Missiles

India domestically produces only 45% to 50% of defence products it uses, and the rest are imported. DRDO has called for more collaboration with the industry, private sector, research and education institutes including IITs and NITs in order to increase self-reliance, reduce imports so that the dream of becoming a technology leader can be fulfilled. Indian forces are using numerous successful indigenous technologies produced by the DRDO.

PYTHON-5

  • Fifth generation Air-to-Air Missile (AAM)
  • Israeli origin
  • Integrated on India's indigenous Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas
  • It is an infra-red guided missile with a range of at least 20km.

Agni Prime

  • Advanced version of the ‘Agni-1’ missile.
  • Short-range surface to a surface ballistic missile
  • Range of 1000 km to 1500 km
  • Have advanced features in agility and road mobility.
  • Carry a payload of around 1,000 Kg or a nuclear warhead.
  • The double stage missile will be lighter and much sleeker than its predecessor ‘Agni-1’.
  • Strike range of 700 km 1,200 km.

Akash Missile system

  • Export of indigenously developed Akash missile systems to friendly countries has been approved by the cabinet.
  • A mid-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system built by DRDO under the integrated guided-missile development programme (IGMDP).
  • Two versions of the missile have been built for the Indian Air Force and the Indian Army.

Akash-NG Missile

  • The maiden test of the New Generation Akash missile (Akash-NG) was conducted by DRDO
  • A new generation Surface to Air Missile
  • Meant for use by Indian Air Force
  • Intercepts high manoeuvring low RCS (Radar Cross Section) aerial
  • threats.
  • Range of 60 km and speed of 2.5 Mach

Man Portable Antitank Guided Missile (MPATGM)

  • Indigenously developed
  • low-weight
  • Fire-and-forget missile
  • Incorporated with state-of-the-art miniaturised infrared seeker with advanced avionics.
  • Fitted with a high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead.
  • Maximum engagement range of about 2.5 kilometers.
  • Capable of being fired from shoulder
  • Can be used during day and night.
  • Has minimum lateral center and gravity offset.

NAG Missile

  • The final user trial of Nag was successfully carried at the Pokhran range in Rajasthan.
  • India’s third-generation, anti-tank guided missile.
  • All-weather, fire-and-forget, lock-on after launch,
  • Operational range of 500 m to 20 km.
  • Has a single-shot hit probability of 90%.

Rudram

  • First indigenous anti-radiation missile developed by DRDO.
  • Detect, track and neutralise the adversary’s radar, communication assets and other radio frequency sources, which are generally part of their air defence systems.
  • Can be launched from a height ranging from 500 metres to 15 km. SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defence) operations can be performed by IAF deep into enemy territory to destroy enemy air defence setup.

Brahmos Supersonic Cruise Missile

  • Land-attack version, Air-launched version and Naval version of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile have been successfully test fired by India.
  • Range of the new land-attack version has been extended to 400 km from 290 km
  • Speed has been maintained at 2.8 Mach.
  • BrahMos Aerospace, is an India-Russian joint venture to produce lethal weapons that can be launched from submarines, ships, aircraft and land platforms.
  • The hypersonic version of the BrahMos missile is under development. It can travel at a speed of Mach 5 to Mach 7. It will be the fastest hypersonic missile in the world, when fully developed.

Medium-Range Surface-to-Air (MRSAM) Missile

  • Developed by the DRDO in collaboration with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for Army.
  • The propulsion system combined with a thrust vector control system, allows the missile to move at a maximum speed of Mach 2.
  • Can engage multiple targets simultaneously at ranges of 70km.
  • Naval version of MRSAM was successfully tested in 2019.

‘Helina’ and ‘Dhruvastra’

  • Helina (the Army version) and Dhruvastra (IAF version), are third-generation anti-tank guided missiles developed indigenously by DRDO.
  • The system has all-weather day-and-night capability
  • It can defeat battle tanks with conventional armour as well as with explosive reactive armour.

Prithvi-II missile

  • Indigenously developed
  • Nuclear capable surface-to-surface missile.
  • Capable of carrying 500 to 1,000 kg of warheads.

Quick Reaction Surface-to-Air Missile (QRSAM) System

  • Short-range surface-to-air missile system
  • Indigenously designed and developed.
  • Provides a protective shield to moving armoured columns of the Army from enemy aerial attacks.
  • It has a range of 25 to 30 km.

Shaurya Missile

  • Indigenously developed
  • Nuclear capable hypersonic missile ‘
  • Strike range of around 1,000 km.
  • A canister-based system
  • land-based parallel of the submarine launched K-15 missile

S-400

  • India will get S-400 air defence missile system from Russia.
  • It is Russia’s fourth generation of long-range surface-to-air missile system
  • Can engage all types of aerial targets including aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), ballistic and cruise missiles within the range of 400km, at an altitude of up to 30km.

Stand-off Anti-tank (SANT) Missile

  • Air-to-surface missile
  • Upgraded version of the Helicopter Launched Nag (HeliNa) missile, equipped with an advanced node-mounted seeker.
  • Developed by DRDO for the Indian Air Force (IAF).
  • Has both Lock-on after Launch and Lock-on Before Launch capability.

Agni-V

  • This surface-to-surface nuclear Inter Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) has a long strike range of 5,000 km.
  • Agni-V is a three-stage solid propellant missile being developed by DRDO.
  • Unlike other missiles of Agni series, Agni-V is the most advanced having new technologies incorporated with it in terms of navigation and guidance, warhead and engine.
  • Currently, five of the missiles – Agni-I, Agni-II, Agni-III, Agni-IV, Agni-V have been successfully tried & tested, while the sixth missile is still in the development phase.

BARAK Missile System

  • Long Range Surface-to-Air Missile (LR-SAM) and Medium Range Surface-to-Air Missile (MR-SAM) are jointly developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), India and M/s Israel Aerospace Industry (IAI).
  • LR-SAM is the Ship Launch Version and Project MR-SAM is the Land Launch Version of Barak-08 Missile system.

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