Validating Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) capability, India successfully launched an interceptor missile to destroy an incoming target missile in a direct hit at an altitude of 15 km over the Bay of Bengal on Friday, February 10.

The target missile mimicked an incoming enemy missile with a range of more than 2,000 km.

A few minutes after the ‘hostile’ missile, a modified surface-to-surface Prithvi, took off at 10.10 am from Launch Complex-3 at Chandipur, the interceptor missile, Advanced Air Defense (AAD), was fired from the Wheeler Island. As the target missile climbed to a height about 100 km and began descending at rapid speed, the interceptor traveling at supersonic speed homed on to the target and smashed it to smithereens around 10.15 a.m. at a 15-km altitude in the endo-atmosphere.

The crucial test was conducted as part of India’s plans to deploy a two-tiered BMD system to engage and kill incoming enemy missiles in the endo-atmosphere and exo-atmopshere.

This was the seventh interceptor mission and the fifth endo-atmospheric interception. Six of the tests to date have been successful, including the first three in a row, The Hindu reported.