India’s two adversaries, namely Pakistan and China, are nuclear weapon states; as such, the presence of missile defence systems significantly bolsters India’s defence capabilities and contributes to enhancing its strategic posture read more. Since 1999 onwards, DRDO has been working towards the development of an indigenous ballistic missile defence program

by Ajey Lele

New Delhi: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully conducted a flight test of the Phase-2 Ballistic Missile Defence System (BMD) on July 24, 2024. This is an important step towards demonstrating India’s BMD capability.

During this test, DRDO had first launched the target missile, which started approaching towards its ‘objective’ for a kill. There were weapon system radars in place on both land and sea for the purposes of identifying the incoming threat. They detected the incoming target missile, and a warning was given to the AD interceptor system. The response was very quick, and in no time the Phase-2 AD endo-atmospheric missile was launched, and a perfect intercept of the target missile took place.

The time between the launch of the target missile and interception getting carried out was only four minutes. This short timeframe emphasises the need for quick detection, tracking, and autonomous decision-making by the BMD system to identify the correct battery to be used for undertaking interception and executing the kill. It is expected that in the event of any potential nuclear attack from the Pakistani side, India’s BMD system could have a maximum five minutes of early warning. Hence, DRDO was required to factor in the brief early warning time in their design.

For this test, DRDO’s BMD structure included Long Range Sensors, a low-latency communication system, the Mission Control Centre (MCC), and advanced interceptor missiles. For all these years, the focus of system development has been towards enhancing the speed, accuracy, and reliability of the entire BMD architecture. For this purpose, various developments were happening in fields of radar technology advancements, sensor networks, interceptor missile development, and command and control systems.

India’s two adversaries, namely Pakistan and China, are nuclear weapon states. They have a potent missile force, and some of their missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Obviously, India has no other option but to develop its missile defence system. Since 1999 onwards, DRDO has been working towards the development of an indigenous ballistic missile defence program. Initially, this programme started under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP). Over the years, it has evolved through various phases of research, development, and testing.

DRDO is developing a BMD system with two clear focus areas. One, a system that operates inside the Earth’s atmosphere called the endo-atmospheric (40 km above the ground level) region, and two, a system that operates outside the Earth’s atmosphere called the Exo-atmospheric (50 km-180 km above the ground level) region. This is because the trajectory of most ballistic missiles takes them both inside and outside the Earth’s atmosphere, and they can be intercepted in either place, hence the requirement of two types of systems. The main system components include the following:

Prithvi Air Defence (PAD): It carries out interception in an Exo-atmospheric environment

Advanced Air Defence (AAD): Intercepting missiles in an endo-atmospheric environment

Swordfish Long Range Tracking Radar: A critical component for tracking incoming ballistic missiles

Command and Control Centre: The nerve system of the entire system that manages the interception process

Largely, India’s BMD programme has evolved over the years with various technologies getting developed and tested towards building a BMD architecture. In the process, DRDO was required to develop various technologies, including component development, radar seekers, motors, jet vanes, structures, mission control software, and for the conduct of interception.

Various public and private sector agencies and companies are also contributing to this mission for BMD development. Phase one of this programme was essentially more about technology development and testing, and it lasted till 2019.

Simultaneously, work was also happening on the development of phase 2. Two new anti-ballistic missiles (AD-1 and AD-2) were getting developed. Initially, the focus was more towards the development of the PAD system. Various tests have been conducted so far during the last two decades, towards building an architecture for missile defence. The PADE (Prithvi Air Defence Exercise) was conducted during November 2006.

During this exercise, a PAD missile was successfully intercepted by a modified Prithvi-II missile at an altitude of 50 km. In regards to AAD, on 6 December 2007 a successful interception of a modified Prithvi-II missile (target missile) was carried out. Now this programme is coming towards completion, and on 24 July 2024, DRDO conducted a successful flight test of the Phase-II BMD System.

The interception happened at an altitude of less than 15 km, when the supersonic AD-2 missile successfully intercepted the target. It is expected that future frontline ships of the Indian Navy will also be equipped with this missile. It will take some more time and a few more tests to fully operationalise the entire BMD system.

There were some reports a few years back that DRDO is possibly working on the development of a laser-based weapon system as part of its defence to intercept and obliterate missiles immediately after they have been launched by the adversary. However, not much is known in this regard.

BMD development programmes do take a significant amount of time (a few decades), and hence, in order to fulfil the immediate strategic requirements, India is taking Russian help. To provide a robust shield against various aerial threats, India has inducted the Russian systems, called S-300 and S-400. Around a decade ago, six batteries of S-300 surface-to-air missiles were procured. This system can engage various aerial threats, including aircraft and missiles.

India has deployed the S-300PMU2 variant, which is an upgraded version of the S-300 system. India wants to have next-generation S-400 systems too. The S-400 systems began arriving in India by late 2021. Russia delivered the first three squadrons by 2023, but around two/three years (possibly by August 2026) delay is expected owing to the Ukraine war for the delivery of the remaining three units.

The presence of missile defence systems significantly bolsters India’s defence capabilities and contributes to enhancing its strategic posture. The recent success of DRDO with the BMD test needs to be analysed against this backdrop.

The author is Deputy Director General, MP-IDSA, New Delhi. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author