Missile defence: India ahead of China

India has better technology than China to defend itself from missile attacks, a top defence scientist said on Wednesday.

India has better technology than China to defend itself from missile attacks, a top defence scientist said on Wednesday.

HT Image

A month after China announced it had successfully carried out a ballistic missile defence (BMD) test, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief V.K. Saraswat said India’s BMD programme is more advanced than China’s.

Saraswat, also the scientific adviser to Defence Minister A.K. Antony, said: “This (BMD) is one area where we are senior to China. We knew they had acquired the building blocks for BMD when they shot down a satellite in 2007. But we have been working on this programme since 1999.”

Saraswat said significant advances had been made in developing endo-atmospheric and exo-atmospheric intercept systems to destroy incoming hostile missiles within and outside the atmospheric limits respectively. The DRDO is integrating the two systems for a multi-layered defence against ballistic missiles.

Saraswat said the DRDO would be conducting another test of its endo-atmospheric interceptor missile, called AAD, in February-end.

“The endo-atmospheric test will be followed by an exo-atmospheric one. We will then carry out an integrated test,” said Saraswat.

The integrated exo and endo-atmospheric systems offer a hit-to-kill probability of 99.8 per cent.