NEW DELHI: India successfully flight tested the Supersonic Missile Assisted Release of Torpedo (SMART) from Wheeler Island off the coast of Odisha on Monday.All mission objectives, including missile flight upto the range and altitude, separation of the nose cone, the release of Torpedo and deployment of Velocity Reduction Mechanism (VRM), were met perfectly in the flight test.Defence Minister Rajnath Singh congratulated the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for the success.”The DRDO has successfully flight tested the Supersonic Missile assisted release of Torpedo, SMART. This will be a major technology breakthrough for stand-off capability in anti-submarine warfare. I congratulate DRDO and other stakeholders for this significant achievement,” Singh’s tweet read.SMART is a missile assisted release of lightweight Anti-Submarine Torpedo System for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operations for far beyond torpedo range. This launch and demonstration are significant in establishing ASW capabilities.Speaking about it, Chairman DRDO, Dr G Satheesh Reddy, said, “SMART is a game-changer technology demonstration in the ASW.”The events of today were monitored by the tracking stations (Radars, Electro Optical Systems) along the coast and the telemetry stations including down range ships.A number of DRDO laboratories, including DRDL, RCI Hyderabad, ADRDE Agra, NSTL Visakhapatnam, have developed the technologies required for SMART.Earlier, this month DRDO had successfully tested Laser-Guided Anti Tank Guided Missile. The test was conducted from MBT Arjun at KK Ranges (ACC&S) Ahmednagar in continuation with the successful trials done on September 22.
