India Test Fires Ship-to-Ship MissileIndia test fired on September 21 its first homemade ship-to-ship missile, which is capable of carrying nuclear weapons, from a warship near the its east coast into the Bay of Bengal, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.Known as the naval version of the surface-to-surface "Prithvi" missile, the ship-to-ship missile, codenamed Dhanush, has a strike range of 250 kilometers. "The telemetry and tracking network have established that the technology demonstrator (of the missile) met its entire mission objective," the PTI quoted a spokesman of the Defense Ministry as saying. The 8.56 metre-long missile had been tracked right from its takeoff till the impact point at sea, according to the agency. "The navy will soon move towards operationalization of the ( missile) system," the spokesman added. Defense sources said the missile, which was "successfully" test fired, could be tipped with nuclear weapons. The missile was developed exclusively by the Defense Research and Development Organization for the navy. Friday's launch was the second in a series of flight tests aiming to gauge the missile's parameters. It was first tested on April 11 last year. |
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