Successful Flight Test of SMART
New Delhi: India successfully flight tested Supersonic Missile Assisted Release of Torpedo (SMART) today at 1145 hrs from Wheeler Island off the coast of Odisha. This launch and demonstration is significant in establishing Anti-Submarine warfare capabilities.
SMART is a missile assisted release of lightweight Anti-Submarine Torpedo System for Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) operations far beyond Torpedo range. It has tremendous advantage because of its impressive range. Further its speed hardly gives any space to a submerged submarine to take take any evasive action.
“All the mission objectives including missile flight upto the range and altitude, separation of the nose cone, release of Torpedo and deployment of Velocity Reduction Mechanism (VRM) have been met perfectly,” a Defence Minister release stated. It added that the tracking stations (Radars, Electro Optical Systems) along the coast and the telemetry stations including down range ships monitored all the events.
Secretary Department of Defence Research & Development and Chairman Defence Research and Development Organisation, Dr G Satheesh Reddy, said that SMART is a game changer technology demonstration in the Anti-Submarine Warfare.
A number of DRDO laboratories including DRDL, RCI Hyderabad, ADRDE Agra, NSTL Visakhapatnam have developed the technologies required for SMART. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh congratulated the DRDO Scientists for the important feat.
It may be mentioned that it was in that DRDO was given funding of 340 crores to develop the SMART weapon system. It is stated to be the “next big thing” after the induction of the supersonic BrahMos Anti-Ship Missile system.
– globalbihari bureau
