Giving a boost to the ‘Make in India’ drive in the defence sector, India has today test-fired a new surface-to-air missile that it has jointly developed with Israel.

The medium range missile (MR-SAM) was successfully test launched from a mobile launcher in the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur.

The new missile guided by a Radar system and on-board avionics successfully hit a Pilotless target aircraft. Both, Indian and Israel teams participated in the launch campaign.

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We take a look at 5 interesting facts about the missile and its successful test-firing:

  1. The missile which is said to be a variant of the Barak 8, has been developed for the Indian Air Force (IAF). Barak 8 is a long-range surface-to-air missile (LR-SAM) for the Indian Navy.
  2. A laboratory of DRDO based at Hyderabad, has jointly developed this missile in collaboration with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).
  3. Many Indian companies like BEL, L&T, BDL, TATA group, besides other private industries have contributed to the development of a number of subsystems which have been put into use in this flight test. The MRSAM system provides reliable air defence at medium ranges, says DRDO.
  4. A new production facility to deliver 100 missiles a year has been established for such type of long rang and medium range surface-to-air missiles at Bharat Dynamics Limited, India.
  5. Such type of medium range surface-to-air missiles (SR-SAM), having striking ranges from 50 to 70 km, can fill the gap of existing missiles that India has in its armory at present.

(With inputs from Agencies)