Quick Reaction Surface to Air Missile System

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Army have successfully completed six flight-tests of Quick Reaction Surface to Air Missile (QRSAM) system from Integrated Test Range (ITR) Chandipur off the Odisha coast.

• The flight-tests were carried out against high-speed aerial targets mimicking various types of threats to evaluate the capability of the weapon systems under different scenarios, including long range medium altitude, short range, high altitude manoeuvring target, low radar signature with receding & crossing target and salvo launch with two missiles fired in quick succession. 
• The system performance was also evaluated under day and night operation scenarios.

Objectives

• During these tests, all the mission objectives were met establishing pin-point accuracy of the weapon system with state-of-the-art guidance and control algorithms including warhead chain. 
• The performance of the system has been confirmed from the data captured by a number of Range instruments like Telemetry, Radar and Electro Optical Tracking Systems (EOTS) deployed by ITR. 

Quick Reaction Surface to Air Missile (QRSAM) System

• It is a short-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system.
• Designed and developed by DRDO to provide a protective shield to moving armoured columns of the Army from enemy aerial attacks.
• QRSAM is a canister-based system stored and operated from specially designed compartments.
• The system is capable of detecting and tracking targets on the move and engaging targets with short halts.
• Missile can operate on the move with search and track capability & fire on short halt
• The entire weapon system has been configured on mobile and is capable of providing air defence on the move.
• It has a range of 25 to 30 km.
• It also consists of two radars – Active Array Battery Surveillance Radar and Active Array Battery Multifunction Radar – with one launcher.
• Both radars have 360-degree coverage with “search on move” and “track on move” capabilities.
• The system uses a single-stage solid propelled missile and has a mid-course inertial navigation system with two-way data link and terminal active seeker developed indigenously by DRDO.