India's Nirbhay Cruise Missile Aborted 8 Minutes After Launch

The Defence Research and Development Organization of India launched an 800-kilometer range Nirbhay cruise missile from the Odisha test facility. But the trial was aborted just minutes after the launch, according to the Hindustan Times.

A government official said that:

“The missile was fired at 10:30 AM [local time] from the testing facility. But the missile developed a snag and the trial was aborted 8 minutes later.”

Nirbhay is the tenth missile that DRDO has fired in the past 35 days, meaning it launched one missile every 4 days. India has been working faster in developing and deploying weapons during confrontational stand-offs to respond to Chinese troops as well as support-unit mobilization efforts in the East Ladakh sector.

After this launch, DRDO has the plan to conduct another trial in the next few months, which could start the official introduction of the missile into the Indian military along the border.

Before the test firing on Monday, several Nirbhay missiles were transported to the India-China border. Nirbhay is a subsonic missile that flies at about 0.7 Mach, it can fly near the sea surface and terrain to avoid being detected by enemy radar.

The missile is also capable of loitering or repositioning itself mid-flight to get an optimal targeting vector before it strikes the target. The missile is fired through a solid rocket booster from the Advanced Systems Laboratory of the DRDO that’s less sophisticated than liquid propellant.

The Nirbhay cruise also has conventional warhead missiles with the capability of penetrating deep into high-value targets at high precision.

The trials on Monday were part of DRDO’s larger effort to boost the development of the cruise missile along the LAC to participant in the stand-off between India and the People’s Liberation Army of China at multiple potential hotspots across East Ladakh.

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