Article Posted on : - Feb 03, 2010

'Nishant' Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). DRDO photo.

BANGALORE (PTI): Three days after on board malfunction lead to gentle landing of unmanned aerial vehicle Nishant, the Aeronautical Development Establishment has successfully flown the UAV, the DRDO has said.

"All systems worked normally in its 30th flight and the mission was totally successful," the Defence Research and Development Organisation said in a statement here.

The 30th flight was conducted at ADE, a DRDO lab headquartered here, on February 1st between 11.25 am and 3 pm.

The aircraft took off from the launcher located at Kolar airfield and it was recovered after three hours, 35 minutes at the designated point, the DRDO said.

Nishant-15 was the same aircraft flown on January 29 from the same location. It flew through the designated way point till 3 pm as per plan and was returning towards recovery area near launcher when an on board malfunction occurred while overflying a path five km from Bangarpet. It had led to the recovery parachute coming out and the vehicle landed gently on the ground as per design.

Further, to absorb the shock of recovery, the landing bag in the vehicle got deployed and the vehicle was recovered fully intact except for a very minor damage, the DRDO said, denying that the Nishant had crash-landed on January 29.