India will test fire a canisterised version of its 5000 km range Agni-V Intercontinental Ballistic Missile(ICBM) in the coming months. ...
Agni-V missile will be launched from a canister mounted on a Tatra truck from Wheeler Island, off the Odisha coast,India traverse more than 5,000 kilometres across the sky, and then splash into the Indian Ocean.
Agni V made its successful maiden launch on April 19, 2012.
The 17.5-metre-long, three-stage missile weighing 50 tonnes, is rail and road mobile and has just a 20-minute flight duration.
Although India’s supersonic cruise missiles BrahMos and hypersonic surface-to-surface missile Shourya are canisterised missiles and the DRDO had testfired them many times, this would be the first time it will be firing a missile of the 50-tonne class from a tube. Besides, the missile is 17.5 metres long. While BrahMos cruise missile weighs only three tonnes and is only nine metres long, Shourya weighs about six tonnes and is 10 m long.
A gas generator placed at the bottom of the canister will erupt into life and push the missile out of the tube. After the missile comes out of the tube, its ignition will take place in the air.
Canisterisation improves the lifetime of missile
In missile parlance, a canisterised launch is called a “cold launch”.
Although the principles for pushing Agni V out from a canister are the same as for BrahMos and Shourya, which have been testfired from canisters many times, its engineering becomes very difficult, because of the canister’s size and the missile’s heavy nozzles.
Heading the Advanced Systems Laboratory (ASL), the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) missile-making laboratory in Hyderabad India, is V.G. Sekaran, one of the architects of Agni-V.
“We are vigorously working on the canisterised launch,” ASL Director Sekaran said. It is a very involved job in terms of the number of sub-systems that will be employed. The canister will be the biggest made in the country. The ASL has done specialised work in the design and engineering of the canister and the gas generator.
