India test-fired a long range missile, Agni-V, capable of reaching deep inside China and Europe on Thursday, television stations showed, thrusting the emerging Asian power into an elite club of nations with intercontinental nuclear defence capabilities.
With a range of over 5,000-km, India has joined the super exclusive ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) club that counts just US, Russia,China, France and UK as its members.The solid-fuelled Agni-V, which will bring the whole of China as well as other regions under its strike envelope, was tested from Wheeler Island off the Odisha coast at 8.07 am.
We have met all our mission objectives, said a jubilant DRD0 chief controller of missiles, Avinash Chander.DRD0 chief V K Saraswat, in turn, said India had emerged as a major missile power with Thursday s test.The nuclear-capable, three-stage Agni-V, about 50-tonne in weight and 17.5-metre tall, will become fully operational by 2014-2015 after “four to five repeatable tests” and user trials. – Dunaynews
