JOIN USThe trial, scheduled for the day, was postponed due to some technical snag in the sub-system at Wheeler Island and there was no problem with the missiles, DRDO sources said.
The next date for the test, aimed at developing a full-fledged multi-layer Ballistic Missile Defence system, will be decided shortly after the problem is sorted out by experts, they said.
The test-firing was proposed to be carried out from two different launch sites of the ITR.
The target missile, a modified indigenously built “Prithvi” was to first lift off from a mobile launcher from the ITR’s launch complex at Chandipur-on-sea, 15 km from here. Minutes later the interceptor missile would have blasted off from the Wheeler’s Island, about 70 km across the sea from Chandipur, to intercept it at an altitude of 15 to 20 km in mid-air over the waters.
Yet to get a formal name, the new hypersonic interceptor missile is only called ‘AAD’ and is meant to be used in “endo-atmospheric conditions.”
The seven-metre AAD interceptor is a single stage solid rocket-propelled guided missile equipped with an inertial navigation system, a hi-tech computer and an electro-mechanical activator totally under command by the data uplinked from the ground-based radar.
The DRDO has already test-fired the interceptor missile thrice on November 27, 2006, December 6, 2007, and March 6, 2009.
PTI