India test fires Prithvi missile

India tested an advanced version of the nuclear-capable Prithvi-II ballistic missile, with a strike range of 350 km, from the Chandipur integrated test range off the Orissa coast on Wednesday. "The launch of the surface-to-surface missile from a mobile launcher was successful but it will take some time to analyse the entire telemetry data before it can be called a complete success or not," said a senior defence ministry official. The significant aspect about this test was that it was conducted as "a user or training trial" by the tri-service Strategic Forces Command (SFC), created in January 2003 to manage the country's nuclear arsenal. The Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) and the SFC were established to ensure proper command and control structures after the 10-month troop mobilisation along the Indo-Pak border under 'Operation Parakram'. The NCA's political council led by the PM is the "sole body which can authorise the use of nuclear weapons", with the SFC tasked with executing such a directive. Prithvi was initially supposed to be a 150-km "tactical" battlefield missile with conventional warheads but later its role was expanded to include the "strategic" one as well with nuclear payloads. With the 700-km Agni-I and 2,000-km-plus Agni-II ballistic missiles still to be inducted into the armed forces in adequate numbers, the advanced version of Prithvi is currently the mainstay of the SFC. Wednesday's test of the 8.56 metre-long Prithvi-II missile was conducted from a Tatra transporter launcher around 10.15 am. The missile's entire trajectory was tracked by electro-optic telemetry stations, a battery of sophisticated radars and a warship anchored. "Training trials" are held to give armed forces personnel the requisite capability and confidence to fire the missiles on their own, without the help of defence scientists. The Agni-I and Agni-II, incidentally, are also undergoing training trials, with the first missile — designed exclusively for Pakistan — having already undergone such trials in October 2007 and March 2008. The 3,500-km Agni-III, which will give India the strategic capability to hit targets deep inside China, will be tested for the fourth time in the coming months. But it will ready for induction only by 2011-2012. Then, of course, design work on India's most ambitious strategic missile with near ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) capabilities, the 5,000-km range Agni-V, which incorporates a third composite stage in the two-stage Agni-III, is also in progress. Its first test is planned by 2010-2011.

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