New Delhi, Mar 9 : India''s indigenous Ballistic Missile Defence System, which will be able to intercept and destroy enemy missile, will be ready for deployment by
2011.

India on Friday inched closer towards its endeavour to put in place its own home-grown ballistic missile defence system as it successfully carried out the third Interceptor test on March 6 from Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Wheeler Island in Orissa.

DRDO Chief Controller (research and development) and Air Defence Programme Director, Dr. V K Saraswat, today said that at least five repeated tests are needed before making the missile defence system operational.

"The tests will be completed by the end of year 2010 and the interceptor missile system will be ready for deployment by 2011," Dr. Saraswat added.

Talking about the capability of the missile in taking on numerous targets, he said that the BMD could handle multiple targets simultaneously.

Dr. Saraswat further said that to get the required kill, there would be salvo of missiles fired at the incoming target simultaneously.

He said that it would take two to three minutes to identify and fire the missile at a incoming target, and pointed that radars located at Paradip and Pune would take 30 seconds to identify the incoming missile, adding "Our radars are capable of handling 200 targets at a time."

On Friday, the home grown BMDS scored a ''hat-trick'' launch, as the previous two tests have also been successful. The difference this time was that the interceptor missile met the target at an altitude of 75 km, the highest so far.

The target was ship launched ballistic missile Dhanush that was performing the role of an enemy missile during the trail.

Dhanush was launched from 100 km inside the Bay of Bengal from the warship INS Subhadra at 4.19 p. m. After two minutes, Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) missile was fired from a mobile launcher at the Integrated Test Range in Wheeler Island.

The PAD missile successfully intercepted and destroyed Dhanush, said officials. The entire process of eliminating the enemy missile took less than six minutes. DRDO scientists claimed that all the mission objectives were met.

The first trial took place in the exo-atmospheric region when the enemy missile was intercepted at 48 km altitude on November 27, 2006. The second test took place in endo-atmospheric region at 15 km altitude using Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile on December 6, 2007. (ANI)