09 April 2019

India's DRDO reveals additional details of recent ASAT missile test

by Rahul Bedi

India’s government-run Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has revealed additional details about the successful test-firing on 27 March of its first anti-satellite (ASAT) missile that destroyed one of the country’s own satellites in space.

India successfully tested the BMD interceptor missile (seen here) on 27 March. The ASAT weapon was used to destroy an Indian satellite in low-Earth orbit. (DRDO/PIB)

Briefing the media on 6 April, DRDO head G Satheesh Reddy stated that the 13 m-high, three-stage interceptor missile, which was fitted with two solid-propellant rocket motor stages and a hit-to-kill capable ‘Kill Vehicle’ (KV), was employed to target the satellite under ‘Mission Shakti’ (Strength).

He said the KV’s onboard advanced terminal guidance system, which featured a strap-down (non-gimballed) imaging infrared (IIR) seeker and an inertial navigation system that used ring-laser gyroscopes (RLGs), detected and tracked the 740 kg Microsat-R Earth observation satellite at an altitude of 283 km in low-Earth orbit (LEO).

The DRDO-designed satellite had been specially launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) two months earlier for the ASAT missile test, which had been under planning since 2016 and had also undergone numerous simulation trials.

Reddy explained that after the two rocket motor stages had taken the ASAT missile to the required height and velocity, the nose tip heat shield was ejected and the IIR seeker, located within the very front of the nose, locked onto the target satellite, guiding the KV towards it at a “closing speed” – the velocity of the target and KV combined – of 10 km per second.

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