The strategic missile, Agni-I, was test-fired at 10.08 a.m. on Tuesday from the Wheeler Island, off Damra village on the Odisha coast.
The Strategic Forces Command (SFC) fired the missile positioned on a massive truck called a road-mobile launcher.
Informed sources called the flight “a great success” but stressed that it was a routine mission. From the missile’s lift-off to its reaching a targeted area in the Bay of Bengal, the mission lasted about 10 minutes.
G. Satheesh Reddy, Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister and Director-General (Missiles and Strategic Systems), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and officers of the SFC watched the launch from a Block House on the island.
There are five Agni variants from Agni-I to Agni-V which form the bulwark of India’s nuclear deterrence programme.
The DRDO designed and developed the series of Agni missiles.
