In a message posted to social media Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his nation has successfully tested its first domestically-produced missile capable of carrying multiple warheads.
From his account on X, formerly known as Twitter, Modi said he was “Proud of our DRDO scientists for Mission Divyastra, the first flight test of indigenously developed Agni-5 missile with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology.”
DRDO is the acronym for India’s Defense Research & Development Organisation. Defense officials said the test flight, named Mission Divyastra, was carried out from Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Island, off the coast of Odisha state.
The island, named for a former Indian president, is home to the nation’s top missile testing range.
A statement said the test missile was tracked by various telemetry and radar stations, and reported the mission accomplished the designed parameters.
Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are among the nations that use MIRV technology, while Pakistan tested it in 2017, according to the Washington-based advocacy group Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
MIRV technology can deliver multiple warheads from a single missile.
India has been developing its medium- and long-range missile systems for several decades. Its Agni-5 missile, first successfully tested in 2021, has a range of 5,000 kilometers and is India’s first intercontinental ballistic missile, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
