Agni II, the pride of India's strategic arsenal was once again launched successfully on September 30 (today), at 9:30 am from the Wheeler Island off the coast of Orissa. The launch was a hat-trick after successful launches of Shourya, Prithvi-II on September 24 and September 26 respectively. The successful launch once again proved reliability of the medium range surface to surface missile.
The 2000-km range surface to surface missile, already inducted and part of countries arsenal for strategic deterrence, was launched as a training exercise by the armed forces. The two stage missile equipped with advanced high accuracy navigation system, guided by a novel scheme of state of the earth command & control system was propelled by solid rocket propellant system. The missile reached an apogee (peak altitude) of 220 km and hit the target. All the radar, telemetry systems, ectopic system tracked & monitored all parameters throughout the trajectory. Two ships located near the target point have tracked the missile in the final stage.
Dr V.K. Saraswat, SA to RM, Secretary Defence R&D & Director General DRDO, Dr. Avinash Chander, Programme Director, Distinguished Scientist & Chief Controller R&D (MSS) and Air Marshal K.J. Mathews, AVSM, YSM, congratulated all the scientists, other DRDO personnel and members of armed forces. Shri D. Lakshminarayana, PD and his team monitored all the launch operation. The event was witnessed by Shri S.K. Ray, Distingiushed Scientist &Director. RCI, Shri P. Venugopalan, OS & Director, DRDL, Dr. V.G. Sekaran, OS & Director ASL, Shri S.P. Dash, Dir, ITR & other senior officials from DRDO & the Armed Forces. (Press Release)