Agni-IV to be test-fired today

Everything is getting set for the launch of Agni-IV, India’s strategic missile, from the Wheeler Island on the Odisha coast on Tuesday. The importance of the launch lies in that the Strategic Forces Command’s (SFC) missile unit will fire the missile.

Agni-IV can carry a nuclear warhead weighing one tonne. In the mission on Tuesday, the missile will carry only conventional explosives. The Defence Research and Development Organisation developed it.

Agni-IV, weighing 17 tonnes and 20 metres long, has already been inducted into the Army after the DRDO successfully test-fired it three times in a row in November 2011, September 2012 and January 2014. The missile has a range of more than 4,000 km.