Balasore: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) achieved yet another feat on Tuesday with the successful test flight of ‘Nirbhay’ – India’s first indigenously designed and developed Long Range Sub-Sonic Cruise Missile which can be deployed from multiple platforms. It was successfully test fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in Balasore district.
The missile has the capability to loiter and cruise at 0.7 mach, at altitudes as low as 100 metre. The flight test achieved all the mission objectives completely from lift-off till the final splash, boosting the confidence of all scientists associated with the trial, official sources said.
The missile took-off in the programmed manner and all critical operations, namely, launch phase, booster deployment, engine start, wing deployment and other operational parameters demonstrated through autonomous way point navigation. The guidance, control and navigation system of the missile is configured around the indigenously designed Ring Laser Gyroscope (RLG) and MEMS based Inertial Navigation System (INS) along with GPS system, DRDO sources said. The missile majestically cruised for a total time duration of 50 minutes, achieving the range of 647 km. The missile was tracked with the help of ground based radars and other parameters were monitored by indigenous telemetry stations developed by DRDO.
Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman hailed the success of DRDO scientists and complimented them for this inspired achievement. She hoped this successful trial would take India to the select league of nations for possessing this complex technology and sub-sonic cruise missile capability.
Chairman, DRDO, and Secretary Department of Defence (R&D), Dr S Christopher, DG (Aero) Dr CP Ramanarayanan, Director, ADE, RCI , ITR and CEMILAC, along with other senior DRDO scientists and user representatives from Army witnessed the momentous launch and congratulated team Nirbhay for making DRDO proud for the long-awaited achievement.
