The medium-range nuclear capable Agni-II missile, with a strike range of more than 2,000 km, was successfully testfired on Sunday from the Wheeler Island off Orissa coast.
“The trial of the surface-to-surface missile was conducted from a mobile launcher from the Launch Complex-4 of Integrated Test Range (ITR) at around 10.20 am,” defence sources said. “Agni-II Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) has already been inducted into the services and Sunday’s test was carried out by the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) of the Army as part of training exercise with logistic support provided by the DRDO,” the sources said.
The two-stage missile equipped with advanced high accuracy navigation system, guided by a novel scheme of state of the earth command and control system was propelled by solid rocket propellant system, they said.
“The entire trajectory of the trial was tracked by a battery of sophisticated radars, telemetry observation stations, electro-optic instruments and naval ships located near the impact point in the down range area of the sea,” said a DRDO scientist.
The 20-metre-long Agni-II is a two-stage, solid-propelled ballistic missile. It has launch weight of 17 tonnes and can carry a payload of 1,000 kg over a distance of 2,000 km.
The state-of-the-art Agni-II missile was developed by Advanced Systems Laboratory (ASL) and integrated by the Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), Hyderabad.
Agni-II is part of the Agni series of missiles developed by DRDO which includes Agni-I with a 700 km range, Agni-III with a 3,000 km range, Agni-IV with 4,000 km range and Agni-V more than 5,000 km range.
The last trial of Agni-II conducted on August 9 in 2012 from the same base, was a total success.