestigious Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme
(IGMDP), has the capability to carry 500 kg of warheads.
It has a length of 9 meters with one metre diameter and
thrusted by liquid propulsion twine engine, uses advanced
inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory and reach
the targets with few meter accuracy.
The last trial of Prithvi-2 was successfully carried out
with very high accuracy of better than 10 meters from the
same base in September, 2011.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, December 21, 2011, 10:22