India has a formidable new addition to its armoury — Agni-IV. The missile's first test flight under its earlier name, Agni-II Prime, in December 2010 ended in failure. But those problems have clearly been sorted out. Tuesday's test went without a glitch, and the missile successfully carried a 800-kg warhead to a distance of over 3,000 km. Agni-III missile, which was first successfully tested in 2007, already has a range of over 3,500 km when carrying a 1.5 tonne warhead. With less payload, this missile's range would be considerably greater. The success of Agni-III and Agni-IV reflects the maturing of capabilities in the long-range missile programme. The Agni missile family began with a ‘technology demonstrator' that combined the one-metre, solid-propellant first stage of India's first launch vehicle, the SLV-3, with a liquid-fuelled second stage. When the decision was taken to turn the technology demonstrator into an operational missile, the upper stage too was turned into a solid propellant one. This upper stage was equipped with a ‘flex nozzle' that could be swivelled to control the missile's orientation. Agni-II has a range of more than 2,000 km with a one-tonne payload. A single-stage version, Agni-I, with a range of about 700 km was subsequently developed.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) demonstrated a big leap in its ballistic missile capabilities with the two-stage, all-solid Agni-III. With a diameter double that of the one metre of its predecessors, this was the first Indian missile that can potentially be equipped with multiple warheads. This time the first stage too had a ‘flex nozzle,' a major technological achievement that considerably reduced the weight of the missile's control systems. With the addition of a solid third stage, the missile will be turned into Agni-V, with a range of over 5,000 km. This missile is scheduled to be tested in February. The missile team appears to have used its skills to upgrade Agni-II. Agni-II Prime, now known as Agni-IV, has a diameter of 1.2 metres, allowing a ‘flex nozzle' for the first stage as well. Further weight saving was brought about by having a composite second stage motor casing, instead of the earlier metal one. These weight reductions meant that more propellant could be loaded, thereby increasing the missile's range. Improvements in the missile's navigation systems, which now use laser gyros, as well as better onboard computers and avionics will make it more accurate too. Armed as they are with nuclear warheads, these are capable of causing immense destruction. The hope must be that they will never be put to actual use.
Keywords: Agni-IV, Agni-II Prime, DRDO, ISRO, flex nozzle, Agni missile
india need to invest more money for research side to improve our
technology in all fields rather than importing technology from US and
other developed countries and encourage the young graduates on
research side by providing merit scholarships for inventing new
technologies
Why aren't not there attempts for immense construction? What a hope for peace!
While the performance of our eminent scientists are truly commendable, we should continuoysly endeavour to benchmark our systems against the best in the world. Applications of nuclear expertise to medicine has to be purused from the Indian context particularly in cancer therapy where we are currently heavily dependent on mult-nationals (US companies) to import equipment.
Great feat for DRDO and a big boast for India and covet & fitting reply to China . India missile program is one of few scientific program that has given proud moments for all Indian and has successfully demonstrated Indian capability in it . Had it not been so successful, India would have to depend on other nation to supply missiles as has already happen with fighter aircraft .
It will be interesting to watch Agni V .. a much has been talked and heard about it .. Whole nation and world would have their eye on Agni V which will give India a new edge .
You give an excellent exposition of our scaling new heighs in nuclear war heads, with technical details. We are ecstatic in basking ourselves in nuclear glory. However, the concluding sentence of the editorial- "The hope must be that they will never be put to actual use"- signals the significan message of sanity. A nation's temptation to arm itself engenders from its innate insecurity. The suspecion on other nations of their scale of armoury fuels the the fear of insecurity and leads to acqusition of more weapons. This leads to a vicious cycle. A super power, armed upto its cranium, with deadly weapons accuses that other countries are developing or holding weapons of mass destruction and pounce on them. They utilise the potential of the arms market to grab unlimited profit. What a curious, cruel paradox! Instead of this formidable foolishnes of piling up weapons, why can we not channelise the resources to preserve the world from a nuclear winter with its attendant horrors?.
It is a good editorial and timely to applaud the succes of ISRO. In the space field we are still behind many other nations. Are we utilizing our full potential? Is there any waste of resources,time and money? Once in a while we have such victories to rejoice, that should not blind us from seeing the inefficiencies. Lately there are too many young people leaving ISRO. There must be a reason for that and it should be looked into.
The entire nation is proud of our DRDO, especially the team under our Agniputri.
Indeed this is one of the greatest achievement of Indian scientists who were working on Agni projects since 1983. Agni 4 has been a newer version of Agni 2 which was a failure due to some technical hurdles in December 2010. However , all the problems were fixed quickly and Agni 2 was upgraded to Agni 4 with better in range and lighter in weight. World has to admit that this missile has opened a new era in terms of high range missiles.
Please Email the Editor