India's naval anti-ship missile completes maiden flight test

The Naval Anti-Ship Missile - Short-Range completed its maiden flight test from an Indian Navy's Sea King Mk 42B helicopter on 18 May. (Indian Ministry of Defence)

India's locally developed Naval Anti-Ship Missile - Short Range (NASM-SR) completed its maiden flight test from an Indian Navy's Sea King Mk 42B helicopter at the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur in Odisha on 18 May.

The Indian government's Press Information Bureau (PIB) said the test-firing, which was jointly conducted by the state-run Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Indian Navy, achieved the main objective of proving the performance of the missile's subsystems.

The missile – the Indian Navy's first indigenous air-launched anti-ship missile system – followed the planned sea-skimming trajectory and “reached the designated target with [a] high degree of accuracy, validating the control, guidance, and mission algorithms”, the PIB statement added.

Additional details about the missile's technical parameters were not provided by the PIB. It added that the weapon has been incorporated with “many new technologies” including a “state-of-the-art navigation system and integrated avionics” for the missile guidance and an “indigenously developed launcher for the helicopter”.

The DRDO revealed initial details about the helicopter-launched NASM-SR at India's tri-service military exhibition DefExpo in 2020. It said the 380 kg missile is 3.6 m in length, 300 mm in diameter, and has a maximum range of 55 km.