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Missile Defense System Phase 1 to be Ready by 2011-2012: DRDO

25 reports on Indian Missile Defense Programme
» DRDO to Test High Altitude Missile Defense System in February 2011 2011-01-20
» Lockheed Martin May Outsource Production of Aegis Missile Defense System to India 2009-05-12
» IAI Signs USD 1.4 billion Contract with India for Seaborne, Shore Based Missile Defense Systems 2009-03-26

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2009-03-10 After achieving a hat-trick of successful tests of the indigenous Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) shield, DRDO today said the first phase of the system would be developed by 2011.

"All building blocks of the BMD are ready at the moment. Only part that remains to be developed is the interceptor missile and by the time they are in place, we will have our full mechanism in place. We have a programme till 2011 to complete this," DRDO's Chief Controller and Air Defence programme Director V K Saraswat said in New Delhi.

Saraswat said DRDO needed to conduct five repeated trials of the interceptor missiles before the phase I of the programme is over.

He added that DRDO will be conducting an "integrated test" of its endo-atmospheric and exo-atmospheric missiles by the end of this year to further strengthen the system.

Speaking about the capabilities of the system tested on Friday last week, he said it was capable of "taking on" the Chinese M-9 class missiles with a range of up to 2,000 Km.

On the new technologies added and modifications made in the interceptor missile PAD 02, Saraswat said, "We modified our interceptor missile and provided it with higher energy, an improved guidance and control system and on top of it all, we have integrated a Gimbaled Directional Warhead with it."

Saraswat said the new warhead weighed only around 30 kg but was able to generate the impact that a 150 kg omni-directional warhead could make.

He said the new guidance system in the missile allowed it to tackle the maneuvers of enemy's incoming missile and could be used against the Russian Topol M class of missiles, which move in a zig-zag manner.

The DRDO official also said the system was "fully automated" and did not require human intervention in activating it in case of an attack by ballistic missiles.

"Under the present system, the interceptor missiles are on 'Hot Stand-by mode' and can take-off within 120 seconds of the detection of the incoming missile by the tracking radars," he said.

Saraswat also said the current missile is 30 per cent more powerful than the missile used in the December 2006 test of the endo-atmospheric interceptor.

He said during the flight of the interceptor missile towards the ballistic missile, the interceptor is constantly updated about the position of its target by the ground-based radars.

During a war, unlike the demonstration phase, a volley of interceptor missiles would be launched against enemy ballistic missiles to improve the hit probability, he said.

Commenting on the possibility of the interceptor being jammed by enemy missiles, Saraswat said with the missile having only one link with the ground, it was "very difficult" to jam it as various counter measures were in place to stop such an effort.

He said work on developing a new interceptor 'PDV' for phase-I programme was also going on.

The official said to tackle missiles with a striking range of over 6,000 km, hypersonic interceptor missiles will have to be developed for the phase 2 of the air defence programme.

"Phase 2 interceptors will have speeds of 6-7 Mach and they will be hypersonic. Missiles will have lesser time to intercept and our guidance systems have to be far more energetic and quick responsive," he said.

In the previous two trials, DRDO had successfully tested the BMD system in November 2006 outside the atmosphere at a 48-km altitude and inside atmosphere at an altitude of 15-km in December 2007.

DRDO has developed a two-tier system with the PAD missiles intercepting ballistic missiles at altitudes between 50-80 km and the Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile destroying them at heights between 15-30 km.