New Delhi: In a major boost to India’s defence capabilities, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully carried out flight-trials of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Launched Precision Guided Missile (ULPGM)-V3 at the National Open Area Range (NOAR) in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh.
The missile is an enhanced version of the ULPGM-V2 missile developed and delivered by DRDO earlier.
“The ULPGM-V3 is equipped with a high definition dual-channel seeker that can strike a wide variety of targets. It can be fired in plain and high-altitude areas. It has day-and-night capability and two-way data link to support post-launch target/aim-point update. The missile is equipped with three modular warhead options: Anti-armour to destroy modern age armoured vehicles equipped with Rolled Homogeneous Armour (RHA) with Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA); Penetration-cum-Blast warhead with Anti Bunker application and Pre-fragmentation warhead with a high lethality zone,” an official said.
The missile is jointly developed by DRDO laboratories Research Centre Imarat, Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory, High-Energy Materials Research Laboratory, Integrated Test Range and Defence Electronics Research Laboratory. The latest trials were carried out for the Anti-armour configuration.
“The missile was fired from a UAV, which is indigenously developed by an Indian start-up – Newspace Research Technologies, Bengaluru. DRDO is actively pursuing integration of ULPGM weapons with long-range and high endurance UAVs from several other Indian companies. Development cum Production Partners (DcPPs) – Adani Defence and Bharat Dynamics Limited, Hyderabad and 30 MSMEs/start-ups – contributed to making this unique project a grand success,” the official added.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh congratulated DRDO and its industry partners, DcPPs, MSMEs and start-ups for the development and successful trials of the ULPGM-V3 system. He termed the success as proof that the Indian industry is now ready to absorb and produce critical defence technologies.
Samir V Kamat, secretary, Department of Defence Research and Development, and chairman, DRDO, also congratulated the teams, DcPPs and start-ups and said that the development of such a weapon is the need of the hour.