India successfully tests Agni-5 missile with 5,000 km strike range

India successfully tested its most formidable nuclear-capable Agni-5 ballistic missile, which has a strike range of over 5,000 km, enabling it to reach even the northernmost parts of China, from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur in Odisha on Wednesday.

“The launch validated all operational and technical parameters. It was carried out under the aegis of the Strategic Forces Command (SFC),” the defence ministry shared in a statement.

The test comes over a year after the Agni-5 was tested for the first time with a multiple-warhead capability or MIRV (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle) technology under 'Mission Divyastra' on March 11, 2024.

It is expected that the Agni-5 with MIRV will take a few months to become operational after multiple tests.

A MIRV payload basically means a single missile carrying three or four nuclear warheads, each programmed to be released at different speeds with different trajectories to hit different targets that can be hundreds of kilometres apart.

The tri-Service SFC was established in 2003 to handle the country’s nuclear arsenal, which only has single-warhead ballistic missiles in its arsenal.

They range from the Pakistan-specific Prithvi-2 (350-km strike range) and Agni-1 (700-km) missiles to Agni-2 (2,000-km), Agni-3 (3,000-km) and the near ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) Agni-5, which are largely geared towards China.

“The test of the solid-fuelled, three-stage Agni-5 on Wednesday was a routine training trial carried out periodically by the SFC of already inducted missiles,” an official said.

In March 2024, DRDO successfully executed the first flight test of Agni-5 equipped with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology.

This advancement allows a single Agni-5 missile to convey multiple nuclear warheads to different targets in a single launch.

More about Agni-5 missile

India’s Agni-5 is a canister-launch missile, with a mated warhead in a ready-to-fire configuration.

The hermetically sealed canisters protect the missiles from the environment, giving the SFC the requisite operational flexibility to store them for long periods.

India is also steadily working towards strengthening its nuclear triad, with the naval leg set to be augmented with the commissioning of a third SSBN (nuclear-powered submarine armed with nuclear ballistic missiles) as INS Aridhaman this year.

As per the latest analysis by the Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI) released in June, China’s nuclear arsenal is rapidly growing and is likely to reach 1,500 warheads by 2035.

India has 180 warheads and Pakistan has 170.

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