DRDO schedules another missile defence test next month

New Delhi, Jan 23 (PTI) Aiming to get a shield against
missile over its skies, India will conduct another test of its
Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) next month.

"Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)
will conduct the test of its interceptor missile and missile
tracking radars next month for validating the advancements
made in the Air Defence programme," Defence Ministry sources
told PTI here Friday.

Though the interceptor missiles, namely Prithvi Air
Defence (PAD) and Advanced Air Defence (AAD), have been tested
earlier, the main aim of the next month's test would be to
validate the capabilities of the indigenously developed
'Swordfish' Long Range Tracking Radar (LRTR).

Swordfish is a target acquisition and fire control radar
for the BMD system.

"The missile to be hit will be fired from a longer
distance than it was in the earlier test. DRDO will test
whether the radar can track the incoming missile from that
distance or not," they said.

In next month's test, the exo-atmospheric interceptor
missile PAD will hit its target in space at an altitude over
80 km from earth, sources said.

They said the premier defence research agency will carry
out another test around the year end to enhance the
capabilities of AAD endo-atmospheric missile, which is used
for intercepting missiles at altitudes up to 15 km.

Sources said if the tests prove successful, the DRDO will
go ahead with the deployment of the BMD by 2015.

When contacted, DRDO Air Defence programme Director V
K Saraswat told PTI that the AD programme was at a "fairly
advanced stage" now.

"The building blocks of BMD such as the surveillance,
tracking and battlefield management systems have been
developed," he said.

Saraswat said the DRDO has developed a very robust
command and control system for the AD programme, which can
"survive and deliver" in any environment.

"Our command, control and communication system can work
in a networked form and survive and deliver even in a high
electronic warfare (EW) environment," he said.

He said India was always open for cooperation developing
technologies for the programme with friendly foreign
countries, but said the country would "not buy" any ready-made
BMD systems from any country.

"We have done some thinking on cooperation with countries
such as Russia, United States and Israel in this programme and
we have taken their help also in developing some of the
technologies such as the 'Swordfish' radar for the BMD with
Israel but we will not buy anything ready-made from outside,"
Saraswat said.

DRDO's BMD programme has a two-tiered system consisting
of two interceptor missiles, PAD for high altitude
interception and AAD for lower altitude interception.

PAD was tested in November 2006, followed by AAD in
December 2007. With the test of the PAD missile, India became
the fourth country to have successfully developed an
Anti-Ballistic missile system, after United States, Russia and
Israel. PTI