What began as a mere experiment five decades ago is today a sprawling laboratory complex that designs and develops advanced weapon systems for the country and specialises in underwater weapons for the Indian Navy.
The Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL) was set up under the watchful eyes of renowned physicist Prof. Suri Bhagavantham, who had served as Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and was the second chief of the DRDO.
Humble beginnings
The lab started functioning from the POL stores at Naval Dockyard in the city on August 20, 1969, and later shifted to a war barrack in Andhra University on September 5, 1969. It moved to its present campus built over 194 acres after 1974.
The laboratory, which began with a handful of young scientists in 1969, today has over 200 scientists under different grades and over 400 support staff.
NSTL’s mandate was to design and develop underwater weapons, associated systems and technologies.
“Today, we specialise in design, development, testing and evaluation of torpedoes of different capacities, mines, underwater decoy systems, targets, simulators, sensors and launchers,” said NSTL Director O.R. Nandagopan.
Jewel in the crown
“Our heavyweight torpedo, ‘Varunastra’, is built with state-of-the-art technology and has gone into production with the Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL),” he said.
“NSTL is currently working on a number of areas such as advanced lightweight torpedoes, advanced submarine decoy systems, and high-endurance advanced autonomous underwater vehicles,” he added.
The ship-launched variant of ‘Varunastra’ was formally inducted into the Indian Navy by the former Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, on June 26, 2016.
Appreciating the design of ‘Varunastra’, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Eastern Naval Command Vice-Admiral Atul Kumar Jain said torpedoes had been inducted into the Navy after undergoing extensive, rigorous trials.DRDO Chairman G. Satheesh Reddy said India was the ninth country in the world to build a heavyweight torpedo with more indigenous input.
High-end labs
Over the last five decades, NSTL has built an infrastructure that can be rated on a par with the state-of-the-art laboratories in the world. The facilities include high-speed towing tank, assembly and integration of torpedoes, shock tank, acoustic facility, lake test facility for testing weapons, and cavitation tunnel.
