The Indian Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) conducted a successful maiden flight-test of Phase-II Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) interceptor AD-1 missile with large kill altitude bracket from APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of Odisha on November 02, 2022. The flight-test was carried out with participation of all BMD weapon system elements located at different geographical locations. The AD-1 is a long-range interceptor missile designed for both low exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric interception of long-range ballistic missiles as well as aircraft.
The AD-1 is propelled by a two-stage solid motor and equipped with indigenously-developed advanced control system, navigation and guidance algorithm to precisely guide the vehicle to the target. Development of the anti-ballistic missile system began in 1999. Around 40 public and private companies were involved in the development of the systems. They include Ordnance Factory Board, Bharat Electronics Limited and Bharat Dynamics among others. Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) developed the mission control software for the AAD missile. As of April 2019, the Phase-1 of the program has been completed.
The data captured by a number of range sensors including Radar, Telemetry and Electro Optical Tracking stations deployed to capture the flight data. Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh congratulated DRDO and other teams associated with successful flight trial of AD-1. He termed it as a unique type of interceptor with advanced technologies available with a very few nations in the world. Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman, DRDO Dr Samir V Kamat congratulated his team on the successful trial, stating that this interceptor will provide great operational flexibility to the users and having capability to engage many different types of targets.
The Indian Ballistic Missile Defence Program is an initiative to develop and deploy a multi-layered ballistic missile defence system to protect India from ballistic missile attacks. It was launched in 2000 after Kargil War by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Introduced in light of the ballistic missile threat from Pakistan and China, it is a double-tiered system consisting of two land and sea-based interceptor missiles, namely the Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) missile for high altitude interception, and the Advanced Air Defence (AAD) Missile for lower altitude interception.
