Nuclear-capable missile Prithvi II successfully test-fired

India successfully test-fired indigenously developed nuclear-capable missile Prithvi-II on Thursday night as part of a user trial by the Army from a test range off the Odisha coast. The trial of the surface-to-surface missile, which has a strike range of 350 km, was carried out from a mobile launcher from Launch Complex-III of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, near here, at around 8.30 pm, sources said.

"It was a routine trial," a source said. Prithvi-II was also successfully test-fired at night on February 21, 2018, from the ITR at Chandipur.

The missile is capable of carrying 500/100 kg of warheads and is powered by liquid propulsion twin engines. The state-of-the-art missile uses an advanced inertial guidance system with a manoeuvring trajectory to hit its target, the sources said. The missile was randomly chosen from the production stock and the entire launch activity was carried out by the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) of the Army and monitored by the scientists of the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) as part of a training exercise, they added.

"The missile trajectory was tracked with the help of radars, electro-optical tracking systems and telemetry stations by the DRDO along the coast of Odisha," a source said. The downrange teams on board a ship deployed near the designated impact point in the Bay of Bengal monitored the terminal events and splashed down, he added.

On November 21, 2016, two missiles were successfully test-fired in the salvo mode from the same base. Inducted into the armory of the Indian defence forces in 2003, the nine-metre-tall, single-stage liquid-fuelled Prithvi is the first missile to have been developed by the DRDO under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP).