Article Posted on : - May 29, 2014

The Akash SAM being test fired. A DRDO photo

BALASORE, ODISHA (PTI): DRDO on Wednesday successfully test-fired the Akash air defence missiles off the coast of Balasore in Odisha.

Three Akash missiles were launched from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, on tow body target of Lakshya pilotless target aircraft (PTA) moving at "low altitude for boundary" and ripple mode missions.

"The missiles intercepted the fast moving and manoeuvring small RCS (radar cross section) targets within small interval of five seconds in ripple mode," said Ravi Kumar Gupta, Director, Directorate of Public Interface, Defence Research and Development Organisation( DRDO).

Indian Air Force teams operated the deliverable Akash missile system including targets. The missiles were successfully guided by multi-function phased array radar developed by Electronics and Radar Development Establishment, a DRDO Lab and produced by Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL).

The missiles developed by Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) along with 13 other DRDO Laboratories and produced by Bharat Dynamics Limited. The launchers were developed by R&DE (Engineers), a DRDO lab and produced by Tata Power and L&T.

Avinash Chander, Scientific Advisor to Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister) congratulated all the teams from DRDO, production agencies and Indian Air Force for successfully organising the event and fulfilling the mission objectives of the evaluation tests on deliverable equipment.

He said various industries across the country are engaged in production of Akash sub-systems of military grade/aerospace quality systems and have emerged successfully in meeting the stringent requirements.