Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Launched Precision Guided Missile-V3 (ULPGM-V3) during tests | Photo: DRDO
India’s defence ministry announced on Friday DRDO’s successful flight trials of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Launched Precision Guided Missile (ULPGM)-V3 at the National Open Area Range (NOAR) test range in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh. ‘The missile is an enhanced version of the ULPGM-V2 missile developed and delivered by DRDO (Defence Research & Development Organisation) earlier,’ according to the ministry.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted, “Congratulations to DRDO and the industry partners, DcPPs, MSMEs and Start-ups for the development and successful trials of the ULPGM-V3 system. This success proves that the Indian industry is now ready to absorb and produce critical Defence Technologies.”
The defence ministry said in its statement the ‘ULPGM-V3 is equipped with a high definition dual-channel seeker’ that can be ‘fired in plain and high-altitude areas.’ The ULPGM-V3 has ‘day-and-night capability and two-way data link to support post-launch target/aim-point update,’ according to the statement.
ULPGM-V3 comes with three modular warhead options that include anti-armour to destroy ‘modern age armoured vehicles equipped with Rolled Homogeneous Armour (RHA) with Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA), Penetration-cum-Blast warhead with anti-bunker application and pre-fragmentation warhead with a high lethality zone.’ The ministry said in its statement the ‘present trials were carried out for the anti-armour configuration.’
The missile itself has been developed jointly by DRDO laboratories including Research Centre Imarat, Defence Research and Development Laboratory, Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory, High-Energy Materials Research Laboratory, Integrated Test Range and Defence Electronics Research Laboratory. Additionally, 30 MSMEs/start-ups and Development cum Production Partners (DcPPs), Adani Defence and Bharat Dynamics Limited of Hyderabad contributed to this project.
An Indian start-up, Newspace Research Technologies of Bengaluru, ‘indigenously developed’ the UAV platform that launched the ULPGM-V3, said the statement.
According to the defence ministry, DRDO is ‘actively pursuing’ the integration of ULPGM weapons with ‘UAVs long-range and high endurance UAVs from several other Indian companies.’
It’s worth noting BAE Systems announced successful tests last week of its UAV-launched APKWS-equipped rocket and the U.S. Army demonstrated UAV-dropped bombs.
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