The 1,000-kg Nirbhay can be used for a ‘variety of applications’.
India is developing a sub-sonic 1,000-km range cruise missile “Nirbhay” which can be used for a “variety of applications”, a top military scientist has said.
The 1,000-kg “missile is getting into some shape”, V K Saraswat, Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister and Chief of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, said today.
He also said the flight-trial of air-to-air missile ‘Astra’, having a range of 45 to 100 km, was on the cards.
Saraswat was delivering the keynote address at a national convention organised by the Aeronautical Society of India here.
He said India’s armed forces were looking for long duration loitering missiles which can enter “enemy territory”, search targets such as radars, concentration of assets and “a variety of movements of enemy”, “home-on” the targets and “bang” them.
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“We need to develop (loitering missiles)”, he said.
Saraswat made a strong push for deploying space-based sensors to keep tab on “adversaries” and gather intelligence via-a-vis defence surveillance.
He said space-based sensors are a must for tracking and detection of movements of enemies. Unless it had space-based sensors, India would not be able to make its ballistic missile defence system a “potent weapon”, the scientist said.
India is launching a major programme for surveillance, particularly space-based, in terms of electro-optical payload and synthetic aperture radar. “So, unless we prepare ourselves for future space-based systems, security is going to be a major issue,” he said.