As part of its big ballistic missile defense program, India sent an endo-atmospheric interceptor missile on its first test flight from a ship in the Bay of Bengal, just off the coast of Odisha.
The defense ministry said that the aim of the sea-based missile test on Friday was to deal with and stop an enemy ballistic missile threat. This would put India in an elite group of countries that have this kind of ability.
The BMDs can stop long-range nuclear missiles and enemy planes, like AWACS (airborne warning and control systems), from getting to their targets.
Rajnath Singh, India’s Defense Minister, praised the Indian Navy and the Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for a successful demonstration of the ship-based ballistic missile defense (BMD) system’s powers.
“On April 21, the DRDO and the Indian Navy successfully tested a sea-based endo-atmospheric interceptor missile for the first time,” the ministry said in a statement. The test took place off the coast of Odisha in the Bay of Bengal.
It said that the DRDO had already shown that a land-based BMD system could stop dangers from ballistic missiles coming from enemies.
“The goal of the test was to deal with and stop an enemy ballistic missile threat, putting India in an elite group of countries with naval BMD capabilities,” the report said.
India has been working on ways to stop enemy ballistic weapons from both inside and outside the atmosphere.
The endo-atmospheric rockets are the ones that work in the lower 100 kilometers of the earth’s atmosphere. Experts say that the exo-atmospheric missiles can carry out tasks in the uppermost part of the earth’s atmosphere.
No one knows right now how far the missile defense system that was tried on Friday can go.
India successfully tested the phase-II ballistic missile defense launcher AD-1 for the first time in November. The AD-1 can hit many different types of targets.
The AD-1 is a long-range interceptor missile that was made to stop both long-range ballistic missiles and airplanes in the “low exo-atmospheric” and “endo-atmospheric” parts of the atmosphere.