Agni-V launch postponed

The third flight-trial of Agni-V strategic missile, which was to take place any day between January 11 and 15, 2015 from Wheeler Island, off the Odisha coast, has been postponed. The lift-off is likely to take place in the last week of January or early February 2015.

Officials of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which has built the missile, declined to reveal the reasons behind the postponement. “It is non-technical in nature,” they said.

Teams, which had reached Wheeler Island to prepare for the lift-off, are returning to various DRDO centres across the country.

The missile, which can carry a nuclear warhead weighing 1.5 tonnes, can reach targets more than 5,000 km away. The importance of the third flight-trial of Agni-V is that it will be a canisterised launch. 

the hindu