Defence and Security

Agni-5 ballistic missile, with 5,000-km range, successfully tested in India

·        Agni-5 ballistic missile, with 5,000-km range was successfully tested in India.
Though inducted over three years ago, India’s foremost Agni 5 ballistic missile was tested for the first time by the user agency, the Strategic Forces Command (a joint tri-services command, responsible for India’s nuclear weapons).

·        The nuclear-succesful missile is India’s contender for the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) with a variety of five,000 km.

·        Agni 5 is India’s long-range floor-to-floor ballistic missile, that can hit a goal with a precision this is five,000 km away. This range puts almost the whole China in the missile’s target variety.

·        Though formally an ICBM needs a missile to have a range of at least 5,500 km, the Agni five is India’s closest contender for an ICBM, as it is able to reach countries across different continents, such as elements of Africa and Europe.

·        The nuclear capable missile can deliver a warhead of round 1,500 kg and has a launch weight of fifty,000 kg, making it one of the maximum potent missiles inthe country.

·        What makes Agni 5 agile is that it is a “canisterised” missile.

·        It means that the missile can be launched from road and rail platforms, making it easier for it to be deployed and launched at a quicker pace.

·        The canisterisation, which is an encapsulated gadget wherein the missile is stored and released from, additionally offers the missile a longer shelf life, defensive it from the harsher climatic situations.

History of Agni missiles

• India started out testing the Agni collection of missiles in 1989 with the primary take a look at for Agni 1, an Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile, with a number round 1,000 km. At that point handiest the USA, the erstwhile Soviet Union, China, France, and Israel, had IRBM generation.
• Since then, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) labs have persisted to work on it, bringing the modern available Agni 5 to its present capability.
• In addition to the IRBM-capable countries, most effective North Korea and the United Kingdom have ICBM era in the interim.
• While India is most of the handful of countries with (arguably) ICBM capability, the next generation of the missile, Agni VI, beneath improvement, is predicted to have more than a few around eight,000 km.
• Regarding hypersonic missile generation (tested by way of China currently), India is amongst a chosen few critical contenders working closer to it, even though it is at the back of China, the USA and Russia.

What is a Hypersonic Glide Vehicle that China tested?

• China had in August examined a brand new hypersonic missile, which is nuclear succesful, which turned around the earth earlier than moving towards its target, lacking it via  dozen miles.
• While China denied the report claiming it to be a “spacecraft” and now not a missile, it has proven its capability in hypersonic waft car technology, which increases strategic issues not just for its neighbors like India, but even its competitors like the US.
• A hypersonic drift vehicle is released through a rocket that moves in the Earth’s lower orbit, at more than five times to twenty-five times the velocity of sound.The vehicle is capable of carrying nuclear payloads, which gives the launching country the strategic capacity to attack almost any target across the world.

How is it different from an ICBM?

• Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, that have more than a few over five,500 km, have existed seeing that round World War II. These missiles, intended to hold nuclear payloads, have the capability to hold numerous warheads.
• While an ICBM follows a parabolic trajectory, which implies it goes up and then comes down in an excessive arc-like while you throw up a ball, simplest a whole lot higher, further, and faster—a hypersonic go with the flow vehicle orbits the earth at a lower peak, and is maneuverable. The capacity to alternate tune or goal, mid-trajectory, together with the velocity, makes them tougher to the song and guard towards.
• Hypersonic missiles can travel approximately at 5,000 to 25,000 km per hour, which makes them six to over 25 times faster than modern commercial aircraft. They fly at the heights of a few tens and 100 km. The blend of the high altitude, excessive pace and the capacity to be maneuvered makes them, both difficult to the nice missile defenses now predicted and, till the final minutes of flight, unpredictable as to their targets.
• Hypersonic missile’s capability gives them both offensive and defensive advantages. The manoeuvrability of such missiles can potentially offer them to use “in-flight updates to assault a different goal than originally planned” and the “potential to fly at unpredictable trajectories, these missiles will hold extremely large areas at risk throughout much of their flights”.
• However ICBM would remain the preferred choice, because they are more efficient. They are called the hypersonic glide vehicle “exotic”.

Which countries have hypersonic technology?

• Apart from China, the US and Russia are working on the technology. While this will be China’s first such check for the capability.
• According to the Rand Corporation’s 2017 report, France and India “are the most committed” about gaining the capability, and “both draw to some extent on cooperation with Russia”. It noted that Australia, Japan, and European entities are also working towards it.
• The report stated that hypersonic technology has a dual-use character, as it can be used for non-military purposes like space launch and spacecraft retrieval.