The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) along with a team of the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Friday, October 29 successfully tested the country’s first domestically developed Long-Range bomb (LRB) from a fighter jet at the ariel platform in Balasore in Odisha.
The Long-Range Bomb, after being released from the IAF fighter aircraft, was accurately guided to a land-based target at long-range within specified limits. “All the mission objectives were successfully met,” the Defence Ministry revealed in a statement after successful completion of the test.
The flight execution and performance of the bomb on land were monitored by a range of sensors, such as an Electro-Optical Tracking System (EOTS), Telemetry and radar supplied by the Integrated Test Range, Chandipur in Odisha, the statement released by the Ministry further read.
The Long-Range bomb had been indigenously designed and developed by DRDO’s Research Centre Imarat (RCI) in Hyderabad, in collaboration with various other DRDO laboratories. Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh later congratulated the DRDO, IAF and other teams affiliated with the successful flight trial of the long-range bomb, stating that the feat will come to be a force multiplier for the Indian Armed Forces.
Meanwhile, Secretary of DDR&D and Chairman of the DRDO G Satheesh Reddy commented that the triumphant test flight of the indigenously developed LR Bomb has “marked an important milestone” in the domestic development of the long-range class of weapon systems.
The Long-Range bomb is part of the class of weapons with a target range of 50 to 150 kilometres. The successful test of the LR bomb occurred just days after the country successfully test-fired the AGNI-5 missile from the APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of Odisha. The ministry had stated that the missile was capable of hitting targets at ranges up to 5,000 kilometres “with a very high degree of accuracy.”
Ahmedabad Plane Crash