India successfully test fires 8216;Shaurya8217; missile

India successfully test fired 'Shaurya', a medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, to be used by its Army.

India successfully test fired 8216;Shaurya8217;, a medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, to be used by its Army. With a 600-km range, the missile is capable of hitting targets deep inside Pakistan and China.

The indigenous missile was launched from an underground facility with an in-built canister at 11.25 am from Complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, DRDO sources said in Balasore Orissa.

The sleek missile, with a flight duration of 485 seconds, roared into the sky leaving behind a thick yellow and white smoke on a clear sunny day, they added.

The sophisticated tactical missile is capable of carrying conventional warheads with a payload of about one tonne. 8220;With longer shelf-life, as it is stored in a canister just like the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, the Shaurya is easily transportable and user-friendly. This is a technology development project,8221; DRDO sources said in New Delhi.

Though there was speculation that the missile was a land version of the under development K-15 submarine launched ballistic missile, DRDO sources said the surface-to-surface missile had nothing to do with K-15 8216;Sagarika8217; project.

8220;The missile was test fired from a 30-40 feet deep pit with in-built canister specially designed for the purpose. There was no water in the pit,8221; the sources said.

8220;The test was conducted to check some of the vital parameters of Shaurya missile,8221; the DRDO sources said. The solid propellant, two-staged missile is little over 10 metres in length and about half-a-metre in width, they said.

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During the test, the missile took off vertically and its entire trajectory was tracked through an integrated system of sophisticated radars, electro-optical tracking instruments, a chain of telemetry stations positioned in different points and two naval ships placed close to the impact point deep in the Bay of Bengal.

As a precautionary measure, the district administration of Balasore temporarily evacuated 364 families residing within two km radius of the launch site and took them to safety at a nearby shelter before the missile test.

The launch of Shaurya has come nearly nine months after India had successfully tested the 8216;Sagarika8217; missile under the K-15 project this February off the coast of Visakhapatnam from a pontoon simulating the conditions of a submarine.