Bangalore: India will have an anti-ballistic missile shield in place by 2011 to defend the country from any attack from Pakistan or China, a top defence official said in Bangalore on Jan 25.
"The shield has been designed with a range of 2000 km that should be able to counter any ballistic missile threat with a reaction time of less than four minutes.
Trials will be held over the next two-three years to operationalise the system," Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief controller (R &D) V.K. Saraswat told reporters here.
The defence R&D behemoth has so far invested Rs.20 billion ($500 million) to develop the technology for the anti-missile shield project in collaboration with Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Thales group of France.
"The two-layered ballistic missile defence (BMD) system will be tested by 2010 to foil any threat from ballistic or terrain-hugging cruise missiles," Saraswat said while making a presentation on India's missile development programme.
Defence scientists will conduct an integrated test trial of the interceptor missile and its sub-systems at DRDO's integrated test range in coastal Orissa later this year.
"The private sector is being involved to a great extent in the BMD project and the new system will be capable to protect the entire country against any threat, including Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs)," Saraswat noted.
The system will be developed to fire two missiles simultaneously at a single target to intercept the target at 45-50km (exo-atmospheric) and 15-25km (endo-atmospheric) altitudes in the space.
"The system is being configured with radars for long range surveillance and tracking, command, control and communication systems for effective control and optimisation of exo and endo-atmospheric interceptors at altitudes above 40km and below 25km respectively," Saraswat added.
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