Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: India on Friday successfully carried out a flight demonstration based on Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet (SFDR) technology from a defence facility off the Odisha coast paving the way for development of long range air to air missiles.
Defence sources said a prototype of an air-to-air missile based on the technology was test-fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at about 10.30 am to gauge the performance of the system.
An air launch scenario was simulated by the ground booster during the test and the missile was guided to high altitude to simulate aircraft release conditions. Subsequently the nozzle-less booster was ignited and it accelerated the system to the required Mach number for ramjet operation.
All the subsystems including the ground booster motor and nozzle-less motor performed as expected. The separation of the ground booster was also perfect.
“The successful demonstration of the technology will enable DRDO to develop long range air to air missiles. So far such technology is available only with a handful of countries in the world,” a defence official told The New Indian Express.
Many new technologies including solid fuel based ducted ramjet technology were proven during the test. The performance of the missile was monitored using the data captured by electro optical, radar and telemetry instruments deployed by ITR and confirmed successful demonstration of the mission objectives.
The air breathing ramjet technology will propel long range air-to-air to engage with targets at supersonic speed. This was the third test of the technology. The first and second tests were conducted in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
The launch was monitored by senior scientists of various DRDO labs including Hyderabad based DRDL and RCI and Pune based HEMRL.
Secretary of Department of Defence (R&D) and Chairman of DRDO Dr G Satheesh Reddy congratulated the team involved in the mission.