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Wednesday, December 12, 2007 (New Delhi)
India will have its own missile defence shield ready in three years, a development that will mark a big leap in securing the country's high value assets and major cities like Delhi and Mumbai.
The two-layered Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system to cope with both threats from ballistic missiles as well as terrain-hugging cruise missile could be ready by 2010.
This assurance came from the country's top missile scientist V K Saraswat in the backdrop of Pakistan building up an arsenal of missiles, which would give India hardly a 3-4 minute reaction time.
''An integrated test trial of the interceptor missile and its sub-systems would be conducted in June next year,'' Saraswat told newspersons on the recent successful test trials of the Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missiles in endo-atmospheric mode.
He said three to four more flight trials of the AAD and another four trials of exo-atmospheric missiles were required before declaring the system as ''operational''.
The missile scientist said the AAD system could also be configured to take care of threats from terrain-hugging cruise missiles.
Asked when BMD could be mass-produced to cover the whole nation, Saraswat said that within weeks of the system being validated the production lines would be ready to roll out the system in bulk.
He said there was a ''substantial'' private sector participation in the BMD development programme.
The two-layered Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system to cope with both threats from ballistic missiles as well as terrain-hugging cruise missile could be ready by 2010.
This assurance came from the country's top missile scientist V K Saraswat in the backdrop of Pakistan building up an arsenal of missiles, which would give India hardly a 3-4 minute reaction time.
''An integrated test trial of the interceptor missile and its sub-systems would be conducted in June next year,'' Saraswat told newspersons on the recent successful test trials of the Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missiles in endo-atmospheric mode.
He said three to four more flight trials of the AAD and another four trials of exo-atmospheric missiles were required before declaring the system as ''operational''.
The missile scientist said the AAD system could also be configured to take care of threats from terrain-hugging cruise missiles.
Asked when BMD could be mass-produced to cover the whole nation, Saraswat said that within weeks of the system being validated the production lines would be ready to roll out the system in bulk.
He said there was a ''substantial'' private sector participation in the BMD development programme.
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