Agni-5 ballistic missile

Agni-5 ballistic missile

Subject – Defence and Security

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

Concept –

• 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-capable missile is India’s contender for the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) with a range of 5,000 km.
• Agni 5 is India’s long-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, which can hit a target with a precision that is 5,000 km away. This range puts almost the entire China within the missile’s target range.
• Though officially an ICBM needs a missile to have a range of at least 5,500 km, the Agni 5 is India’s closest contender for an ICBM, as it can reach countries across other continents, including parts of Africa and Europe.
• The nuclear capable missile can carry a warhead of around 1,500 kg and has a launch weight of 50,000 kg, making it one of the most potent missiles in the 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 system in which the missile is stored and launched from, also gives the missile a longer shelf life, protecting it from the harsher climatic conditions.

History of Agni missiles

• India began testing the Agni series of missiles in 1989 with the first test for Agni 1, an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile, with a range of around 1,000 km. At that time only the US, the erstwhile Soviet Union, China, France and Israel, had IRBM technology.
• Since then, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) labs have continued to work on it, bringing the latest available Agni 5 to its present capability.
• In addition to the IRBM-capable nations, only North Korea and the UK have ICBM technology at the moment.
• While India is among the handful of nations with (arguably) ICBM capability, the next generation of the missile, Agni VI, under development, is expected to have a range of around 8,000 km.
• Regarding hypersonic missile technology (tested by China recently), India is among a select few serious contenders working towards it, even though it is behind China, the US and Russia.

What is a Hypersonic Glide Vehicle that China tested?

• China had in August tested a new hypersonic missile, which is nuclear capable, which circled the earth before moving towards its target, missing it by two dozen miles.
• While China denied the report claiming it to be a “spacecraft” and not a missile, it demonstrated the capability in hypersonic glide vehicle technology, which raises strategic concerns not just for its neighbours like India, but even its rivals like the US.
• A hypersonic glide vehicle is launched by a rocket which moves in the Earth’s lower orbit, at more than five times to 25 times the speed 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, which have a range of over 5,500 km, have existed since around World War II. These missiles, meant to carry nuclear payloads, have the capacity to carry several warheads.
• While an ICBM follows a parabolic trajectory, which mean it goes up and then comes down in a high arc—like when you throw up a ball, only much higher, further and faster—a hypersonic glide vehicle orbits the earth at a lower height, and is manoeuvrable. The ability to change track or target, mid-trajectory, along with the speed, makes them tougher to track and defend against.
• 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 mix of the high altitude, high speed and the ability to be manoeuvred makes them, both challenging to the best missile defenses now envisioned and, until the last 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 provide them to use “in-flight updates to attack a different target than originally planned” and the “ability 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 would be China’s first such test 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.