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| India-Pakistan |
| Villagers evacuated ahead of missile versus missile test |
| 2006-11-26 |
| Balasore (Orissa), Nov 26 (IANS) People of five villages in Orissa's Balasore district were evacuated early Sunday to safer places as India prepares to test fire two home grown missiles against each other later in the day. In the Prithvi Air Defence Exercise (PADE), being undertaken for the first time, one missile will be fired from the shore-based Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur-on-sea and the other from Inner Wheeler Island, said a defence official. Both the test ranges are located 150 km from state capital Bhubaneswar. The exercise is being carried out to validate the capability of the weapon to achieve its design parameters, he said. "While the missile from the ITR will be the attacker, the missile from Wheeler Island would act as the defender and will be fired five seconds later," said a defence official. "If their trajectory is perfectly aligned, it would be termed a success of the operational status of the Prithvi-II missile programme," the official added. The aim of the exercise is to test the missile's ability to provide an air-shield cover to important Indian metros against hostile attacks, he explained. "We have evacuated 600 families from Kusumalipahi, Khadupahi, Jayadevkasabapahi, Bardhanpurpahi and Bhimpurpahi villages, which are within two km area of the testing site," a district administrative official told IANS. The villagers have been moved to nearby schools. The Prithvi is one of the five missiles being developed under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). First tested in 1988, Prithvi-I has a range of 150 km and can carry conventional or low-yield nuclear warheads for use against troops or armoured formations. Its two variants, the Prithvi-II and Prithvi-III, have a range of 250 km and 350 km respectively. Prithvi-II was first tested in January 1996. It flew 250 km and is said to have accurately landed at a pre-determined point. The Indian Army has already inducted Prithvi- I and II. Prithvi-III was successfully test fired for the first time in October 2004. Prithvi-II was again test fired Nov 19. "We are happy this test met all the parameters. This has promoted us to conduct the air-defence exercise and we hope the first ever experiment will also be fruitful," a scientist involved in the mission said. The air-defence exercise will be followed by a three-day national conference on range technology to be held Nov 28-30 at the ITR. To be inaugurated by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the conference will be attended by 15 renowned defence scientists from the US, Britain, France, Germany and Denmark. |
| Posted by:john |
| #1 During the exercise, two P-II missiles, one each from launching complex-3 (LC-3) of the ITR and LC-4 on the Inner Wheeler Island, would be fired. Both the missiles will have an alignment in the air before dropping into the sea. ‘While the missile from the LC-3 will be the attacker, the LC-4 missile would be the defender. A P-II missile from LC-4 would be fired hardly five seconds after the launching of another P-II from LC-3. If they strike each other with perfect alignment, then it would be assumed successful,’ defence sources said. The main objective of the exercise is to provide an air-shield (cover) to important metros, the defence source said, adding that the missile would be parked close to the Indo-Pak and Sino-Indian borders during wartime. |
| Posted by: john 2006-11-26 19:33 |