India test fires ship-based missile 'Dhanush'

Balasore (Orissa), Mar 11: India today (Mar 11) test fired its nuclear-capable ballistic missile ''Dhanush'', with a range of 350 km, from a naval ship off the Orissa coast, defence sources said.

The missile was fired by Indian Navy personnel as part of user training exercise. "The single-stage ship-based missile was flight-tested at around 1005 hours and the trial was conducted from a naval ship off Orissa coast in the sea at a spot between Paradip and Puri," the sources said.

Dhanush has a pay-load capacity of 500 kg and is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads. It can hit both sea and shore-based targets.

The missile, which has liquid propellant, is the naval version of India's indigenously developed surface-to-surface "Prithvi" missile system, the sources said.

"Dhanush, developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), was put to trial jointly by a team of scientists and officers from the Navy," they said.

"Today's test launch has been tracked from its take-off to impact point through an integrated network of sophisticated radars and electro-optic instruments for post-mission data analyses," the sources said.

Though the missile had failed in its first test at the development stage on Apr 11, 2000 due to certain technical problems in the take-off stage, subsequent trials were successful. Dhanush was successfully flight tested last on Mar 27, 2010 from INS Subhadra in the Bay of Bengal off Orissa coast.

PTI