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India
enters the cruise missile race; hyperplane Avatar reaches
planning stage |
Fast forward
Defence: India enters the cruise missile race;
hyperplane Avatar reaches planning stage
By R. Prasannan
Cruise missiles," observed Prahalada, director of the Defence
Research and Development Laboratory two years ago, "are the
present currency of power." Though in smaller denomination
now, India is acquiring that currency.
India is thinking of Space-based laser weapons Durga and Kali.
Hyperplane Avatar will be a reusable missile launcher
The Brahmos cruise missile programme was perhaps the most hush-hush
of India's missile projects. The long-range missile programme
Surya is heard of at least through official denials. The reusable
missile launcher-cum-hyperplane Avatar, the most ambitious of
all projects, is openly talked about. Questions are asked at least
in aerospace circles about the 'forgotten' Durga and Kali, though
replies are rarely given. Agni-III is a matter of logical conjecture
and extension of Agni-II. (The defence minister had claimed last
November that "India has the capability to design and develop
an ICBM having a range of more than 5,000 km. However, in consonance
with the threat perception, no ICBM development project has been
undertaken.")
But Brahmos is altogether a new name, though there has been talk
about a cruise missile programme for some time. The success of
Lakshya and Nishant is said to have given the Aeronautical Development
Establishment the expertise to work on the cruise missile. However,
till recently ADE authorities were claiming that they were engaged
only in 'concept studies', and far from developing or even planning
a cruise missile.
The 280 km-range missile, presently configured as an anti-ship
weapon, is one of the few supersonic cruise missiles in the world.
Ballistic missiles fly in a ballistic trajectory, much like a
bullet. Their longer-range versions have to go up into the heavens
and face problems when they re-enter the atmosphere. The enemy
can also trace their launchers by calculating the ballistic trajectory
and destroy them.
A cruise missile, on the other hand, is like an unmanned plane,
flying at low altitude. Before launch it is fed information about
the terrain over which it has to fly and the missile flies either
by comparing the fed-in data with the camera pictures it takes
or by constantly identifying its location with the help of global
positioning systems.
Over sea, a cruise missile has a definite advantage over a ballistic
one. The enemy ship out at sea can hide behind the earth's curvature
against a ballistic missile which flies straight. On the contrary,
a cruise missile can fly long ranges parallel to the surface and,
if needed, a few metres above it. Brahmos's supersonic speed gives
the enemy very little reaction time. The Indo-Russian Brahmos
is learnt to be the starting point of an ambitious cruise missile
programme. Studies have been going on for the last three years
at the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) on the cost-effectiveness
of a hypersonic missile (which fly at five or more times the speed
of sound). Parallel studies in the US and Europe have concluded
that the future belongs to hypersonic missiles. The US is already
developing the F-16 into a hypersonic fighter.
Studies in India, not only at NAL but DRDL (the DRDO's missile
lab), IIT Mumbai and ADE, are learnt to be running parallel to
and not behind the Euro-American ventures. The hyperplane Avatar,
the most ambitious of all, is already reaching the end of the
conceptual stage and entering the planning stage. The kerosene-fuelled
scramjet-powered vehicle is claimed to be much cheaper than the
design concepts worked in the US, Germany, the UK and Japan.
The idea is to develop a vehicle that can take off from conventional
airfields, collect air in the atmosphere on the way up, liquefy
it, separate oxygen and store it on board for subsequent flight
beyond the atmosphere. In fact, Air Commodore R. Gopalaswami,
former chairman and managing director of Bharat Dynamics, India's
missile factory, had once claimed that it can be developed even
into a commercial transporter. Incidentally, it was Gopalaswami
who suggested the name Avatar.
Avatar is primarily intended as a reusable missile launcher,
one which can launch missiles, land back and be loaded again for
more missions. The vehicle will be designed to permit at least
a hundred re-entries into the atmosphere. The vehicle could also
act as a satellite launcher at a hundredth of the present cost
of launching satellites. A miniature Avatar, which is also being
conceived, would be hardly bigger than a MiG-25 or an F-16.
Meanwhile, there is also talk of developing Nishant into a cruise
missile. The present vehicle, an unmanned battlefield surveillance
vehicle which can carry a payload of 45 kilos, completing test
phase at ADE, is powered by a German Alvisar-801 engine. Nishant's
cruise missile potential had been pointed out three years ago
by Air Marshal Bharat Kumar in a United Services Institution (USI)
research paper: "Nishant holds a lot of promise and provides
us a take-off vehicle for potential UCAVs (uninhabited combat
aerial vehicles) applications as well as (a) cruise missile programme."
With the limited production of the 200-km Agni-II having already
begun, the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme is
almost at the end of its fiery run. Indeed, a few of the short-range
tactical missiles like Nag, Trishul, Akash, the naval Prithvi
(otherwise called Dhanush) and Astra are yet to be fully developed
or tested, but it is only a matter of time before they are.
Space-based laser weapons are another frontier technology that
the military brass is thinking of. Recently the chiefs of staff
committee ordered a feasibility study on them. (Incidentally,
the Air Force is already demanding that India set up an aerospace
command.) The DRDO, however, had anticipated this and already
begun research.
One system that has been talked of in a USI paper by Dr V. Siddhartha,
officer on special duty in the secretariat of the scientific adviser
to the defence minister, is Durga or directionally unrestricted
ray-gun array. Though no details on this are available, it is
said to be an Indian version of the US's Star Wars project in
which in-coming missiles can be shot down, or burnt down, by laser
guns based in space. Still less known is Kali or kinetic attack
loitering interceptor, a more advanced version of Durga.
However, all video-game gadgetry presupposes matching advances
in space technology, both in launch vehicles and military reconnaissance
satellites. Without capable launch vehicles, none of these can
be lifted into space. With the recent success of the geosynchronous
satellite launch vehicle, the ISRO has acquired heavy-lift capability.
Work has already begun on a hypersonic launch vehicle which would
be the forerunner to Avatar.
The more recent of the IRS series satellites are said to have
limited military reconnaissance capability. The recent military
exercises in the Rajasthan desert did make extensive use of IRS
pictures, but military demands higher resolution pictures. According
to Dr Siddhartha's paper, Satish Dhawan [former ISRO chairman]
had talked in 1996 of a national early warning and response system
(NEWARS), a space-sensor and communications-based integrated space-ground
system meant exclusively for peaceful purposes. Siddhartha superposed
on Dhawan's techno-scenario diagram a series of operational military
reconnaissance satellites named Sanjaya.
Cruise missiles may be the currency of power today. But the currency
of future would be Avatar, Durga and Kali.
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