China-Russia war games 'not linked to India missile'

China-Russia war games 'not linked to India missile'

China has said that upcoming joint war games between China and Russia are not organised in response to India's successful ballistic missile launch and are instead aimed at upholding regional peace.

According to China's defence ministry, the two neighbours will hold joint naval exercises in the Yellow Sea off the coast of the eastern port city of Qingdao from April 22-27.

India on Thursday successfully test fired a new missile capable of delivering a one-tonne nuclear warhead anywhere in rival China, marking a major advance in its defence capabilities.

India views the rocket, which has a range of 5,000 kilometres, as a key boost to its regional power aspirations and one that narrows -- albeit slightly -- the huge gap with China's technologically advanced missile systems.

"This joint military exercise is a long scheduled one between China and Russia in order to uphold regional peace and stability," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told reporters on Thursday.

"This is not linked (to the Indian missile test)," he said.

Beijing and Moscow agreed to hold the joint exercises during a visit to Russia last year by Chen Bingde, chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army.

"The joint exercises will strengthen the naval forces' ability to jointly confront new regional threats and demonstrate their confidence to maintain peace and stability in the region and world," Chen said in a statement on the defence ministry website.

The drills will focus on joint maritime defence and protection of navigation and will involve 16 Chinese ships and two submarines and four vessels from Russia's Pacific Fleet, as well as Russian war planes and naval infantry, the statement said.

Agni V production to begin in a year's time

Agni V production to begin in a year's time

India has emerged as a major missile power with the successful launch of Agni V ballistic missile and the production of the weapon system would start in a year's time, DRDO chief V K Saraswat said Thursday.

"This launch has given a message to the entire world that India has the capability to design, develop, build and manufacture missiles of this class, and we are today a missile power," Saraswat said after the launch of the 5,000 km range surface-to-surface Inter Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM).

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief said that the missile launch was a major milestone in the strategic defence preparedness of the country.

"We are going to conduct two more tests and that will be validation tests..., and then the production of this system will start. It is going to take a year maximum," he said.

Saraswat said that he expected the missile to be inducted into the armed forces in the next two years.

He said the successful launch of Agni V was just the beginning of a new series of missiles.

"We go from here to many other missiles which will have capability for MIRV (Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle), for anti-satellite system, which will also be built using this technology for launching micro, mini and nano satellite to meet the requirement of the armed forces on very, very short notice," he said.

Saraswat said that barring some electronic components, the Agni V was a completely indigenous product.

"More than 80 per cent of the missile is indigenous, except for the electronic components which we import...Everything has been designed, developed and produced in our industry and our laboratory," he said.

The DRDO chief said that his organisation was working on a very tight time schedule when it came to production and deployment of the missile.

"We have a very tight time schedule on that. I expect that after the completion of its mandatory trials, it would be inducted in the services in the next two years to come. We have a very clear roadmap for development of missile system," Saraswat said.

Giving details of Thursday's launch, he said that the missile "lifted off at 0807 hours today. It is a three-stage missile, the first stage burned out, gave the required velocity and after that it separated." 

Saraswat said that similarly the missile reached it second and third phases and after that it reached the crucial re-entry phase which is the most difficult phase for any ballistic missile of this range.

"All the re-entry conditions were perfect. The missile travelled through the re-entry, got converted into a fireball and finally (hit the target).....and all the payload parameters which result in the detonation of the warhead took place," Saraswat said.

The DRDO chief said that the launch was monitored by three ships deployed in Indian Ocean, 5,000 kilometers away, and radars were also there tracking the complete trajectory.

He said that that the launch of the missile despite regimes placed by the developed world showed that India was becoming self-reliant in missile technology.

"The missile has been achieved despite the stringent missile control regimes, which developed countries have imposed on us and that shows the self-reliance in the area of this technology is now becoming a reality," he said.

India gearing up for Mars mission in 2013

India gearing up for Mars mission in 2013

India has completed a significant amount of work on next year's planned Mars mission for which scientific payloads have been short-listed, with formal government approval for the ambitious venture expected soon.

Bangalore-headquartered ISRO is planning to undertake the mission to the Red Planet during November 2013. The project report for Indian Mars orbiter mission has been submitted for approval of the Government.

The mission envisages launching an orbiter around Mars using Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL). The orbiter will be placed in an orbit of 500 x 80,000 km around Mars and will have a provision for carrying nearly 25 kg of scientific payloads on-board.

"The tentative scientific objective for the Mars mission will be to focus on life, climate, geology, origin, evolution and sustainability of life on the planet," according to an official ISRO report.

Scientific payloads have been shortlisted by ISRO's Advisory Committee for Space Sciences (ADCOS) review committee. Baseline, solar array and reflector configuration of the satellite have been finalised. Frequency filing for communication subsystem is under progress, the space agency said in its just uploaded 2011-12 annual report.

Meanwhile, ISRO has signed a MoU with Indian Institute of Astrophysics for development and delivery of solar coronagraph payload for its ADITYA-1 project, while mechanical configuration of the satellite is in progress.

This project will be the first Indian space-based solar coronagraph, which will be available for solar coronal observation to all the Indian researchers in the field of Solar Astronomy. 

ADITYA-1 is the first space-based Solar Coronagraph intended to study the outermost region of the Sun, called corona.

ADITYA-1 in the visible and near IR bands will study the Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) such as the coronal magnetic field structures and evolution of coronal magnetic field and consequently the crucial physical parameters for space weather.

The major scientific objective of the ADITYA-1 is to achieve a fundamental understanding of the physical processes that heat the solar corona (base to the extended), accelerate the solar wind and produce CMEs.

ISRO said preliminary design of the optical systems of ADITYA-1 has been finalised and design document generated.

"Trade-off studies on the selection of detector system have been completed and the list of subsystem packages along with power and mass budget generated," it said.

ISRO has also planned 'SENSE' - a twin satellite mission to probe the electromagnetic environment of the Earth's near space region. It is proposed to launch two small satellites in a low Earth orbit of around 500 km, for space weather related studies.

SENSE is part of ISRO's 'Small Satellites Programme', recommended by ISRO's ADCOS. SENSE aims to unravel the roles played by major large-scale drivers in determining the state of the Ionosphere-Thermosphere system and the weather of the near space environment at low latitudes.

ISRO said engineering models of the electric and magnetic field probes chosen for the SENSE mission have already been tested and their frequency responses studied.