DRDO successfully test fires Laser-Guided Anti Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) from Arjun Tank

The Tatva Staff September 23, 2020

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The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), on Wednesday, successfully testfired Laser-Guided Anti Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) from the main battle tank (MBT) Arjun. The test was conducted at the KK Ranges in Ahmednagar, which houses the Indian Army’s Armoured Corps Centre & School (ACC&S). DRDO said that in these tests, ATGM successfully defeated a target at 3 km.

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh called the successful flight test of ABHYAS a milestone and said that ABHYAS can be used as a target for evaluation of various Missile systems.

Congratulations to @DRDO_India for successfully conducting test firing of Laser Guided Anti Tank Guided Missile from MBT Arjun at KK Ranges (ACC&S) in Ahmednagar.

India is proud of Team DRDO which is assiduously working towards reducing import dependency in the near future. pic.twitter.com/WuBivV7VYU
— Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 23, 2020

This is the second time that the target vehicle was flight-tested successfully. The first successful test was in May 2019. But during Tuesday’s tests, Abhyas cleared all the parameters that were being evaluated.

According to DRDO, the test vehicle met “the user requirement of 5 km flying altitude, vehicle speed of 0.5 mach [half the speed of sound], endurance of 30 minutes and 2G turn capability”.

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

DRDO has designed Abhyas on an in-line small gas turbine engine and it the device uses an indigenously developed micro-electro-mechanical systems-based system for navigation and guidance. DRDO has adopted its Lakshya tow body to design the fuselage for the Abhyas. The fuselage consists of five sections, namely the nose cone, equipment bay, fuel tank bay, air intake bay and tail cone.