New Delhi (Sputnik) – India has joined the league of select countries that have fully operational submarine-launched strategic missile systems capable of hitting targets with nuclear warheads at a range of 650 kilometers. Before this, such technologies were available only in the US, Russia, China and France.
A formal announcement of this achievement was made by Nirmala Sitharaman, India's minister of defense, who felicitated A Joseph and M Ugender Reddy, the two scientists who developed the missiles, during the annual award ceremony of the Defence Research Development Organisation in New Delhi on Monday.
Smt @nsitharaman distributes awards to high-achieving scientists at the @DRDO_India Awards Function in Delhi. pic.twitter.com/vauCIthpkA
— Raksha Mantri (@DefenceMinIndia) May 14, 2018
"It is an indigenous missile with several innovative designs and a unique mechanism. Numerous critical technologies were proved in the successful trials, which paved the way for developing other long-range strategic missiles and has the potential to be launched from submarine, ship, and land," the citation of the award reads.
READ MORE: India May Launch Second Nuclear Submarine by Early 2018 — Atomic Energy Dep't
Indian defense scientists have also been testing longer-range K-series submarine-launched strategic missiles for the past few years. The long range (3,500 kilometers) K-4 missiles have so far been tested three times successfully from underwater pontoons, but the last test from a pontoon in December 2017 failed as the missile did not activate properly during the test.
India has also started working on the K-5, which has a range of 5,000 kilometers, as well as the K-6, with its range of up to 6,000 km, for nuclear-powered submarines.
