INDIA OBTAINS U.S HELP TO DEVELOP BMD MISSILE
By Bulbul Singh
01 Apr 08. India has decided to fast track the home-grown Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD)project with the help of outside help to enable the interception of Intermediate Range Missiles by 2010-11.
Talks between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation [DRDO] and unidentified U.S. entities have been held to build the BMD system which is already being developed with the help of Israelis.
With the development of the technology to intercept intermediate range missiles, India will join Israel, Russia and the U.S. in developing this level of technology once the system is fully executed, said a senior scientist of DRDO.
The home-grown ballistic missile defence system currently under development by DRDO is based on the Israeli Green Pine radar which was received from Israel with the permission of the United States in 2001. The long-range active phased array radar has been jointly-developed between DRDO and Israel. The radar can track the target and the interceptor also. DRDO has developed the complete software for doing the tracking and engagement of ballistic missiles which includes complete software for signal processing transmitter receiver modules, Central Power Units (CPU) and complete ground segment like cooling units, power supplies and the communication network. DRDO claims that it can completely manufacture this radar in our country but this information has not been authenticated from sources. The radar for the endo-atmospheric layer system is called multi-function control radar (MFCR). This is an L-band phased array radar.
It has the capability to track 200 targets at a range of about 600 km. DRDO sources said that France is involved in the missile development, particularly the guidance system.
DRDO is now negotiating with unnamed U.S. entities to develop the missile to enable it to intercept even ICBMs added sources. No details of the collaboration is known, but sources say, there is a regular exchange of scientists between DRDO and the U.S.A. on the futuristic development of India’s Ballistic Missile Defence.
India’s current development of the BMD system is a three-layered missile defence configuration. Enemy ballistic missiles will be engaged at the exo-atmospheric layer, i.e. the layer when it enters the atmosphere, and the endo-atmospheric layer where there is a thermally sensitive atmospheric layer. To increase hit probability, the BMD will launch 2 to 3 missiles, each for exo and endo-atmospheric. The speed of the BMD is between mach 4.5 to 5.
In a typical battery of BMD systems there will be long range radars, missile launchers, Mission Control Centres and other ground systems.
The complete network of radars, launch batteries, missiles control centres launch control centres are geographically distributed and are connected to very potent secure communication network.
The Radar looks at a particular elevation and detects incoming ballistic missiles. This information is sent to Mission Control Centre (MCC) which then decides whether it is missile interceptor or a satellite or any other projectile and it does target classification in few seconds.
Mission Control Centre (MCC) is completely a software intensive system for BMD and this works on multiple computers. About 10 computers simultaneously work. It receives information about the target from different sources. It could be ground based radars, satellites or own technical intelligence system. MCC is connected to all the elements of weapon system through wide area communication network. It handles target classification, target assignment and kill assessment.
When target is classified, the MCC also calculates where the impact point of the target is likely to be and where it is going to fall. The MCC also predicts the impact point. After the target is classified, it also finds out trajectory profile and speed and assigns the target to a partic