India successfully conducted a flight test of its indigenously designed and developed long-range sub-sonic cruise missile ‘Nirbhay’, which can carry warheads of up to 300 kg.
The state-of-the-art missile developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation was test fired successfully from the test range at Chandipur along the Odisha coast yesterday at 10.30 hrs. This was the fifth experimental test of the home-grown missile system.
Powered by a solid rocket motor booster, Nirbhay missile with a turbo-fan engine is guided by a highly advanced inertial navigation system. The missile is capable of carrying 24 kinds of war weapons, the missile is able to target multiple places simultaneously.
Nirbhay is very manoeuvrable and can fly at tree-top level, making it difficult to detect on radar, and strikes targets of 1,000 km away carrying nuclear warheads, giving India the capability to strike deep into enemy territory. The last test flight held on December 21, 2016 had to be aborted after 700 seconds of its test flight as it deviated from its designated path.
