India successfully test fires Agni-I missile

India on Friday successfully test-fired the indigenously built nuclear-capable Agni-I missile from the Abdul Kalam Island off the Odisha coast.

The surface-to-surface missile, capable of hitting targets up to 700 km away, was fired from launch pad-4 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at 10.02 a.m. as part of Strategic Forces Command (SFC) training exercise.

Defence ministry sources said the trial was successful.

"The exercise was undertaken as a part of periodic training activity by SFC," official sources said.

The trajectory of the trial was tracked by a battery of sophisticated radars installed at various places, telemetry observation stations, electro-optic instruments and naval ships.

The missile is 15 metres long and powered by solid and liquid propellants at a speed of 2.5 km per second.

Agni-I missile has already been inducted into the armed forces.

The missile weighs around 12 tonnes and can carry both conventional and nuclear payload of about 1,000 kg. It was first launched on January 25, 2002 and can be fired from road and rail mobile launchers.

The last trial of Agni-I conducted in September 2014 was also successful.