The Vice-President M. Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Defence Minister AK Antony and National Security Advisor (NSA) Shiv Shankar Menon have hailed the launch of the Agni-V. Dr Singh and Antony spoke to DRDO chief Dr VK Saraswat and Programme Director Avinash Chander and greeted the DRDO Scientists on the A-5 success.

Setting a new milestone in the country’s Integrated Missile Development Programme, India’s maiden Long Range Ballistic Missile (LRBM) AGNI-V (A-5) was successfully flight tested today.  The flawless auto-launch of the missile started at 08:04 hours. Piercing the thin cloud cover, the missile took off from the launch pad at Wheeler’s Island in Odisha at 08:07 hours and started rising exactly the way it was designed for. The missile, with a range of more than 5000 kms, followed the entire trajectory in copybook style perfection as the three stages of Propulsion dropped and fell at appropriate intervals into the Bay of Bengal. The three propulsion stages, developed completely indigenously by DRDO, performed exactly the way they were intended to. The indigenously developed Composite Rocket Motors performed well, signifying the country’s stride and complete self-reliance in this complex propulsion technology.

Ships located in midrange and at the target point tracked the Vehicle and witnessed the final event. Radars and electro-optical systems along the path monitored in real time all the parameters of the Missile.  A number of new technologies developed indigenously were successfully tested in this A-5 Mission. The redundant Navigation systems, very high accuracy Ring Laser Gyro based Inertial Navigation System (RINS) and the most modern and accurate Micro Navigation System (MINS) ensured the Missile reach the target point within few meters of accuracy. The high speed onboard computer and fault tolerant software along with robust and reliable bus guided the Missile flawlessly.  The Vice-President M. Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Defence Minister AK Antony and National Security Advisor (NSA) Shiv Shankar Menon have hailed the launch of the Agni-V. Dr Singh and Antony spoke to DRDO chief Dr VK Saraswat and Programme Director Avinash Chander and greeted the DRDO Scientists on the A-5 success.(SSNS)