India will be 5th country in the world after USA, France, Russia & Israel to have missile shield.
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With a series of major technological breakthroughs recently, scientists of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) have demonstrated that they are capable of developing an indigenously-built anti ballistic missile shield (See graphic)](Latest News, Breaking News Today - Entertainment, Cricket, Business, Politics - India Today) that could protect not just Delhi, but other major metros and key installations from enemy nuclear attacks, whether they come in from Pakistan or China. In doing so, India has become the newest member of the rarified club of four nations— the USA, Russia, France and Israel—having ABM capabilities.
India began revealing its prowess last year itself after keeping the project to develop an ABM system under wraps for close to five years.
On a blustery winter morning on November 27, 2006, at the Wheeler Island off the coast of Orissa, it launched an interceptor missile codenamed PAD01 (Prithvi Air Defence 01) that successfully struck down an incoming Prithvi missile posing as an enemy launch, 47 km above the earth.
While the interceptor was indigenously built, the two powerful long and medium-range tracking radars were developed with the help of Israelis and were codenamed Swordfish1 and 2. Together these radars are able to detect an incoming missile 600 km away, identify its trajectory and speed and pass that information on to the control centre.
Experts termed the test as the first big step towards developing an effective ABM defence.
The problem was that the Single Shot Probability Kill ratio, as it is known in scientific parlance, is rarely 1:1 for exoatmospheric interceptors (strikes outside the earth’s atmosphere).
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