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Dhanush Naval Tactical Ballistic Missile
Dhanush is a single stage, liquid propelled, 500 kg warhead missile with a range of 350 km.
The missile is a Naval derivative of the Prithvi missile deployed by the Indian Army and Air Force.
Contents
* At a Glance
* Operational Status
* Test Flights
At a Glance
A naval variant of the Prithvi short range missile, Dhanush is a single stage, liquid fueled, 500 kg warhead missile with a range of 350 km.
Dhanush being test fired from OPV INS Shubhadra on December 13, 2009, off the Balasore coast.
Operational Status
The role of the Dhanush missile in the Indian Navy is not clear. Since it is a liquid fueled missile that takes a considerable time to fuel up and launch, its role can only be strategic. Its limited range of 350 km make ti Pakistan centric.
Considering that the Prithvi was built by reverse engineering the 1950s vintage SAM-2 missile acquired by India from the erstwhile Soviet Union, it is hard to understand what the missile is doing in the Indian strategic arsenal.
It is likely Indian Navy funded development of the missile to acquire an early stake in India's strategic defense.
The Navy will eventually acquire a major stake once India's nuclear powered boomer sub INS Arihant is commissioned armed with Saagrika missiles, something that will take a minimum of two more years.
The Dhanush has so far been tested using make shift platforms on Indian Navy ships such as the Rajput and INS Shubhadra.
In the past, the Dhanush has also been used for the BMD system under development by DRDO.
Though the missile has been launched from at least two naval ships of vastly different sizes - INS Rajput, a destroyer, and INS Shubhadra, an Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV), there is nothing to suggest that the Dhanush has been operationally deployed on any of the Indian Navy ships.
The missile is most probably a technology demonstrator aimed at developing and honing the technology to launch a missile from a fast moving ship and guide it to its target with pinpoint accuracy.
Test Flights
The Dhanush was first tested on April 11, 2000 from the Chandipur range. The development test failed.
The first successful test wad conducted on September 2001.
The second successful test of the Dhanush took place on November 7, 2004 when the missile was successfully fired from a naval ship off the Orissa coas.
It was again successfully tested from INS Subhadra off Orissa coast on March 30, 2007
On March 6, 2008 a PAD missile successfully intercepted a modified Dhanush surface-to-surface missile fired from INS Rajput anchored inside the Bay of Bengal. On that occasion, the Dhanush simulated a target “enemy” missile with a range of 1,500 km.
The Dhanush was most recently tested on December 13, 2009, at 11.31 am. It was launched from the Offshore Patrol Vehicle (OPV) INS Subhadra, anchored about 35 nautical miles offshore from the test range of Chandipur in Balasore district, 230 km from Bhubaneswar.
The test "met all the mission objectives" according to a DRDO official.
The missile flew for 520 seconds before hitting the target with a 10m CEP.
All the operations for the launch were carried out by Naval personnel.
“All the events occurred as expected and were monitored by the range sensors. It was a text book launch and a fantastic mission accomplished,” an official said.
"Dhanush, being developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), was put to trial jointly by a team of scientists and officers from the Navy," said another official.
"Today's test launch has been tracked from its take-off to impact point through an integrated network of sophisticated radars and electro-optic instruments for post-mission data analyses," the sources said.
V.K. Saraswat, scientific advisor to the defense minister, and director general and secretary, Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), was on-board the ship during the mission.
Dhanush Naval Tactical Ballistic Missile
Dhanush is a single stage, liquid propelled, 500 kg warhead missile with a range of 350 km.
The missile is a Naval derivative of the Prithvi missile deployed by the Indian Army and Air Force.
Contents
* At a Glance
* Operational Status
* Test Flights
At a Glance
A naval variant of the Prithvi short range missile, Dhanush is a single stage, liquid fueled, 500 kg warhead missile with a range of 350 km.
Dhanush being test fired from OPV INS Shubhadra on December 13, 2009, off the Balasore coast.
Operational Status
The role of the Dhanush missile in the Indian Navy is not clear. Since it is a liquid fueled missile that takes a considerable time to fuel up and launch, its role can only be strategic. Its limited range of 350 km make ti Pakistan centric.
Considering that the Prithvi was built by reverse engineering the 1950s vintage SAM-2 missile acquired by India from the erstwhile Soviet Union, it is hard to understand what the missile is doing in the Indian strategic arsenal.
It is likely Indian Navy funded development of the missile to acquire an early stake in India's strategic defense.
The Navy will eventually acquire a major stake once India's nuclear powered boomer sub INS Arihant is commissioned armed with Saagrika missiles, something that will take a minimum of two more years.
The Dhanush has so far been tested using make shift platforms on Indian Navy ships such as the Rajput and INS Shubhadra.
In the past, the Dhanush has also been used for the BMD system under development by DRDO.
Though the missile has been launched from at least two naval ships of vastly different sizes - INS Rajput, a destroyer, and INS Shubhadra, an Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV), there is nothing to suggest that the Dhanush has been operationally deployed on any of the Indian Navy ships.
The missile is most probably a technology demonstrator aimed at developing and honing the technology to launch a missile from a fast moving ship and guide it to its target with pinpoint accuracy.
Test Flights
The Dhanush was first tested on April 11, 2000 from the Chandipur range. The development test failed.
The first successful test wad conducted on September 2001.
The second successful test of the Dhanush took place on November 7, 2004 when the missile was successfully fired from a naval ship off the Orissa coas.
It was again successfully tested from INS Subhadra off Orissa coast on March 30, 2007
On March 6, 2008 a PAD missile successfully intercepted a modified Dhanush surface-to-surface missile fired from INS Rajput anchored inside the Bay of Bengal. On that occasion, the Dhanush simulated a target “enemy” missile with a range of 1,500 km.
The Dhanush was most recently tested on December 13, 2009, at 11.31 am. It was launched from the Offshore Patrol Vehicle (OPV) INS Subhadra, anchored about 35 nautical miles offshore from the test range of Chandipur in Balasore district, 230 km from Bhubaneswar.
The test "met all the mission objectives" according to a DRDO official.
The missile flew for 520 seconds before hitting the target with a 10m CEP.
All the operations for the launch were carried out by Naval personnel.
“All the events occurred as expected and were monitored by the range sensors. It was a text book launch and a fantastic mission accomplished,” an official said.
"Dhanush, being developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), was put to trial jointly by a team of scientists and officers from the Navy," said another official.
"Today's test launch has been tracked from its take-off to impact point through an integrated network of sophisticated radars and electro-optic instruments for post-mission data analyses," the sources said.
V.K. Saraswat, scientific advisor to the defense minister, and director general and secretary, Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), was on-board the ship during the mission.