Solar Companies Nagpur stated it has received an order to supply an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) 'Nagastra' to the Indian Army, beating competitors from Israel and Poland. A Solar Companies official said with the government's initiative to include Atmanirbharta in weapons and defense systems, the first indigenous Loiter Munition (LM), Nagastra-1, has been designed and developed by Economics Explosives Ltd (EEL), a 100 percent subsidiary of Solar Industries Nagpur, in association with Z-Motion, Bangalore. A model of 'Nagastra -1' loitering munition was recently displayed in the Army Commanders conference held in New Delhi. The company said that Nagastra -1 having an indigenous content of more than 75 percent has many world-class features.
It said that in a 'Kamikaze mode,' it can neutralize any hostile threat with GPS-enabled precision strike with an accuracy of 2 m. The fixed-wing electric UAV has an endurance of 60 min with a man-in-loop range of 15 km and an autonomous mode range of 30 km.
In addition to day-night surveillance cameras, the loiter munition is equipped with fragmenting warheads to defeat soft-skin targets. In case a target is not detected or if the mission is aborted, the loiter munition can be called back and made a soft landing with a parachute recovery mechanism enabling it to be reused multiple times.
It further said that abort, recover and reuse features of this loiter munition make this system superior to a similar class of systems developed by advanced countries. Drone technology has proved to be a force multiplier in military operations as evident from its application in various recent conflicts across the world, especially in cases of Armenia-Azerbaijan, Syria, the strike on oilfields in Saudi Arabia, and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.
"Even in our context, the recent incidents along the borders have seen a noticeable increase in drone-related incidents along the northern borders. "Solar Industries have taken initiatives to develop a wide array of weaponized drones to neutralize various targets using gravity drop bombs, guided missiles or using them in a Kamikaze mode. This will go a long way to boost the indigenous capability of using drones/ UAVs as war machinery," a company official said.
