New Delhi: India’s Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) fired the 1,000-km range Nirbhay cruise missile from Chandipur testing facility in Odisha.
The subsonic cruise missile was fired at 9:55 am on August 11 and was tested for 100 km in flight and 15 minutes in time.
According to DRDO sources, the indigenous engine was successfully tested but the delivery platform came down due to inexplicable reasons.
“Maybe a snag in the controller, but the engine worked well. Next test-firing will be done in mission mode before user trial for the air force and navy,” said an official.
This was the first successful test-firing with the indigenous booster engine after the previous one had to be aborted after eight minutes of flying time.
Nirbhay is a subsonic missile, flying at a speed of 0.7 to 0.9 Mach, with sea-skimming and terrain-hugging capability that helps the missile stay under the enemy radar to avoid detection.
It is a two-stage missile with the first stage using solid fuel and the second using liquid fuel. It carries a convention warhead of 300 kilograms weight and can hit targets up to 1500 km range.
The missile is capable of flying between 50 meters to four km from the ground and pick up the target before engaging and destroying it.
