Nirbhay, a subsonic cruise missile developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation, will be test-fired for the second time from the Integrated Test Range at Balasore in Odisha on Friday. Its debut flight on March 12, 2013, was a failure.
Nirbhay has a special path, as it takes off vertically like a missile, rises to 800 metres, turns horizontally, then spreads out its wings and cruises like an aircraft. The two-stage, surface-to-surface missile has an 800-km-plus range. But it can cover even 1,000 km, say DRDO missile technologists.
After a booster engine fires and catapults the missile from a mobile launcher (a big lorry), the missile will climb and an on-board mechanism will tilt it from the vertical to the horizontal path. The booster engine is then jettisoned and the missile’s wings are deployed. Afterwards, the turbojet engine in the second stage, akin to an aircraft’s, comes to life and it becomes a cruising missile.
Nirbhay, capable of flying at 0.7 mach, is a “tree-top” missile — as the missile traverses at the height of a palmyra tree, radars will find it difficult to detect the weapon. It is a “loitering” missile — it can circle over an area for many minutes and pick out the target. Its flight duration can last an hour. It can carry multiple payloads and engage several targets. Its seeker helps detect the target with lock-on-after launch capability. The missile can be fired from a variety of platforms such as a lorry, a ship, an aircraft and underwater systems.
“Corrections have been made in this flight, and we are pursuing this project vigorously,” DRDO engineers said speaking about the failure of the first test-flight.
But DRDO engineers said the flight proved several technologies such as the missile’s vertical take-off, the first stage separation, switch-on of the turbo-jet engine, wing deployment, stabilisation of flight and way-pointing.
