NEW DELHI, 10 July 2006 — India successfully test fired Agni III, a nuclear-capable long-range ballistic missile with a range of 3,500 kilometers, from Wheeler Island off Orissa coast yesterday morning.

While the launch was “successful,” Agni III developed a snag in the second stage and fell into the sea, without hitting the target. Without confirming the problem, official sources said that the missile “took off successfully” and its “flight performance” was being analyzed. The problem has been attributed to a “design failure,” sources said.

“The missile took off successfully. Details of the flight performance are being analyzed by the mission team,” an official spokesman in New Delhi said. Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee has denied that United States’ pressure and apprehension of an adverse impact on progress of Indo-US civilian nuclear deal had earlier led to the postponement of Agni III’s test firing.

With its diplomatic ties with the US and China strengthening, India is now apparently confident that Agni III’s launch will not prove to be a diplomatic irritant on either front.

 In keeping with their bilateral agreement, India informed Pakistan in advance of the test firing of Agni III. On this, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said yesterday in Islamabad: “We have been informed of the test by India as part of agreement on the test firing of missiles.”

The countdown of the 16-meter long and 1.8 meter diameter missile began early in the morning. Agni III was test fired from the fixed platform with the help of an auto-launcher. It can be deployed by rail or road launch vehicles and is equipped with an improved guidance system, sources said.

The trajectory of Agni III was monitored by three sophisticated radars, six electro-optical tracking systems and three telemetric data stations on the mainland at Dhamra, Chandipur and Andamans as well as a ship stationed close to the splash down point.

The missile, fitted with an onboard computer, took off vertically into space and re-entered the atmosphere to hit the impact point near Nicobar Island in the Bay of Bengal. The Agni series missile was first test fired on May 22, 1989 from the integrated test range at Chandipur-on-sea in Balasore district. Earlier variants of the missile, Agni I (with a range of 700 to 800 km) and Agni II (2,000 km), are fully operational and are being gradually inducted into the armed forces.

 Paving the way for India to produce intercontinental range ballistic missiles, Agni III provides it with a robust second-strike nuclear capability, defense scientists said. With a total payload weight of 600 kg to 1,800 kg, Agni III supports a wide range of warheads, both conventional and nuclear, they said. Agni III has an inertial guidance system with improved optical or radar terminal phase correlation capability to guide it accurately to its target.

This gives the Agni III a high degree of accuracy with a medium to large nuclear payload, most likely a 200-300 kilotons warhead, defense sources said.

The two-stage missile has solid fuel boosters. Launch of Agni III, unlike that of Prithvi and earlier versions of Agni, with the use of all solid fuel propellant systems has been hailed as a sign of India having achieved complete indigenous capability and self-reliance in this field, according to Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). This will increase accuracy and marginalize failure rates in launch of surface-to-surface missiles, DRDO sources said.

The test flight was conducted in presence of Defense Minister Mukherjee, DRDO chief M. Natarajan (who is also scientific adviser to defense minister) and Director of Agni III project Avinash Chander. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, also known as “father of India’s missile development program,” was at the Wheeler Island for a few hours during his three-day Orissa visit last week.