Firstly, the failure of the Agni-III missile test are reported in the thread "Indian forces woefully short of equiment". Hence, this thread was redundant. That thread is not only a "bulletin board" as Gollevainen described it, but also meant for discussion. I post articles regularly, but unfortunately, discussions do not take place there.
crazyinsane105 said:
Well, a Pakistani scientist gave an unusually harsh statement towards the Indian defense engineers:
Islamabad, July 10 (IANS) The failure of Agni-III reflected 'incompetence' of the Indian missile designers and planners, said an eminent Pakistani scientist.
This statement is unwarranted. A country whose missile program depends mostly upon China and North Korea cannot make comments such as "incompetancy" on others. Its similar to ISRO criticizing NASA over the failure of the descent of Shuttle Columbia.
They would need to go back to the drawing board and take two to three years, unless 'they borrow something from abroad,' said Samar Mubarikmund, chairman of Pakistan's National Engineering and Science Commission (Nescom).
The next tests of Agni-III shall take place in August to October (report has been posted in another thread).
Claiming that Israel was involved in developing India's missile programme, Mubarikmund said Pakistan, which had an 'indigenous' programme of its own, retained superiority over all others in the South Asian region.
The above statement is completely inaccurate. Israel does not provide technology to India's ballistic missile program, and neither is Pakistan's missile program indigenous (its far from that).
Mubarikmund told The News Sunday that the circumstances narrated by the Indians for the failure of the missile test were 'not acceptable.'
The Indian missile met a disaster as it could not attain the altitude where the first stage is over or the second is even ignited.
.......
'If the missile fell from the height of 12 km, it establishes that either it's motor rocket, the basics of the missile proved failure or the guidance and control system was faulty. In both the probabilities, Indian technology has been exposed in clumsy manners.'
The detailed report of the failure of the missile was released 4 days after this statement was made by Mr. Mubarakmand. The missile failed because the propellant used was unsuitable to give the Agni-III missile higher thrust and was not compatible with the propellant of the second stage.
"Elaborating upon the importance of the propellant, scientists said the propellant used for this test was similar to that used for Agni-II which has a range of hitting a target at 2,000 kms. However, if the objective is to hit a target beyond 2,000 kms, the chemical specifications of the solid fuel propellant have to be changed to give additional thrust to the missile, scientists said.
Explaining further, they said the Agni-III, most probably, developed a snag as the booster of the missile, used to ignite the missile was not compatible with the second stage of hitting the target. This problem occurred due to design failure as the diameter of the missile was increased to store more propellant without changing its composition technically known as specific impulse composition.
Moreover, DRDO tried some new technologies including rocket motors with burn duration of more than 100 seconds, fault tolerant avionics and launch control systems. The mission team also tested the velocity of the vehicle that is capable of flying at 16 to 17 times the speed of sound."
Source:
"Experts reveal that for Agni III, the DRDO had designed and built an all-new rocket configuration as compared to the earlier versions. The missile was a stubby and much shorter version of Agni II, but packed almost twice the rocket power. DRDO had developed two new solid fuel motors that were being tested for the first time. It had also incorporated an advanced flex nozzle capability for guidance control. After the crash, DRDO appointed a failure review committee. The problem, it is learnt, occurred in the first stage itself, where a faulty component in the guidance system seemed to have thrown the missile off course and sent it hurtling into the Bay instead of its planned splash down in the Indian Ocean."
Source:
The reason for the failure of the separation of the first-stage and the second stage is likely due to the combination of the above 2 causes.
The propellant of the first-stage did not generate enough thrust, and the guidance mechanism did not guage the
altitude and other parameters properly to take corrective measures for the same.
'It is interesting to watch that Indian missile programme that was initiated by French and US assistance and later New Delhi also borrowed Russian technical support has been facing tragedies from the beginning,' the newspaper quoted him as saying.
No inputs from Russia are present in India's missile program, except the Brahmos which was the product of an Indo-Russian joint venture.
NASA and France provided technical assistance to India's space program in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There have been no technical inputs since.
