Agni V

India is getting ready to test its 5,000-km Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile in its final operational configuration from the Wheeler Island off Odisha after a gap of two years.
Preparations were on to launch the nuclear-capable Agni-V from a launcher truck in December-end or early January .“There were minor snags in Agni-V , which required tweaking of its internal battery and electronic configurations since its last test in January 2015,“ a source said. But India also conceivably wanted to exercise some strategic restraint while making a bid to join the 48-country Nuclear Suppliers Group, which China thwarted earlier this year.India, however, did manage to join the 34-nation Missile Technology Control Regime, as also ink the civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Japan recently .
The impending fourth test of Agni-V , which is capable of striking even the northernmost parts of China, is in itself significant.“This will be the final test of the three-stage Agni-V , which will be tested for its full range, before the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) begins its user trials,“ the source said.
The tri-Service SFC, which was established in 2003 to manage the country's nuclear arsenal, will conduct at least two tests of the ballistic missile before it is produced in adequate numbers for induction.
While the solid-fuel Agni-V was tested in an “open configuration“ in April 2012 and September 2013, the third test saw it being fired from a hermetically-sealed canister mounted on a Tatra launcher truck in January 2015. The missile's canister launch version makes it even deadlier since it gives the armed forces requisite operational flexibility to swiftly transport and fire the 50-tonne missile--which carries a 1.5-tonne warhead--from anywhere they want.
Apart from being able to launch in a matter of minutes, the canister ensures longer shelf-life with lesser maintenance as well as higher reliability. Since the missile will be launched for its full range, ships with telemetry systems are being dispatched near its proposed splash point in the southern Indian Ocean towards Australia. Once the Agni-V is inducted, India will join the super-exclusive club of US, Russia, China, France and the UK, which have ICBMs (missiles with over 5,500 km range) in their arsenals.
Apart from the shorter range Prithvi and Dhanush missiles, the SFC has inducted the Agni-I (700 km), Agni II (2,000 km) and Agni-III (3,000 km) missiles. While these missiles are mainly geared towards Pakistan, the Agni-IV (4,000 km) and Agni-V are meant for deterrence against China. China, of course, is leagues ahead in terms of missile and nuclear arsenals. Its Dong Feng-31A missile, for instance, can hit any Indian city with a strike range of 11,200 km.
But the Indian defence establishment believes the Agni-V, with its range, high road-mobility and quick reaction capabilities, is sufficient to take care of existing threat perceptions.
DRDO has also done some work on developing “manoeuvring warheads or intelligent re-entry vehicles“ to defeat enemy ballistic missile defence systems as well as MIRVs (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles) for the Agni missiles. An MIRV payload basically means a single missile is capable of carrying several nuclear warheads.