The next-generation Barak surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, jointly developed by Israeli Aerospace Industries, Rafael and DRDO, was successfully tested for the first time from an Israeli warship against a jet-powered drone on November 27. The supersonic Barak-8 missile system, whose interception range has been increased from the earlier 70-km to around 100-km, will be now tested from Indian destroyer INS Kolkata “within a month”. Once the long-range SAM system is fully operational in around two years, all Indian frontline warships will be equipped with this all-weather “defence shield” against incoming enemy fighters, drones, helicopters, missiles and other munitions.

Background:-

• The Rs 2,606 crore LR-SAM development project was sanctioned for Indian warships in December 2005 but was hit by several delays.
• The reasons ranged from mid-way upward revision of performance requirements and development of some new technologies to the technological challenge of “combustion instability of rocket motors” that took a long time to resolve.
• The delays led to the commissioning of the new 7,000-tonne destroyers INS Kolkata and INS Kochi over the last one year without effective missile defence shields.
• Even the country’s largest and most powerful warship, the 45,400-tonne aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya acquired from Russia for $2.33 billion, faced the same fate.
• The Navy then cannibalized an Israeli Barak-I anti-missile system for the carrier from the retiring frigate INS Godavari.
• The new LR-SAM system with Barak-8 interceptor missiles, which have “active seekers” for terminal guidance, is a much more advanced version with extended interception range.
• All frontline operational as well as under-construction warships, five destroyers and seven stealth frigates, will progressively be fitted with the Barak-8 systems.
• Similarly, the ground-based version of Barak-8, which was sanctioned in February 2009 for Rs 10,076 crore, will be utilized by the IAF to plug the existing gaps in air defence coverage of the country.