Balasore (Odisha), Sept 23: Scripting a milestone in the defence sector, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), strengthening the Indian Armed Forces, successfully conducted the flight test of ABHYAS - High-speed Expendable Aerial Target (HEAT) here from the Interim Test Range.

 

 

Achieving the feat, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, "The DRDO achieved a milestone today with the successful flight test of ABHYAS - High Speed Expandable Aerial Target from ITR Balasore. This can be used as a target for evaluation of various Missile systems. Congratulations to DRDO & other stakeholders for this achievement."

 

 

During the trials, the user requirement of 5 km flying altitude, vehicle speed of 0.5 mach, an endurance of 30 minutes and 2g turn capability of the test vehicle were successfully achieved which means that two demonstrator vehicles were successfully test flown.

 

ABHYAS 

Abhyas is designed & developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), DRDO. The air vehicle is launched using twin underslung booster. It is powered by a small gas turbine engine and has a MEMS-based Inertial Navigation System (INS) for navigation along with the Flight Control Computer (FCC) for guidance and control. The vehicle is programmed for fully autonomous flight. The check out of air vehicle is done using laptop-based Ground Control Station (GCS). The vehicle can be used as a target for evaluation of various missile systems.