Rudram Air to Surface missile

Why in news?

• India’s first indigenous anti-radiation missile, Rudram, developed for the Indian Air Force, was successfully flight-tested from a Sukhoi-30 MKI jet.

About Rudram-I:

• Rudram is an air-to-surface missile, designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

What is the purpose of the missile?

• Rudram has been developed for the IAF’s requirement to enhance its Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) capability.
• As one of the many aspects of SEAD tactics, anti-radiation missiles are used mainly in the initial part of air conflict to strike at the air defence assets of the enemy, and also in later parts, leading to higher survivability to a country’s own aircraft.
• For guidance, it has a “passive homing head” — a system that can detect, classify and engage targets (radio frequency sources in this case) over a wide band of frequencies as programmed.
• Once the Rudram missile locks on the target, it is capable of striking accurately even if the radiation source switches off in between.
• The missile has an operational range of more than 100 km, based on the launch parameters from the fighter jet.

PRELIMS QUESTION

Rudram-1 recently in news is a:
(a)Hypersonic cruise missile
(b)Anti Radiation missile
(c)Unmanned combat aerial vehicle
(d)Surface to Air missile

Answer to Prelims Question