By: Vivek Raghuvanshi
NEW DELHI — India has conducted its first successful flight test of the indigenously developed Rustom-II medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (MALE UAV) at the Chitradurga flight test range in the southern state of Karnataka, India.
The flight accomplished the main objectives of proving the platform's capabilities, such as takeoff, banking, level flight and landing, according to a Ministry of Defence (MoD) news release.
The first prototype of the homemade MALE UAV, known as TAPAS 201, was designed and developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment, an aeronautics laboratory of state-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation, with state enterprises Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Bharat Electronics Limited as production partners.
"TAPAS 201, a multi-mission UAV is being developed to carry out the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) roles for the three Armed Forces with an endurance of 24 hours. It is capable to carry different combinations of payloads like Medium Range Electro Optic (MREO), Long Range Electro Optic (LREO), Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Electronic Intelligence (ELINT), Communication Intelligence (COMINT) and Situational Awareness Payloads (SAP) to perform missions during day and night," the MoD said.
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