In yet another milestone for India, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Tuesday conducted the successful flight test of ABHYAS--High-speed Expendable Aerial Target (HEAT). The flight test was done from the Interim Test Range, Balasore in Odisha.
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh lauded the successful flight test of ABHYAS. Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, Singh said that this can be used as a target for evaluation of various Missile systems.
He tweeted, "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."
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_India & other stakeholders for this achievement.
— Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 22, 2020
During the trials, two demonstrator vehicles were successfully test flown. The vehicle can be used as a target for evaluation of various missile systems. During the test campaign, the user requirement of 5 km flying altitude, vehicle speed of 0.5 mach, endurance of 30 minutes and 2g turn capability of the test vehicle were successfully achieved.
Abhyas is designed and 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 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).
