India successfully launches nuclear-capable Surface to Surface Ballistic Missile Agni-5

In another boost to India’s defence capabilities, the country successfully launched the nuclear-capable Surface to Surface Ballistic Missile, Agni-5 on Wednesday evening.

As per a statement from the Ministry of Defence, the launch was carried out at around 7:50 pm from the APJ Kalam Island in Odisha.

Agni-5 is capable of striking targets at ranges up to 5,000 kilometres with a very high degree of accuracy. It uses a three-stage solid fuelled engine.

The statement added that the launch is in line with India’s policy to have ‘credible minimum deterrence’ that underpins the commitment to ‘No First Use’.

The missile hits its target perfectly. If there is a difference in accuracy due to any reason, then it will be just 10 to 80 meters. However, this difference does not reduce the lethal strikes of the missile. A ground mobile launcher is used to launch Agni-V. It can be loaded on the truck and transported to any place by road. Scientist M Natarajan had planned about Agni for the first time in the year 2007.

Experts believe that if India fires this missile, it can attack the whole of Asia, Europe, parts of Africa. In other words, half the world is in its range. The most striking feature of the Agni-V is its MIRV (Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles) technology. In this technique, multiple weapons can be installed instead of one in the warhead mounted on the missile. That is, a missile can hit multiple targets simultaneously.

The first successful test of Agni-V took place on 19 April 2012. This was followed by successful trials on 15 September 2013, 31 January 2015, 26 December 2016, 18 January 2018, 3 June 2018 and 10 December 2018. Altogether there have been 7 successful tests of the Agni-V missile, this missile was tested on different parameters in different tests, from which it came to the fore that the missile is the best weapon to destroy the enemy.