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‘No race; it’s counter-threat measure’ The Tribune Editor-in-Chief Raj Chengappa in conversation with Vijay Kumar Saraswat, DRDO chief, and Avinash Chander, DRDO’s chief controller, R&D (Missiles and Strategic Systems) at the Agni V launch
What has Agni V demonstrated about India’s missile prowess? India is now a missile power. It means we are completely self-reliant as far as this technology is concerned. In the eyes of the international community, India can design a missile system for any mission in this field. With this launch, whatever are the demands of our security forces in terms of various targets, geographical zones and other sensitive points, we can meet them all.
Will there be an Agni VI? As far as missile technology is concerned, it is like a “cat and mouse” game. When India started the ballistic missile defence (BMD) project, there were only three nations in the world that had such a capability. Today, there are more than six nations that have this capability and more than ten nations are actively involved in developing ballistic missile defence systems. It means if we want to stay in the lead, we will have to add additional features to our existing missiles. Our mission in future will be to make our existing and future missile equipped with additional features like a highly manoeuverable re-entry that will confuse enemy radars and BMDs. How do our missile systems compare with that of Pakistan? As far as Pakistan is concerned, they do have a good missile technology regime. Though I am not too confident how much is the indigenous content in that because the data available is very scanty. We know they have a variety of missiles that can go up to 2,000 km. We have not come to know if they have any missile with range beyond that. But with the existing missiles they can cover a fairly large part of India. We have a very high degree of self-reliance and understanding of the technology as compared to our neighbour. What about China’s capabilities? China has built missiles that are similar to those developed by erstwhile Soviets because of its close association then with them. The Chinese did a marvellous job of re-engineering many of them. As a result, China has a full range as far as missile capability is concerned. They have an excellent industrial base to support their programme because a large number of electronics and navigation companies are working to support it. Are we in a race with China? We have no reason to be in a race with China. Actually it is wrong to talk of a missile race. Everybody will like to have missiles to meet their threat requirements. Just because somebody has got an ICBM that can go up to 10,000 to 12,000 km does not mean that we should have one. India is not in a race with any nation as far as missiles are concerned. India develops missiles only to meet its threat requirements.
‘A quantum leap, a big deterrent’ What is the significance of the Agni V launch?
I consider Agni V a major event for several reasons. One is the defence and political significance of the launch. Agni V is a true nuclear deterrent, providing the strategic depth required for the country. The second is the quantum jump in technological capability that has gone into the systems. Almost 60 per cent of the missile is made of light-weight composite and this has been developed totally in-house. The navigation system is of much higher performance than what we have been using so far. We fused a lot of information to get a much better accuracy. Then its guidance system as a whole - for a multi-stage vehicle going to 5,000 km to give us a fraction of a metre per second accuracy - is a critical challenge. All this means that Agni V puts us in the ICBM class. What else was a challenge? It is the ability to stop and launch from anywhere to anywhere. Apart from it being road mobile, we are developing a canister-based launch system for it. With India’s dimensions being over 3,000 km, the effective range of Agni V becomes much higher than 5,000 km giving the country a larger sphere of influence. It is a technical challenge for us because in these areas you have no friends who are willing to share information. You are on your own. As a matter of fact, over 80 per cent of the vehicle is indigenously made. What has been your major focus while developing Agni? Our major focus has been to cut down the cycle time in these things. The Agni programme was sanctioned in 1983 and the first Agni flight took off in 1989. The first weaponised launch was in 1999. Then we used to have one launch every two years. Today, we have five to six launches a year. Our capability has grown multifold. We have also developed a partnership with the industry with the result that we are developing better systems, getting them faster and ensuring that they are more reliable. The most important part is that the cycle time for producing a missile has reduced. The Agni missile range has become the workhorse of the India’s strategic missile programme. What will be the future development? For us, we have made a quantum jump from Agni I to V. Agni IV and V will be the stepping stones for the next round of capabilities that can be anti-satellite capabilities, launch on demand capabilities, putting small satellites into orbit and manoeuvering warheads. The future will have intelligent warheads capable of detecting counter-measures taken by the enemy, analysing them and taking evasive measures. The future will be all composites for motors which will give us more bang for buck - it will retain the mobility even with higher capability.
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