DRDO successfully test fires long range surface to air missile from naval warship INS Chennai

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully test fired Long Range Surface to Air Missile (LR-SAM) from naval warship INS Chennai off the coast of Odisha on Thursday.

LR-SAM is an Indian-Israeli surface-to-air missile. The missile, also is known as Barak -8,  is designed to defend against any airborne threat including aircraft, helicopters, anti-ship missiles, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and combat jets.

DRDO successfully test fires Long Range Surface to Air Missile (LR-SAM) from naval warship INS Chennai off the coast of Odisha pic.twitter.com/UYP04ojDyi

— ANI (@ANI) January 24, 2019

Earlier, India successfully test fired the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile with an indigenous 'seeker' at Rajasthan's Pokhran test range, enhancing the country's capability to hit enemy targets at a range of up to 400 km.

It was for the first time that the missile, capable of travelling at speeds of up to Mach 3.0, or three times the speed of sound, was tested with indigenously developed 'seeker' technology. The seeker - developed by the DRDO - determines the accuracy of a missile by guiding it to the target.

The range of the missile, an Indo-Russia joint venture, can be extended to up to 400 km as certain technical restrictions were lifted after India became a full member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) last year.

BrahMos is a joint venture between the Defence Research and Development Organisation of India and the NPO Mashinostroyenia of Russia. The name BrahMos is formed from the names of two rivers: the Brahmaputra of India and the Moskva of Russia.