Historical Background

Starting in 1982 as a Project under Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) and a forerunner to proposed National Test Range at Baliapal, ITR has been graduated to perfection over the years and has reached the status of World Class Test Range. Maiden Test launch of re-entry technology demonstrator, Agni AE01 on 22nd May, 1989 from this Test Range has put ITR in a prominent place among the World Test Ranges.

Since then, various operational versions of Agni have been tested from this Test Range. Precise surface to surface missile Prithvi with a varied range has been fired from this Test Range. Successful test launch of its variants like Air force version and Naval version from gyro-stabilized platform are also the landmarks of this test range success. Successful testing of Indo-Russian Joint venture anti ship cruise missile BrahMos shows the marvel of technological collaboration between both the Nations. Apart from these trials, the Range has also tested a number of tactical weapon systems like Akash, Nag, Trishul, Astra and a number of air to air exercises. Pilotless target aircraft Lakshya, remotely piloted vehicle Nishant, Pinaka rockets and a number of altitude sensing devices are tested successfully from this Test Range. In the year 2003, Interim Test Range was renamed as Integrated Test Range, which signifies its commitment to Integrated Defence Services along with the Projects.

All the tests are done at ITR, which is 200 Km from two major cities of the country – Kolkata in the north and Bhubaneswar in the south. Strategically located along the coast of Bay of Bengal, it has the advantage of providing a safe corridor for all types of missile systems. The sprawling Chandipur range has spread over a vast area comprising of technical facilities and launch complexes. Apart from this, it has several pockets of land mass along the coast line, where state-of-the-art range instrumentation systems are deployed for effective real time tracking and data capture.