India’s Advanced Air Defense Interceptor Missile Test Fails

The test fire of an updated version of India’s Advanced Air Defense interceptor missile on Monday failed due to the weapon system falling down immediately after take-off from the launcher.

The missile was targeted to intercept an electronic target within an altitude of below 20 km as simulated by the mission team to gauge the efficiency and killing precision of the missile.

“The missile nose-dived within seconds after take-off from the canister-based launcher. The missile caught fire but was doused immediately and no major damage was reported,” DRDO officials were quoted as saying by Indian Express daily.

There appeared to be a problem in one of the sub-systems, which malfunctioned, DRDO scientists were quoted as saying to The Hindu news daily. The exact cause would be known after analyzing the data and it might take 24 hours to come to a preliminary conclusion.

This is not the first instance where the AAD interceptor has failed to hit the target. The missile had failed to hit the target during its test on July 26, 2010. The interceptor travelled only about 15 km, detonated itself before reaching the target and fell apart.

There have been seven tests of AAD so far of which five have been successful.