India has successfully carried out a flight trial of an Advanced Agni missile with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) off the coast of Odisha, the defence ministry said on Saturday.
The MIRV feature ensures that a single missile can deploy multiple warheads at different locations.
“The missile was flight-tested with multiple payloads, targeted to different targets spatially distributed over a large geographical area in the Indian Ocean Region,” the defence ministry said.
The telemetry and tracking were carried out by multiple ground and ship-based stations, and the systems tracked the entire missile trajectory from lift-off till the impact of all payloads. Flight data confirmed that all mission objectives were met during the trial, the ministry said.
“With this successful trial, India once again demonstrated the capability to target multiple strategic targets using a single missile system. This missile is developed by DRDO laboratories with the support of industries across the country,” the ministry added.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh congratulated the DRDO, the Indian Army and industry partners on the successful flight test. “This will add an incredible capability to the country’s defence preparedness against the growing threat perceptions,” he said.
Sources said instead of firing five separate missiles at five locations, India can launch just one MIRV-equipped missile, and it can split mid-air to strike multiple targets separately. After the missile travels into space, the warheads separate from the main missile body and move independently towards different locations. This makes the system far more powerful and difficult to intercept.