Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, December 26

In a major leap for India’s defence scientists, the country has moved closer to an exclusive club of countries having abilities to deliver a nuclear warhead at a distance of more than 5,550 km.The fourth consecutive test of the long-range ballistic missile Agni-V was successful this morning. The version fired today is road-mobile-on-truck, and is the one that is ‘final delivery version’ for deployment by the Army. The 50-tonne missile is in its final stage of tests before it can be inducted. No dates have been given for induction and this being a nuclear-tipped missile, there seems little possibility of a formal announcement. The missile can be moved on specialised trucks, allowing greater scope of rapid deployment. Today, the Agni-V’s re-entry system worked perfectly. The nose-cone that encases the warhead is made of composites, which can withstand a searing temperature of 3,000 degrees Celsius when the missile re-enters the earth’s atmosphere.The Agni series are nuclear-warhead capable with Agni-I being the lowest end of the spectrum having a range of 700 km. The Ministry of Defence said, “Agni-V, the long range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, was successfully flight-tested by DRDO from Abdul Kalam Island (new name for Wheeler Island), Odisha.”President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar congratulated the DRDO for the successful test-firing. The previous successful missions were executed on April 19, 2012, September 15, 2013, and January 31, 2015.