New Delhi, March 6: India today claimed it had successfully tested a home-grown interceptor designed to destroy incoming missiles and compared its capability to an American ballistic missile defence system that India’s armed forces are evaluating.

A two-stage interceptor missile destroyed an “enemy” missile at an altitude of 74km above the Bay of Bengal at 4.24pm in a two-minute seek-and-destroy mission, Defence Research and Development Organisation scientists said.

Today’s test — the third in a series starting November 2006 — pushes India closer to developing an operational ballistic missile defence (BMD) system. The US, Russia and Israel are the other countries with working BMD versions.

The interceptor, launched from a road-mobile vehicle on Wheeler’s island off Balasore, “neutralised” its target about 100km east of Orissa, William Selvamurthy, the chief controller of research and development at the DRDO, said.

The target was a two-stage Dhanush missile launched from an offshore Indian Navy vessel, the INS Sujata, simulating an enemy missile. It was fired vertically and set on trajectory to attack a target in mainland India from the sea.

A long-range radar on the Orissa coast spotted the “enemy” missile within a minute of its launch, Selvamurthy said. The radar then communicated information about the target missile’s trajectory to the interceptor, which used onboard electronics to destroy it.

The DRDO scientist said it could take one or two more tests for the BMD system to be ready for induction.

“We envisage it as a joint services programme,” Selvamurthy said, when asked which set-up in the security establishment would be custodian of the system. Told that a joint services command was not in place, he said “that is a call the political leadership will have to take”.

This suggests that India’s defence technology establishment is worrying that Indian military programmes are outpacing the institutions needed to harness them.

A proposal for a single-point military adviser has been bouncing off the walls of security-related ministries to political parties and back for over five years.

Today’s test has also pushed DRDO’s missile interception altitude higher than in earlier tests. The first BMD test in November 2006 hit its target at a height of 48km and the second in December 2007 at 15km.

The Pentagon has made presentations on the US-made Patriot Advanced Capability missile system (PAC-III) to the Indian armed forces.

Selvamurthy said the Indian BMD was “comparable in capability” to the US PAC-III. He said today’s test successfully demonstrated capabilities in radio proximity fuse, which ensures that the interceptor senses and explodes to cause maximum damage to the incoming target missile.