Watch: India conducts maiden flight-test of ballistic missile defence interceptor

India's premier defence research agency - DRDO - on Wednesday conducted a successful maiden flight-test of phase-II ballistic missile defence interceptor AD-1 missile with a large kill altitude bracket from APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of Odisha.

The flight test was carried out with the participation of all ballistic missile defence weapon system elements located at different geographical locations.

The AD-1 is a long-range interceptor missile designed for both low exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric interception of long-range ballistic missiles as well as aircraft, the Ministry of Defence said.

The interceptor is propelled by a two-stage solid motor and equipped with an indigenously-developed advanced control system, navigation and guidance algorithm to precisely guide the vehicle to the target.

During the flight test, all the sub-systems performed as per expectations and were validated by the data captured by a number of range sensors including Radar, Telemetry and Electro-Optical Tracking stations deployed to capture the flight data, the ministry said.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh congratulated the DRDO for the successful flight trial of AD-1. He termed it as a unique type of interceptor with advanced technologies available to very few nations in the world.

This interceptor will provide great operational flexibility to the users and have the capability to engage many different types of targets, said Dr Samir V Kamat, chairman of DRDO.