PIB TrackerNASM-SR makes its first twin-missile salvo launch
India's first indigenous air-launched anti-ship missile fired two rounds in quick succession from a single Navy helicopter off the Odisha coast.
What happened
- The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Indian Navy carried out the maiden salvo launch of the Naval Anti-ship Missile-Short Range (NASM-SR) from a Navy helicopter off the Bay of Bengal, near the Odisha coast.
- Two missiles were launched in quick succession from the same helicopter — described as the first salvo launch of an advanced air-launched anti-ship missile system.
- The test demonstrated waterline-hit capability — the missiles struck near the waterline of the target, the point at which a hit is most likely to disable or sink a ship.
- The flight was tracked by radar, an electro-optical system and telemetry stations of the Integrated Test Range (ITR), Chandipur.
- Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh and DRDO Chairman Dr Samir V. Kamat complimented the teams involved.
Background & context
A salvo launch is the firing of more than one missile in rapid succession against a target or a group of targets. It is operationally important because a single anti-ship missile can be defeated by a warship's layered defences — decoys, electronic jamming, close-in weapon systems. Firing a salvo saturates those defences and sharply raises the probability of a hit; demonstrating that two rounds can leave the same launch platform in quick succession is therefore a distinct capability milestone, separate from a single test firing.
NASM-SR sits within India's wider push for indigenous guided-weapon development under DRDO, the apex defence-research agency under the Ministry of Defence. It is described as the country's first indigenous air-launched anti-ship missile — a weapon dropped or fired from an aircraft (here, a helicopter) rather than from a ship or shore battery, and designed specifically to engage surface vessels. Until such systems matured, the Navy's helicopter-borne anti-ship strike relied substantially on imported missiles, so an indigenous round in this class reduces foreign dependence in a sensitive category.
The "-SR" tag marks it as the short-range member of an intended family. DRDO has publicly described work on a longer-range companion in the same series, so NASM-SR is best read not as a stand-alone product but as the first delivered rung of a graded set of naval anti-ship missiles. The programme is executed through DRDO's missile-cluster laboratories, with system integration led from Hyderabad.
It helps to place the agencies in their administering chain. DRDO is the research and development arm of the Ministry of Defence, headed by a Chairman who is also the Secretary, Department of Defence R&D. Beneath it sit clusters of specialised laboratories; the missile cluster is the one relevant here. Research Centre Imarat (RCI) is DRDO's lead laboratory for missile avionics, navigation, guidance and system integration, which is why it anchors a project whose novelty lies in its indigenous seeker, inertial navigation and avionics. The Integrated Test Range (ITR), Chandipur, on the Odisha coast, is the national missile-testing facility whose radar, electro-optical and telemetry instrumentation captures the trajectory of almost every Indian missile trial — a recurring name in defence current affairs. The supporting labs each own a slice of the weapon: DRDL handles missile-system design, HEMRL the high-energy propellants and warhead materials, and TBRL the terminal-ballistics and warhead-effect studies. Knowing this division of labour answers the "match the lab to its function" style of pairing question.
For Prelims
- Full name: Naval Anti-ship Missile-Short Range (NASM-SR) — the short-range variant of an indigenous naval anti-ship missile series.
- Developed by: Research Centre Imarat (RCI), Hyderabad as the lead laboratory, with DRDL Hyderabad (Defence Research and Development Laboratory), HEMRL Pune (High Energy Materials Research Laboratory), TBRL Chandigarh (Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory) and ITR Chandipur (Integrated Test Range) — all DRDO labs.
- Tested with: the Indian Navy; launched from a Navy helicopter; tracked by ITR Chandipur radar, electro-optical and telemetry assets.
- Production: through Development-cum-Production Partners (DcPP) — the model in which industry partners are brought in alongside development so that series production can follow quickly after the design matures.
- Propulsion: a solid-propellant booster for launch, plus a long-burn sustainer to maintain speed over the cruise — a two-stage solid configuration.
- Guidance & avionics (indigenous): an indigenous seeker, integrated avionics, a fibre-optic-gyro-based Inertial Navigation System (INS), a radio-altimeter (to hold a low sea-skimming height), a two-way data link, and jet-vane control (movable vanes in the exhaust that steer the missile at low speed just after launch).
- Performance class: sub-sonic — about Mach 0.8 — with a range in the order of ~55 km for the short-range variant. (curator-added, web-verified; treat range as approximate.)
- Mission profile: a sea-skimming anti-ship missile — it flies very low over the sea surface using the radio-altimeter to stay below the target ship's radar horizon, then aims for the waterline of the vessel.
How it compares (one peer): NASM-SR is a sub-sonic, short-range, helicopter-launched anti-ship missile. It is a different class from the BrahMos, the Indo-Russian supersonic cruise missile with a far longer reach and multi-platform (ship, land, air, sub-surface) launch. Reading them as the same kind of weapon is a common error: BrahMos is a long-range supersonic cruise missile; NASM-SR is a short-range sub-sonic anti-ship missile built around a low-level sea-skimming, waterline-strike profile from a rotary-wing platform.
The set it belongs to (for "how many / match the pairs"): NASM-SR is part of DRDO's indigenous naval-missile effort, sitting alongside the longer-range companion in the same NASM series under development, and within the broader stable of DRDO indigenous missiles that an aspirant should be able to place by category — surface-to-air (Akash, the QRSAM family), air-to-air (Astra), supersonic cruise (BrahMos, jointly produced), anti-tank (Nag/HELINA), and ballistic (the Agni and Prithvi families). NASM-SR's distinguishing tags within that set are: anti-ship role, air/helicopter launch, sub-sonic speed, short range, and fully indigenous air-launched anti-ship status.
Why it matters
The problem NASM-SR addresses is a real gap in the Navy's tool-kit: a home-built, helicopter-launched precision anti-ship missile. Naval helicopters are versatile maritime hunters, but their offensive anti-ship punch had long depended on foreign-origin weapons; an indigenous round in this niche tightens supply security and lets the missile be tailored, upgraded and produced at home. That fits the policy direction of Atmanirbhar Bharat in defence — reducing import dependence in critical weapon categories and deepening the domestic design-and-build base.
The salvo demonstration adds a tactical dimension. Modern warships carry layered defences, and a lone incoming missile can be spoofed or shot down. The ability to put two rounds in the air in quick succession from one platform, with demonstrated waterline accuracy, makes the threat far harder to defeat and validates the missile's guidance, data link and control chain under a more demanding firing sequence. The spread of work across RCI, DRDL, HEMRL, TBRL and ITR also showcases the integrated functioning of DRDO's missile-cluster laboratories, while the DcPP production model is meant to shorten the path from a successful trial to fielded numbers.
There is a doctrinal angle worth noting for the maritime domain. An air-launched anti-ship missile extends the Navy's reach well beyond the firing range of its surface ships: a helicopter can carry the weapon far forward, search for a target with its own sensors, and strike from a stand-off distance, then hand off or receive updates through the two-way data link. The sea-skimming profile — flying just metres above the water using the radio-altimeter — keeps the missile below the curve of the target's radar horizon until very late, compressing the defender's reaction time. Pairing that profile with a waterline hit maximises damage, because flooding at or below the waterline is what actually threatens a ship's buoyancy. Each of these design choices is therefore tied to a clear tactical purpose, which is what makes the system, rather than a single number, the examinable object.
Finally, the test feeds a larger trend the aspirant should be able to articulate: the steady widening of India's indigenous missile portfolio across roles and launch platforms. A successful indigenous anti-ship missile closes one of the remaining gaps in that portfolio — the rotary-wing maritime-strike niche — and demonstrates that the home base can now deliver the harder elements of a guided weapon, namely the seeker and the navigation and control electronics, not merely the airframe and propellant. That is the difference between assembling a missile and designing one.