Posted on 12/21/2007 6:25:43 AM PST by CarrotAndStick
NEW DELHI (AFP) — India announced a final successful test of the surface-to-air Akash missile before starting mass production under an ambitious plan to build a national missile defence shield.
The missile blasted off from the Chandipur-on-Sea testing site, 200 kilometres (125 miles) northeast of Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar and hit an unmanned flying target, defence ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar told AFP.
"The Akash missile has successfully hit the bull's eye for the fifth time in a row in the past 10 days and the last trial successfully took place today," he said.
The 700-kilogram (1,540-pound) Akash, meaning "sky" in Hindi, can track 100 targets simultaneously with onboard radar, move at 600 metres (yards) a second and deliver a 55-kilogram warhead across 27 kilometres (17 miles) in 50 seconds.
"The missile system has been configured to be part of a futuristic network centric operation," the defence ministry said in a separate statement.
Akash will join forces with a radar-based interceptor missile project which is planned to be ready within three years and provide the national missile defence shield, missile scientists say.
New Delhi government officials report that the Indian-made interceptor missiles have performed better than Patriot air-defence batteries manufactured by US defence group Raytheon.
Friday's final Akash test came a week after India announced plans to increase its nuclear prowess with a ballistic missile capable of hitting targets up to 6,000 kilometres (3,800 miles) away.
India has built a range of ballistic and cruise missiles as a deterrent to the arsenal of China which gave India a bloody nose during a 1962 bitter border war. The border dispute remains unresolved.
The missile development project is also intended to counter the acquisition of newer missiles by rival Pakistan which carried out tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests after India conducted a series of atomic detonations in 1998.
They have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since their 1947 independence and came close to a possible nuclear conflict following an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 by gunmen Delhi said were backed by Islamabad.
This report is nonsense. Democrat leaders have assured us for more than 20 years that this is impossible. They couldn’t have been wrong, could they?
Must be a hoax. The Clintons stopped the development of our Aegis derived system for the eight years they occupied the WH.
good.
with the great job that pakistan is doing against the terrorists, India needs to be prepared.
I mean, all pakistan needs to do is follow the assaulted mountain goats.
AQ to goat-mate: “Snowflake, you are so ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-d.”
SA-6 in Iranian service
Indian Akash 
Look familiar?
Hahahaha! A missile is shaped like a tube with a cone at one end, and has some fins attached?
What next, Toyota copied Merceded because both have round wheels? Get real.
The typical chauvinism found among Indians at FR has rendered you blind to the truth. Wallow in your own delusion if you must, but as anyone can see the missiles have an identical layout (The original SA-6 was a rather unique and unorthodox design), near identical size and very similar performance envelopes. It doesn’t take a genius to put 2 and 2 together.
This is bogus. Of course, it is a French report and they don't spell defense right.
I agree that seems to be a big exaggeration.
In India, we spell it defence
It is a French word. The two systems have different design criteria and missions and should not be compared.
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