cross posting from mac post:
‘US still denying us technology’
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is looking at providing technology for low-intensity conflicts such as terrorism and cyber warfare, as well as towards ensuring the security of Indian space assets, the DRDO chief and science adviser to the defence minister, Dr V.K. Saraswat, tells S. Raghotham in his first interview to the media since he assumed office in September 2009.
Q. The obvious first question — where are we on the missile roadmap?
A. We have two streams of missile programmes — strategic and tactical. There is a momentum, a certain push to achieve our requirements for strategic defence. Agni 3 is set for production in numbers. We have no doubt about the missile after three consecutive successful tests.
The 5,000-plus km range Agni 5 has moved out of the drawing board, developmental activities are on, subsystems work is in progress. We plan to do the first test flight by the end of the year.
After the successful test of Shourya, a canisterised missile with a range similar to Agni 1 — around 700 km— more and more of our missiles will go the canisterised way because then they can go on multiple platforms on land, air and sea.
Next is a canisterised version of the 2,000-plus km range Agni 2.
Q. What about tactical missiles?
A. Nag, the anti-tank missile, will go in for repeat summer trials this year after we incorporated user (Indian Army) suggestions. It’s a third-generation anti-tank guided missile with infrared seeker. India will be only the third or fourth country to make such a missile.
We have led Akash, the air defence missile, to production.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) has ordered eight squadrons of Akash missiles, the Army has ordered two batteries.
In new missiles,
the Astra air-to-air beyond visual range missile has undergone four to five ground launch trials. We are now qualifying its infra-red seeker. Once ready, it will go on multiple platforms, including Tejas and Sukhoi fighters.
For the Navy, we are developing a canisterised anti-anti-ship missile, with a range of 70 km, and able to intercept manoeuvring targets. It is an advancement over the 15-km range Israeli Barak missile. We are developing the Long Range Surface-to-Air Missile (LRSAM) in collaboration with Israel Aircraft Industries. The first flight test will happen in mid-2010. We started developing a similar missile for the IAF in late 2009.
Q. What about Cruise missiles? Sub-launched missiles? K-15?
A. We are setting up a cruise missile development programme under Nirbhay. I won’t say more than that.
Q. What does the future look like for DRDO?
A. We have made a
technology development plan for the next 25 years. It is dovetailed to projections made by the armed forces in their long-range plans, what they call the LTIPP (long-term integrated perspective plan), taking into account the changing nature of warfare and the threats that India is likely to face. It calls for directed basic research in technologies that are still in their infancy, customising technologies for different users and “productionising” the most mature technologies into platforms and systems. The focus is on improving the velocity of research. All research is now in mission mode.
Q. There has been criticism of the DRDO-military relationship.
A. Look, as I said, DRDO’s technology development plan is now dovetailed to the military’s LTIPP. Two, there is now increasing coordination between the services and DRDO.
The military is now involved at every stage in our projects. Also, what we do now is, if a development project is estimated to take five years but the military wants the capability sooner, we say, go ahead and buy it from outside. So, the potential for conflict between DRDO and military does not arise.
Q. What is the status of the Rama Rao Committee report and DRDO reforms?
A. A panel headed by the defence secretary is looking into the issue of implementing the recommendations.
Q. What are the focus areas in the 25-year technology development plan?
A. There are three. The closest to our heart is low-intensity conflict (LIC). Many technologies that we have developed for the military have relevance for LICs. You will appreciate that many agencies in the country are today involved in LICs — the paramilitary forces, police forces, counter-insurgency and counter-terror organisations and so on. We have started a programme to customise DRDO technology for each of them. LIC is one of our key result areas now.
Another area is space security because future wars are going to be controlled from space as network-centric warfare becomes the new way of war-fighting. So, technologies that are relevant for space security such as ballistic missile defence, anti-satellite systems, are going to be part of our development process. Secondly, to be able to quickly launch satellites to regain space-based capabilities when existing assets are attacked or denied to our military during war. These are low-cost, quick reaction satellite launch systems and low-endurance satellites — they last just long enough to do their job. What will emerge through our programme are micro-satellites, mini-satellites etc.
On the launch side, some of our missiles can be modified, a satellite put on top of them and launched.
Q. Can our current missiles be used for anti-satellite hits?
A. With modifications, yes. But that’s not our priority.
Q. What’s the third focus area?
A. Cyber security. As we move towards network-centric warfare, the security of the networks becomes a major requirement. DRDO already has a strong technological base in encryption and things like that. We want to enlarge that base to hardware and software to make our stand-alone systems impossible to penetrate, and harden for military usage those systems that have to work with commercial networks, such as the Internet. Cyber security will be most applicable in low-intensity conflicts. What we want is to be able to detect attacks on our systems and deny the attackers the pleasure.
Q. But much of the core electronics used in our defence equipment is imported.
A.
So what we plan to do is to set up a facility to detect Trojans — viruses, hidden locks, killer switches — in the chips that we buy from outside before clearing them for usage in sensitive equipment.
Q. What are you doing to give a fillip to the private sector defence manufacturing base?
A. The DRDO has been
partnering with industry for the last 25 years and has a network of 800 small and medium enterprises and large public and private enterprises working with us on various projects.
Now, we are starting a commercial arm of DRDO to transfer technology to industry. We already have a programme called ATAC (Technology Assessment and Commercialisation), with industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) as our partner which identifies potential technology buyers.
There are also technologies that have a larger relevance for the civilian market. For instance, what we do in our life sciences labs — high-altitude agriculture, biomedical engineering research, nuclear-biological-chemical technologies, etc. The ministry of home affairs requires them for disaster management.
For DRDO, 2010 is the year of R&D collaboration with industry, universities and the military.
Q. Are we going to see the Hyperplane test flight happen any time soon?
A. We faced a problem in high-temperature materials for the scramjet engine. We needed to run the engine for 20 seconds, but could do it only up to three seconds. We were denied imports of the material required. So, we launched a separate programme and developed three materials. We have now been able to reach 20 seconds twice. We want to do five to six more ground tests. We expect to be able to do the first test flight by the end of the year.
Q. But hasn’t it become easier since the Indo-US nuclear deal to obtain technology?
A. No. We are still victims of US denial regimes. Our labs are still on the “Entity List”. Technology denial continues. There is a big gap between American talk and action towards us.
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/op-ed/‘us-still-denying-us-technology’-866
