India gets its first nuclear missile tracking ship INS Dhruv
- India's first nuclear missile tracking ship INS Dhruv has been commissioned into the Navy at Visakhapatnam.
- Currently France, America, Britain, Russia and China only possess this type of naval missile tracking system.
- INS Dhruv lies at the heart of India's future anti-ballistic capabilities and the ship will play a key role in advancing the country's presence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Features of INS Dhruv
- INS Dhruv has been built by Hindustan Shipyard in collaboration with DRDO and National Technical Research Organization (NTRO).
- It has a length of 175 metres, beam 22 metres, draft six meters and can attain a speed of 21 knots.
- It is powered by two imported 9,000 kW combined diesel and diesel configuration engines and three 1200 kW auxiliary generators.
- Equipped with state-of-the-art Active Scan Array Radar or AESA, the ship is directly connected to the satellite via antenna.
- This satellite itself detects the missile coming from afar and sends information to the radar present in the ship.
- It has the capability to scan various spectrums to monitor spy satellites tracking India as well as to monitor missile tests across the region.
- Ballistic missiles can be easily tracked and destroyed with the modern surveillance radar mounted on this tracking ship.
- It will add to the capability of the Indian Navy to monitor the region from the Gulf of Aden to the entry routes into the South China Sea through the Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, Ombai and Wetar Straits.
Monitoring of satellites
- The ship will track missiles as well as monitor satellites in low Earth orbit.
- India's anti-ballistic missile capability will increase by having the capability to track long-range nuclear ballistic missiles.
- The ship was named VC-11184 during the start of construction.