The 'hostile' target ballistic missile, a modified surface-to-surface 'Prithvi', was destroyed at an altitude of 16-km over the Bay of Bengal during the test firing, Integrated Test Range (ITR) Director S P Dash said.
The target missile first lifted off from a mobile launcher around 0933 hours from the launch complex-3 of ITR at Chandipur-on-Sea, 15 km from Balasore.
In less than three minutes, the interceptor, Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile positioned at Wheeler Island, about 70 km across sea from Chandipur, received signals from tracking radars installed along the coastline and ripped across at a speed of 4.5 Mach to destroy the 'hostile' missile.
"It was a fantastic launch. The trial, conducted from two launch sites of ITR off Orissa coast for developing a full fledged multi-layer Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system, was fully successful," Dash said.
Image: An interceptor missile is launched from a test site at Chandipur in Orissa on Sunday, March 6, 2011. (Photographs copyright PTI)
