Unlike its other Agni predecessors, the Agni-I missile, which India tested last month for the first time, is strategically designed to target Pakistan, India Today reported today (see GSN, Jan. 30).

The first Agni, tested in 1989, has a range of 1,200 kilometers.  The road-mobile Agni-I has a range of 700 kilometers, is five meters shorter than its earlier cousins and has a single-stage solid-fuel rocket, which gives it a higher acceleration rate.  Accelerating 2.5 kilometers per second, the Agni-I can travel 700 kilometers in 10 minutes.

Earlier longer-range Agni missiles were designed to target China, whose southern cities are 3,000 to 5,000 kilometers from India.  Until the Agni becomes operational, Indian nuclear delivery vehicles consist of its 150-kilometer-range Prithvi missiles and its Mirage 2000 aircraft.  The Prithvi, however, is vulnerable because it is fired from near the border.

India also prepared its Agni-II missile for targeting Pakistan, but its long range and two-stage rocket, which drops its booster in mid-flight, created trajectory problems.  Using the more expensive Agni-II against Pakistan would also not be cost-effective — like “using a jeweled scimitar to cut vegetables,” according to one scientist.

India developed the Agni-I to remedy the Prithvi’s vulnerability and the Agni-II’s complexities.  “There was a gap in our missile capability, and Agni fills this,” said retired Lt. Gen. Vinay Shanker.

Indian scientists built the Agni-I within 15 months, significantly less than the usual five-year development period for missiles, India Today reported (Raj Chengappa, India Today, Feb. 11).

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