India Tests Long Range Surface-to-air Missile System

India has completed testing the Barak Long Range Surface To Air missile system from destroyer INS Chennai on Thursday.

"Ship launched Long Range Surface-to-Air Missile (LRSAM) has been successfully test fired from INS Chennai against an incoming aerial target flying at low altitude, today," the defence ministry said Thursday.

The missile was being jointly designed and developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for the Indian Navy. Barak-8 is manufactured by Bharat Electronics Limited and Rafael.

The project was sanctioned in December 2005 with the contract valued at INR 2,606 crore ($367 million) initially but was delayed. Over a dozen Indian battle ships are equipped with Barak-I system with an interception range of 9km. These were purchased from Israel after the 1999 Kargil war.

The new missile system with Barak-8 interceptor missiles have “active seekers” for terminal guidance.

Barak 8 is designed to defend against any type of airborne threat including aircraft, helicopters, anti-ship missiles, UAVs, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and combat jets. Both maritime and land-based versions of the system exist. The range of the missile system is 70-100 kilometers.

The Barak 8 has a length of about 4.5 meters, a diameter of 0.225 meters at missile body, and 0.54 meters at the booster stage, a wingspan of 0.94 meters and weighs 275 kg including a 60 kg warhead which detonates at proximity. The missile has maximum speed of Mach 2 with a maximum operational range of 70 km, which was later increased to 100 km.