The missile cluster of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) of the Services will have their hands full in the next few weeks with the flight-tests of Agni-II, Agni-IV, Prithvi-II and Dhanush missiles.
The Agni-II, IV and V, Prithvi-II and Dhanush are all surface-to-surface missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads. But in the coming flights, they will carry dummy payloads. Dhanush is a naval variant of Prithvi and launched from ships.
Weather permitting, the first off the block will be Agni-II from a mobile launcher on Wheeler Island, off the Odisha coast.
Agni-II is an intermediate range ballistic missile that can hit targets about 2,500 km away.
Since Agni-II has already been inducted into the Army, the SFC will test-fire it. The SFC’s missile unit is tasked with launching missiles armed with nuclear warheads.
The SFC will next launch a two-stage Agni-IV missile that has a range of about 4,000 km. With three successful flights in a row in November 2011, September 2012 and January 2014, Agni-IV has already been inducted into the Army, sources said.
