Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:49, 21 January 2025

Revision as of 20:38, 27 April 2025

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== History ==

{{main|Guided Missiles of India#History}}

By the start of the 1980s, the [[Defence Research and Development Laboratory|DRDL]] (DRDL) had developed competence and expertise in the fields of propulsion, navigation and manufacture of aerospace materials based on the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[Soviet space program|rocketry technologies]]. Thus, India's political leadership, which included [[Prime Minister of India|Prime Minister]] [[Indira Gandhi]], [[Defence Minister of India|Defence Minister]] [[R. Venkataraman]], [[V. S. Arunachalam|V.S. Arunachalam]] (Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister), decided that all these technologies should be consolidated.

This led to the birth of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme with [[Abdul Kalam|Dr. Abdul Kalam]], who had previously been the project director for the [[Satellite Launch Vehicle|SLV-3 programme]] at [[ISRO]], was inducted as the DRDL Director in 1983 to conceive and lead it. While the scientists proposed the development of each missile consecutively, the Defence Minister R. Venkataraman asked them to reconsider and develop all the missiles simultaneously. Thus, four projects, to be pursued concurrently, were born under the IGMDP: