Indian Missile News And Discussion

[Arun_S]

[url="http://www.asianage.com/home/india/1672-drdo-divided-on-failures-of-agni-ii.html"] [url="http://www.asianage.com/home/india/1672-drdo-divided-on-failures-of-agni-ii.html"]DRDO divided on failures of Agni-II[/url] [/url]

Monday, 08 February 2010 21:36

Feb. 8: A blamegame has begun among the scientists of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) over the recurring failures of medium-range surface-to-surface Agni-II missile. [color="#800080"]While a section of senior scientists pointed fingers at the manufacturing defects and faults committed by the junior technical staff when assembling the missile[/color], the latter, along with [color="#800080"]some other scientists, are not ready to subscribe to this[/color], sources in DRDO told this newspaper on Monday.

Even as a high-power fact-finding technical committee has been formed by the defence ministry to find out the exact reason behind the failures of the Agni-II, considered a potent missile in the arsenal of the country, sources said, senior scientists are reportedly striving hard to pass on the buck for the fiasco on the junior technical staff of the Integrated Test Rang (ITR) at Chandipur in Orissa’s Balasore district, which is conducting the trials of these missiles.



Rabindra Nath Choudhury

Bhubaneswar

The problem with self binding missile testing restrain, is that failure analysis is extremely difficult on a production missile with just one or two flight data sets.

Instead of finger pointing, it would be better to do more tests and eliminate possible failure modes.

More test flights that result in failure may temporarily impact missile readiness to deterrence, but is the fastest method to locate failure, fix it and get Agni-II back on track to credible deterrence. The other option is double jeopardy: recessed warhead deterrence (due to limited warhead qty, and fissile material stock) riding on a recessed reliability missile; a.k.a long window of deterrence exposure.