New Delhi, May 4: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully conducted the maiden flight trial of the indigenously developed Stratospheric Airship with an instrumental payload to an altitude of around 17 km.

This is being regarded as a milestone for the country’s defence and surveillance capabilities, making India one of the few countries in the world having such indigenous capabilities The airship will enhance India’s earth observation and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance capabilities.

The DRDO in its post on X wrote,“DRDO successfully conducts maiden flight trial of Stratospheric Airship with instrumental payload to an altitude of around 17 kms. This lighter than air system will enhance India’s earth observation and Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance capabilities, making the country one of the few countries in the world having such indigenous capabilities.”

The successful trial was conducted on Saturday in Madhya Pradesh from the Sheopur trial site, marking a significant step forward in the advanced aerial surveillance and earth observation technologies.

Developed by Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment, Agra (Uttar Pradesh), the airship was launched carrying an instrumental payload to an altitude of around 17 km.

The Ministry of Defence has said that the data from onboard sensors was received and would be utilised for the development of high-quality fidelity simulation models for future high-altitude airship flights. Envelop pressure control and emergency deflation systems were deployed and tested during the 62-minute flight for their performance evaluation.

The trial team recovered the system for further investigation. All these systems performed as expected, said the officials. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has congratulated DRDO for the successful maiden flight-trial of the system.

He stated that this system will uniquely enhance India’s earth observation and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance capabilities, making the country one of the few countries in the world having such indigenous capabilities.

Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman DRDO, Dr Samir V. Kamat, congratulated the DRDO team involved in the design, development and trial of the system. He said the prototype flight is a milestone towards the realisation of lighter-than-air high-altitude platform systems that can remain airborne for very long endurance at stratospheric heights.

(IANS)

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