 | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | JUBILATION: Avinash Chander announces the successful launch of Agni 3 | | As a matter of habit, Avinash Chander unerringly calls up his wife, Anita, immediately after every missile test to inform her of its outcome. But on the morning of April 12, caught up in the exhilaration and relief at the successful launch of the Agni 3, the missile’s programme director didn’t make the customary call until much later. In Hyderabad, although television channels flashed the news of the launcher’s success, Anita waited anxiously for the confirmation from Chander. For, last year, after Agni 3 was tested for the first time on July 9, the television had declared it “a partial success”. But when Chander called up and she congratulated him, he had replied woefully, “Good you think it’s good news because it really isn’t.” On its first launch, the Agni 3 had ignominiously plunged into the Bay of Bengal barely 65 seconds after lifting off from the Wheeler Island off the coast of Orissa. India’s maiden effort to launch a missile beyond 3,000 km to bring much of China under its reach had, in fact, ended on a disheartening note. In the months following that fiasco, Anita saw little of Chander as he and his team put their heads together to pinpoint exactly what had gone wrong. Later, Chander would say it was like solving a murder mystery as they had to meticulously reconstruct the entire scene of the ‘crime’. For the missile team, Agni 3 was by far the most difficult version of India’s primary nuke weapon carrier. Five years in the making, Agni 3 was designed to be a stubbier and shorter version of Agni 2 but with the power to traverse an additional 1,000 km. To give it the extra thrust, scientists had to fabricate all new, solid-fuel rocket engines with diameters twice the size of Agni 2. They also developed a more accurate guidance system that enabled the missile to strike a target with an accuracy of a few hundred metres, the long distance notwithstanding. Half the technologies validated in Agni 2 were retained, including an open inter-stage separating the first from the second-stage rocket motor. It enabled the missile to fire its second-stage rocket motor even before the first had burnt out, ensuring no loss of power at a critical phase in its flight. Chander says: “The thumb rule is to combine change with continuity, a good mix of old and new technologies. Otherwise, uncertainty increases and the time factor could become unmanageable.” Ironically, a validated technology—the flex nozzle system—would give the team headaches and, subsequently, cause the first launch to fail. To afford the Agni 3 missile excellent manoeuvring capability for its first stage motor, its exhaust was equipped with a flex nozzle system. In Agni 2, the nozzle had been fitted in the second stage motor, but the team figured the deviation would not warrant major modifications. It proved to be a costly mistake. On a static test of the first stage motor in 2004 at a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) rocket facility, the flex nozzle developed major cracks. The test had to be abruptly cut short. On the premise that the violent vibrations were to blame for the fissures, scientists fixed the glitch and went ahead with the July 9 test last year. It was a cloudy day and the cameras failed to accurately capture the plunge. But inside the control room, Chander and his team knew that something had gone terribly wrong. Instead of a bell-shaped curve of the radar-tracking graph on the giant plasma screen, there was a series of saw-toothed, zig-zag lines. Agni was careening out of control and would shortly end up at the bottom of the Bay. Only later would the simple but fatal flaw be detected. The missile had been designed like a canister and the flex nozzle was covered by the motor’s cowling. To allow free movement, a gap had been left between the rocket’s casing and the nozzle’s cone, without any barriers (see graph). But when the missile lifted off, the superheated gases spewed by its exhaust were deflected back by the cold, jet stream emanating from the motor’s outer cover. As a result, the temperature within the chamber shot up to more than 1,500 degree Celsius, almost instantly burning to cinders the wires that ferry signals to the controls of the nozzle, thus leaving the missile without a steering mechanism. The solution emerged after a failure review committee studied the problem minutely and invited suggestions from several key scientific institutions, including university researchers. The remedy was simple enough: the base of the rocket motor was cloaked in a thermal skirt, basically layers of silicon cloth that acted as a barrier against the exhaust gases. But the team was unwilling to attempt another launch until simulations were conducted in wind tunnels, with scaled-down models of the missile, to their total satisfaction that the thermal barrier would work. Finally, on a clear, sunny morning on April 12, Agni 3 was launched. This time around, it soared flawlessly into the firmament and powered its way to the programmed target 3,000 km away. Somewhere off the coast of Indonesia, 13 minutes later it detonated its warhead over the sea as two ships nearby plotted its path. The telemetry data showed the Agni 3’s second flight an unqualified success, prompting the scientists to cheer and hug each other. Among the first to call was Defence Minister A.K. Antony. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, too, expressed his delight. In the throes of the celebrations that followed, Chander forgot to call Anita. She heard the news on TV but was sceptical. It was only when he called later that evening to confirm the news that she celebrated with the families of the other scientists involved. Coupled with the successful launch of an anti-ballistic missile in November 2006, Agni 3’s perfect flight came as a major boost to India’s missile capability and nuclear deterrence. Retired Air Marshal Ajit Bhavnani, former chief of India’s Strategic Forces Command, termed the launch as “an important milestone, and if the missile is operationalised in the next two years, it would be sufficient to meet most of our current threat perceptions”. While Agni 1, with a range of 700 km, was designed as a deterrence for Pakistan, Agni 2 (range 2,000 km) and Agni 3 (3,000 km) have been built to target major cities of China. Only Beijing remains out of reach, and already the team has begun work on a variant of Agni 3 having a range of 5,000 km. DRDO’s Chief Controller, R&D for Missiles, V.K. Saraswat opines that all that it would require was the inclusion of another stage and the use of composites, rather than maraging steel, to make the rocket motor casing. “It does not pose a major hassle as there is no real technology difference,” says Saraswat. The crucial question now is whether India has the capability to build Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) and would the country go ahead with it. Yes and no. By validating the technology incorporated in the making of Agni 3, India now has the confidence to upgrade its missile capability to traverse the ICBM range of over 8,000 km. But since strategists perceive a nuclear threat only from its immediate neighbours that are within a range of 5,000 km, India has not yet exercised the option to build an ICBM. Also, any move to do that could raise the hackles of the US and jeopardise the Indo-US nuclear deal which has reached a critical stage. Instead, India has been pursuing the development of the triad of nuclear delivery systems—by air, from land and the sea. It is making efforts to master the complex technology behind Submarine-Launched Cruise Missiles (see box above). The country has also achieved a major breakthrough with its anti-ballistic missile programme, likely to be called Pratchi, cruising streets ahead of Pakistan and gaining the confidence to deter threats from China. As Vice-Admiral Vijay Shanker, the chief of the Strategic Forces Command who witnessed Agni 3’s successful launch, told the scientists: “It’s not just your aspirations but that of a billion people that has been met today.” | | The Secret New Missile
Revelations indicate that India is quietly building an SLCM to complete its nuclear triad | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | SIGHTED : The Sagarika launcher at the DRDO complex in Hyderabad | | India’s strategists have for long regarded nuclear-tipped Submarine-Launched Cruise Missiles (SLCMs)—essentially, it requires arming a submarine prowling undetected under the ocean—as the survivable platform most suited to the nation’s second-strike doctrine. Recent revelations about a secret cruise missile programme, aptly titled Sagarika (Oceanic), give the first indications of the elusive third sea-based leg becoming a reality. Hours after the Agni 3 splashed into the Indian Ocean on April 12, an elated M. Natarajan had obliquely hinted at the possibility. “We have had three successful tests in the last few days—the Dhanush (a ship-launched version of the Prithvi ballistic missile test fired on March 30), the Agni 3 and, in between, a strategic system I cannot talk about,” the DRDO chief had said. That, say insiders, was the confirmation of a test of the Sagarika from a submersible pontoon launcher. Indigenously-built, with a range of nearly 1,000 km and a 500-kg warhead, the cruise missile has two variants capable of being launched from aircraft and submarines. Still under development, the vertically-launched missile is at least five years away from induction. One of the key challenges in fielding a nuclear-tipped variant of the Sagarika would be to miniaturise a nuclear warhead to fit the around 6-metre-long missile. Cruise missiles are low-flying, intelligent, pilotless aircraft. Powered by turbo-jet engines, and guided by onboard computer and pre-fed terrain maps, like the US Tomahawk, they can hit targets with pinpoint accuracy. Such missiles can be fitted with a tactical nuclear warhead or a conventional payload. Fitted on nuclear submarines capable of traversing the globe, they become lethal force multipliers. While Sagarika is the primary armament for the long-delayed indigenous nuclear submarine, the Advanced Technology Vessel, the IAF is believed to be considering equipping a medium transport aircraft with the stand-off missile in the interim. Cruise missiles are more difficult to detect and, hence, less vulnerable to anti-missile defences which can track and destroy ballistic missiles. Pakistan’s Babur cruise missile, that can carry a 500-kg warhead across 500 km, is seen as a response to India’s proposed missile shield. “Strategic cruise missiles with their high survivability will add to the flexibility of India’s minimum credible deterrent,” says K. Santhanam, coordinator for the Pokhran-II tests. Yet, what is it about the Sagarika that inspires the cloak of secrecy? Senior DRDO scientists wax eloquent about the Agni 3 but maintain a studied silence about the Sagarika. Two years ago, then defence minister Pranab Mukherjee had confirmed the programme: “This is a DRDO project but we would not like to make a premature advertisement.” Later, in Parliament, he denied the project even existed. One reason for the secrecy is the possible adverse impact on the Indo-US nuclear deal. “The secrecy is understandable. It would be unwise to talk of fielding a new strategic capability when we are developing partnerships with the US,” says Air Marshal (retired) Kapil Kak of the Centre for Strategic Studies. Started in the early 1990s as a 350-km, short-ranged submarine-launched ballistic missile, Sagarika was initially designed as a solid-fuelled version of the Prithvi. But the idea was shelved after the navy indicated its preference for a cruise missile. Sagarika will not be the only strategic cruise missile. The Indo-Russian BrahMos Aerospace plans to field Brahmos 2 by 2010: a hypersonic cruise missile that can cover more than 1,000 km at Mach 8, or nearly eight times the speed of sound. -By Sandeep Unnithan | | Index |
