NEW DELHI: The strategic missile launched by India in May last, “Agni”, owes its brain to German engineering, says a U.S. academician, PTI reports.
Claiming to possess strong evidence to prove his assertion, Gary Milhollin in a report in “the bulletin of atomic scientists” said West Germany gave India help in three indispensable missile technologies: Guidance, rocket testing, and use of composite materials.
When Agni was assembled in 1988, the Indian rocket scientists had studied and developed only one brain for rocket guidance: the German system based on the Motorola microprocessor and its software, Milhollin said.
For over a decade, Germany’s guidance tutorial helped India build and test a navigation package based on that system.”
West Germany’s involvement in India’s missile programme dates back to the mid 70’s and through the 80’s, during which period it “warfed” the role of the United States and France in aiding the programme, he said.
Giving details the report said the German government’s aerospace agency, DLR, which began tutoring India in rocket guidance in 1976, helped the latter launch a rocket with a German interferometer in 1978, By 1981, the project had been expanded to include an onboard DLR made microprocessors, it said.
In April 1982, India tested, “Its own version of the same interferometer.”
And in July 1981, Germany provided a key component ‘or a navigation system that did not depend on signals from the ground, one that could guide a payload through space by determining its position and speed at any moment.
The key component was a German on board computer, using a microprocessor based on the Motorola family in 68000, and the software to run it, while India provided rockets and satellites for the system, it said.
By January 1, 1982, India and Germany had agreed on a series of Joint projects for the Agni programme called APCREX (Autonomous payload control rocket experiment), Milhollin said in the report.
In the course of the programme, India developed for its advanced space launch vehicle a new closed loop system, the “mark II” on board processor “based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor with 16 bit strength the same as that used in the German programme, the report said.
The German aerospace agency had also helped India build rocket test facilities, furnished a complete facility design and trained Indian engineers in high altitude testing, it said.
Milhollin’s report said DLR also gave Indian scientists on the job training in composites at Stuttgart and Braunschweig in the mid 70’s. “The German training allowed India to make rocket nozzles and nosecones of its own, which could be for either missiles or space launchers.”
Article extracted from this publication >> December 15, 1989
