news Has India Tested Hypersonic Missiles As Exhaust Pipes Show Hypersonic Glider Launch?
The latest Agni-5 missile tests have piqued the curiosity of defense observers, based on videos of night-sky exhaust pipes in eastern and northeastern India, as well as Myanmar and Bangladesh.
It has been noted that the trajectory is unusually low in the Earth’s atmosphere, not the pronounced high parabolic arch of a ballistic missile that briefly enters outer space before re-entering Earth.
The test was conducted on Thursday and was called a “night trial” in news reports. It was launched at 5:30pm from her APJ Abdul Kalam Island off Orissa in the Bay of Bengal.
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The Agni 5 is India’s longest ballistic missile with a range of 5,000 km and uses a three-stage solid-fuel engine. Agni-5 can be retracted and fired from a canister, making it Lord Mobile.
Unusual “arc” and “altitude”
According to India’s Aerospace Defense News (IADN), the launch could have tested a hypersonic glider (HGV) based on “a sub-ballistic role (and) low speed, rather than a standard ballistic launch”. I have.
and twitter threadIADN posted photos of a 2018 DF-ZF HGV launch in China’s Shaanxi province and Inner Mongolia, comparing it to the Agni-5, which it said showed “same launch characteristics.”
the photo is recent #Agni5 The missile test does not appear to be a standard ballistic missile test.
The missile’s low speed indicates a quasi-ballistic role typically represented by hypersonic gliders rather than standard nuclear missile launches.#IADN pic.twitter.com/xQwEuImSOG
— Indian Aerospace and Defense News (IADN) (@NewsIADN) December 15, 2022
“The photo is from a recent Agni 5 missile test, which does not appear to be a standard ballistic missile test. not represented by hypersonic gliders,” said the IADB.
The thread posted a video taken by a local that shows the missile changing direction in a sharp curve.
Hypersonic air-breathing scramjet technology was successfully tested by DRDO on Sept. 7, 2020 on a Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator (HSTDV) flight, so the possibility of it being a hypersonic test cannot be ruled out.
DRDO has been working on hypersonic missiles since 2018.
Another comment by a defense enthusiast on a social media page speculated that the tests may be aimed at evaluating the performance of microelectronics and multiple independent reentry vehicle (MIRV) systems. “But it’s still not clear why they used the depressed trajectory,” said the commentator.
A MIRV is a propelled and possibly steerable munition mounted on the tip of a nuclear missile, which is released in its final stages. They fan out from the nose cone and are partly decoys, confusing ballistic missile (ABM) systems as to the actual warheads carrying nuclear explosives.
However, the military may also equip all MIRVs with nukes to increase the likelihood of a successful attack if enemy air defense systems are expected to be able to intercept them.
DRDO Expert Speaks
But Dr. Prahlada, a former Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) scientist, said it doesn’t look like a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) test, the only difference being that the timing of the test is midnight or night. I said that there is.
“Additionally, due to the curvature of the Earth and its position in space, objects appear to be pointing downwards as they go further or higher.
This is further amplified by video, and until the launch video becomes available, it will be difficult to conclude whether it was for HGV testing or any other purpose.
At the time of filing this report, DRDO had yet to comment on the testing or release of launch footage.
There have been allegations that DRDO used low speeds and low trajectories to mask its actual range and true potential. “Had they used their true potential, speed and optimal trajectory, the missile would have flown farther. DRDO fired along the bottom line of the graph and achieved a target range of 5000 km,” observers noted.
By the “bottom line of the graph” the comment referred to three different trajectories of the ballistic missile. They all follow a parabolic path and leave the atmosphere before dropping back towards their target.
Plotted on a graph, they result in three large parabolas of varying heights and arches, with the lowest parabola running parallel roughly along the curvature of the Earth, probably still in the atmosphere (“exoatmosphere” in military technical terms). is in
