Agni-V Missile

Overview: 

India successfully test-fired nuclear-capable ballistic missile Agni-5, which has a strike range of 5,000 km, from Dr Abdul Kalam island off the Odisha coast recently.

Salient features of the missile:

• Agni- 5 is the intercontinental surface-to-surface nuclear capable ballistic missile. It is the latest in India’s “Agni” family of medium to intercontinental range missiles.
• Agni-5 has a range of over 5,000 km and can carry about a 1500-kg warhead. It can target almost all of Asia including Pakistan and China and Europe.
• The 17-metre long Agni-5 Missile weighs about 50 tonnes and is a very agile and modern weapon system.
• The surface-to-surface missile is a fire-and-forget system that cannot be easily detected as it follows a ballistic trajectory. India describes the Agni – 5 missile system as a ‘weapon of peace’.
• India has already joined an elite club of nations that possess the ICBM launch capability when the maiden test-firing of Agni-V was successfully conducted in April, 2012. Only the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – China, France, Russia, the United States and Britain, along with Israel, have so far possessed such long-range missiles.

Sources: the hindu.