Centre on Friday announced that the Agni Prime New Generation Ballistic Missile was successfully testfired by India earlier today. The missile was tested off the coast of Odisha at around 0945 hrs, a Defence official informed.

“During the test flight, the missile travelled the maximum range and all test objectives were successfully met. With this third consecutive successful flight test of the Agni Prime missile, the accuracy and reliability of the system has been established,” Defence officials were quoted as saying by ANI.

The solid-fuelled canisterised missile met all mission parameters during the test, the sources told Press Trust of India.

Performance was validated using data obtained by many tracking systems, including radar, telemetry and electro-optical systems, the officials said.

These systems were deployed at different locations along the flight path, including two down-range ships at the terminal point, and covered the entire trajectory, officials added.

Officials stated further that the first test was in June last year, with the second six months later- in December. On both those occasions too the missile 'followed textbook trajectory and met all mission objectives with a high level of accuracy'.

The 'Agni Prime', or 'Agni-P', is a nuclear-capable new-gen advanced variant of the Agni class of missiles; it is a two-stage canisterised missile with a maximum range of 2,000 km.

Significantly, it weighs 50 percent less than the Agni 3 missile and has new guidance and propulsion systems. In addition, since it is canisterised, it can be launched from rail or road, be stored for longer periods and can be transported as per operational requirements.

Image source: PIB