Video Credit: DRDO

April 08, 2013: India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) developed Agni II has once again been launched successfully from the Wheeler Island off the coast of Orissa on April 7. The launch was a hattrick after successful launches of Shourya and Prithivi-II on September 24 and 26, 2011, respectively. The successful launch once again proved reliability of the medium-range surface-to-surface missile.

The 2,000 km range missile, already inducted and part of Strategic Forces’ arsenal for strategic deterrence, was launched as a training exercise by the armed forces. The two stage missile, equipped with advanced high accuracy navigation system and guided by a novel scheme of state-of-the-art command and control system, was propelled by a solid rocket propellant system. The missile reached an apogee (peak altitude) of 220 km and hit the target. All the radar, telemetry systems and ectopic system tracked and monitored all parameters throughout the missile’s trajectory. Two ships located near the target point tracked the missile in the final stage.

Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Dr V.K. Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister, Secretary Defence R&D & Director General DRDO, Dr Avinash Chander, Programme Director, Chief Controller R&D (MSS) and Air Marshal K.J. Mathews, Commander-in-Chief, Strategic Forces Command congratulated all the scientists, other DRDO personnel and members of armed forces. Project Director D. Lakshminarayana and his team monitored all the launch operation. The event was witnessed by S.K. Ray, Director RCI, P. Venugopalan, Director, DRDL, Dr. V.G. Sekaran, Director ASL, S.P. Dash, Director ITR & other senior officials from DRDO and the armed forces.