New Delhi: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has conducted a successful flight trial of an Advanced Agni missile with Multiple Independently Targeted Re-Entry Vehicle (MIRV) system. The missile was launched from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam island in Odisha on 08 May 2026. Multiple payloads were flight-tested, aimed at different targets distributed over a large geographical area in the Indian Ocean region. Multiple ground and ship-based stations carried out the telemetry and tracking during the flight. These systems tracked the missile trajectory from lift-off till the impact of all payloads. The data confirmed that all the mission objectives of the flight test were met.
With the successful trial, India has once again demonstrated the capability to target multiple strategic targets using a single missile system. The missile was developed by the DRDO with the support of industries across the country. Senior scientists at DRDO and Indian Army Personnel witnessed the flight test. Following the successful test, Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh complimented the DRDO, the Indian Army and the private industry partners. The MIRV technology is among the most advanced missile technologies in the world. The missile carries multiple independently-guided warheads, each programmed to strike a different target, increasing destructive capabilities, while making interception more challenging.
Tech provides effective deterrence
Major General Sudhakar Jee (retired) told News9, “It gives us strategic reach, with range of 12,000 to 14,000 kilometres. It is generally understood that the host country does not come out with the accurate range. It makes the United States of America, the East Coast and the Hinterland, well within the reach of the Indian arsenal. This MIRV platform has one missile with multiple warheads, independently targeting different types of targets, at different ranges. That is the ultimate kind of arsenal that India is really proud of. This will give us enhanced capability, not only the nuclear capability, or the second-strike capability that we keep talking of, our doctrine being ‘no first use’, but also the conventional capability, which is going to give us a quantum jump in our credible minimum deterrence.”