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Indigenous AWACS prototype to
be ready in 2007 and inducted in 2010
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Future wars expected to be
from space
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Indian aero-space industry has
made spectacular gains last few years and manufacturing 700 aircraft
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The Centre for Air Borne Systems (CABS) revealed that an indigenous Airborne
Warning and Control System (AWACS) is being developed and a prototype will be
ready next year and will be inducted 2010. Addressing the 29th Annual Science
Festival under the “Aerospace Technology and National Security” track, CABS
Director K. Tamilmani said that developing the AWACS was the most challenging
task taken up by the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO).
Currently India buys AWACS built in the US mounted on a Boeing at Rs. 1,600
crores (USD 347 million) each.
Tamilmani predicts that future wars will be fought from space with extensive
use of space technology and the AWACS are expected play a major role in such
engagements. In a science fiction like setting, Tamilmani expects that AWACS
would play a major role in developing war room strategies, collecting
information from space to the earth stations, maintaining air, land, and sea
based defense systems, directing unmanned air vehicles (UAV), and managing the
war. He cited the UAV project Nishant as another key player.
In the last few years, India's defense-based aerospace industry has grown
rapidly in creating multiple designs, prototype development, and testing. About
700 defense and civilian aircraft were being manufactured in the country
including the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) and Nishant.
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