India successfully launched an interceptor missile

Validating Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) capability, India successfully launched an interceptor missile to destroy an incoming target missile in a direct hit at an altitude of 15 km over the Bay of Bengal on Friday Feb 10,2012
This will be the seventh interceptor mission. The exercise is meant to test the capability of the system to kill incoming ballistic missiles with a range of 2,000-3,000 km. Of the six exercises held to date — the first was in November 2006 — five have been successful


The two launches - that of the attacker missile and of the interceptor - took place independently and they were controlled by radars at different places in the country and by the Mission Control Centre and the Launch Control Centre. Fifteen computers stationed at Hyderabad, Balasore, Chandipur, Konark, Puri, Wheeler Island and so on worked in unison and made the mission a complete success


V.K. Saraswat, Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, who was present at the Wheeler Island, called it “a good launch.” The success of the interception “confirms” that India’s Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) programme in the endo-atmosphere (that is, below an altitude of 50 km) “is now ready for deployment and the country is in a position to take it to the next phase of production and induction,” he asserted. The entire operation including the launch of the attacker missile from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur and the interceptor taking off from the Wheeler Island, 70 km away, and the interception were “carried out in the deployment mode,” he said. A user team from the Army, which was present in the Wheeler Island, watched the entire operation