Indian Ballistic Missile Defense Program

• Indian Ballistic Missile Defense Program - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  • The Indian Ballistic Missile Defense Program is an initiative to develop and deploy a multi-layered ballistic missile defense system to protect India from ballistic missile attacks.^[1][2]

     

    Introduced in light of the ballistic missile threat from Pakistan,^[3] it is a double-tiered system consisting of two interceptor missiles, namely the Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) missile for high altitude interceptio

  • and the Advanced Air Defence (AAD) Missile for lower altitude interception.
  • The two-tiered shield should be able to intercept any incoming missile launched 5,000 kilometers away
  • India and Israel jointly developed the Swordfish Long Range Tracking Radar(LRTR), which is the target acquisition and fire control radar for PAD Missile System.
  • Development of the anti-ballistic missile system began in 1999
  • PAD, which will intercept missiles at exo-atmospheric altitudes of 50–80 km (31–50 mi) and the AAD missile for interception at endoatmospheric altitudes of up to 30 km (19 mi).
  • PAD is a two stage missile with a maximum interception altitude of 80 km (50 mi). The first stage is a liquid fuelled motor while the second stage is solid fuelled
  • On 06 March 2011, India launched its indigenously developed interceptor missile from the Orissa coast.India successfully test-fired its interceptor missile which destroyed a 'hostile' target ballistic missile, a modified Prithvi, at an altitude of 16 km over the Bay of Bengal. the interceptor, Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile positioned at Wheeler Island, about 70 km across sea from Chandipur, received signals from tracking radars installed along the coastline and travelled through the sky at a speed of 4.5 Mach to destroy.