India has completed its nuclear triad by inducting the first indigenously built strategic nuclear submarine INS Arihant into service.
With this, India becomes fourth country to have a nuclear triad i.e. capable of delivering nuclear weapons by aircraft, ballistic missiles and submarine launched missiles.
What are features of INS Arihant?
INS Arihant is nuclear submarine capable of carrying nuclear tipped ballistic missiles.
Thus it belongs to class referred to as Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN). Its design is based on the Russian Akula-1 class submarine.
It was built with Russia’s help under Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) project started in the 1980s.
It weighs 6000 tonnes and is 112 metre long. It is powered by 83 MW pressurised light water nuclear reactor with enriched uranium fuel.
It will be armed with the K-15 Sagarika missiles with a range of 750 km. Later it will be armed with much longer range K-4 missiles (3,500 km range) being developed by DRDO.
The vessel was launched in 2009 by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Since then, it had undergone extensive sea trials and reactor on board went critical in 2013.
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