History
By the start of 1980's, DRDL had developed competence in the fields of propulsion, navigation and manufacture of materials. Thus, India's political and scientific leadership, which included prime minister Indira Gandhi, Defence Minister R. Venkataraman, V.S. Arunachalam (Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister), decided that all these technologies should be consolidated.
This led to the birth of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme. Dr. Abdul Kalam, who had previously been the project director for the SLV-3 programme at ISRO, was inducted as the DRDL Director in 1983 to conceive and lead it. While the scientists proposed the development of each missile consecutively, the Defence Minister R. Venkataraman asked them to reconsider and develop all the missiles simultaneously. Thus, four projects, to be pursued concurrently, were born under the IGMDP:
- Short range surface-to-surface missile (code-named Prithvi)
- Short range low-level surface-to-air missile (code-named Trishul)
- Medium range surface-to-air missile (code-named Akash) and
- Third-generation anti-tank missile (code-named Nag).
The Agni missile was initially conceived in the IGMPD as a technology demonstrator project in the form of a re-entry vehicle, and was later upgraded to a ballistic missile with different ranges. As part of this program, the Interim Test Range at Balasore in Orissa was also developed for missile testing.
Read more about this topic: Integrated Guided Missile Program
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)