Rawalpindi, May 31 (IBNS): Pakistan on Thursday successfully conducted the test flight of indigenously developed Air Launched Cruise Missile Hatf-VIII (Ra’ad).
Pakistan's Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement, "Pakistan, today conducted a successful Flight Test of the indigenously developed Air Launched Cruise Missile, Hatf-VIII (Ra’ad). "
"The Ra’ad Missile, with a range of over 350 KM, enables Pakistan to achieve strategic standoff capability on land and at Sea. ‘Cruise Technology’ is extremely complex and has been developed by only a few countries in the world," read the statement.
"The state of the art Ra’ad Cruise Missile with Stealth Capabilities is a Low Altitude, Terrain Hugging Missile with high maneuverability, and can deliver nuclear and conventional warheads with pin point accuracy," it said.
"A major additional feature of today’s test was the effective employment of the National Command Authority’s fully automated Strategic Command and Control Support System (SCCSS)," it said.
"It has enabled robust Command and Control capability of all strategic assets with round the clock situational awareness in a digitized network centric environment to decision makers at National Command Centre (NCC). The system has the added capability of real time remote monitoring of missile flight path," the statement said.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani have congratulated the scientists and engineers for the achievement.
Pakistan on Tuesday test-fired Short Range Surface-to-Surface Multi Tube Missile Hatf IX (NASR).
Pertinently, India on Monday test-fired two Akash missiles from Chandipur's Integrated Test Range (ITR).
The missile was successfully launched earlier on May 24 and May 26.
The indigenous surface-to-air missile has been developed under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP).
