India's Most Advanced Long-range Missile, Agni-IV Test Fired Successfully

India's most advanced long-range missile, Agni-IV was test fired successfully on 15 November 2011 from a road-mobile launcher from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Wheelers Island, off the coast of Orissa. The missile covered a range of more than 3,000 km in 20 minutes of fluent flight. It accurately reached the targeted area in the Bay of Bengal. The missile system is equipped with modern and compact avionics with redundancy to provide high level reliability. The indigenous ring Laser Gyros based high accuracy INS (RINS) and Micro Navigation System (MINGS) was used in the launch for the first time.

So far this was India’s longest range mission flown by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The DRDO of India used a host of new technologies for the first time in this mission. Agni-IV opened a new era for India in the class of long-range missiles to carry strategic nuclear warheads for the armed forces. It is capable of providing deterrence; strategically Agni-IV is capable of covering the whole area of India’s border with China.

About Agni-IV

•    Agni-IV is a two-stage missile

•    It weighs 17 tonnes and is 20 metres long

•    Agni-IV is capable of carrying nuclear warheads

•    It can carry a 1,000-kg payload. However, it carried an 800-kg payload of conventional explosives in the test flight

•    Agni-IV was earlier called Agni-II Prime. The first flight of Agni-II Prime in December 2010 was a failure