India's Agni Missiles Began as a 1989 Technology Demonstrator and Now Run From Agni-I to Agni-5, Which Flew Its First Multiple-Warhead Test, Mission Divyastra, on 11 March 2024

The Agni family of ballistic missiles began as a technology demonstrator that a Press Information Bureau (PIB) feature says was first tested in 1989. It now has five numbered missiles, Agni-I to Agni-5, plus the newer Agni-Prime. In releases between 2012 and 2025 the Defence Ministry has put the range at 700 km for Agni-I, 2,000 km for Agni-II, over 3,000 km for Agni-III, 4,000 km for Agni-IV, more than 5,000 km for Agni-V and up to 2,000 km for Agni-Prime.

On 11 March 2024 the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) flew Agni-5 with several warheads for the first time, in a flight test named Mission Divyastra. DRDO develops the missiles. The Strategic Forces Command, which a PIB feature describes as the body that manages India’s nuclear arsenal, fires them in training launches.

A re-entry demonstrator inside a bigger programme

The Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) was launched in 1983 under A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the Defence Minister told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply on 27 February 2008. The reply lists Agni as a technology demonstration project for re-entry technology, the know-how that lets a warhead come back down through the atmosphere and survive the heat. It says Rs 74.34 crore had been spent on the Agni demonstrator by 16 January 2008.

The PIB feature of 27 December 2016, written by Dilip Ghosh, gives the first flight. The two-stage Agni technology demonstrator was first tested at the Interim Test Range at Chandipur in 1989, it says, and could carry a conventional payload of 1,000 kg or a nuclear warhead. The feature adds that the demonstrator evolved into the solid-fuel Agni-1 and Agni-2 missiles. The exact day of the 1989 flight is not in the official pages used for this article.

A second written reply, to the Lok Sabha on 13 August 2012, says the IGMDP was started in 1983 and completed in March 2012. It was sanctioned to develop Prithvi, Trishul, Akash, Nag and a technology demonstrator, Agni. The reply says the Agni re-entry demonstrator was completed successfully and that its technology is used for the Agni series of missiles. Agni is a ballistic missile, which climbs on rocket power and then falls along an arc onto its target. The BrahMos cruise missile, which flies under power all the way, is a different line and has its own account in the BrahMos story.

Agni-I and Agni-II, the first in the arsenal

The feature says India then built the single-stage Agni-1, first tested in January 2002. It gives the Agni-I range as 700 to 1,250 km, says it moves by rail or road and uses solid propellant, and puts Agni-II at 2,000 to 2,500 km and Agni-III at 3,000 to 3,500 km. All three, it says, are inducted into the Army.

The ministry’s own releases are tighter on range. A release of 13 July 2012 calls Agni I a 700 km ballistic missile, launched from a road mobile launcher and already in the arsenal of the armed forces. The Strategic Forces Command fired it as a training exercise, and two naval ships near the target tracked it in the last phase of flight. The ministry’s year-end review for 2012 gives the range of Agni-II as 2,000 km and says it was test-fired on 9 August 2012.

The Defence Ministry releases used here do not carry first-flight dates for Agni-II or Agni-III, so this account follows those two missiles through the ministry’s range figures and later firings. The Strategic Forces Command fired Agni-3 from Wheelers Island, off the Odisha coast, on 23 December 2013. That release gives it a range capability of over 3,000 km.

Agni-IV, new technologies and a 4,000 km range

Agni-4 first flew on 15 November 2011 from a road mobile system on Wheelers Island. The PIB release says the missile reached a height of about 900 km and came back through re-entry temperatures of more than 3,000 degrees Celsius. It had two solid-propellant stages, and the release says its composite rocket motor was used for the first time. Tessy Thomas was the project director, and Avinash Chander, then the programme director for Agni, said the test had paved the way for Agni-5.

The development series ended on 20 January 2014. The release calls it the third consecutive successful trial and says the 4,000 km missile rose above 850 km and covered its range in about 20 minutes. It was flown in its deliverable form with Strategic Forces Command personnel taking part. Chander said the missile was ready for induction and its serial production would now begin. Thomas again led the launch team.

A release of 6 August 2026 reports an Agni-4 launch, from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, that validated all operational and technical parameters under the Strategic Forces Command.

Agni-V and the 5,000 km class

Agni-V first flew on 19 April 2012, lifting off from Wheelers Island at 8.07 am. The PIB release calls it India’s maiden Long Range Ballistic Missile and gives its range as more than 5,000 km. Its three stages of rocket propulsion were developed entirely by DRDO, the release says, and its guidance combined a ring laser gyro (a device that senses turning with light beams) with a second, redundant navigation system to bring it to the target within a few metres. Air Marshal K.J. Mathews, then the Strategic Forces Command’s commander in chief, who watched the launch, called its success a historic event for India.

The fifth test came on 18 January 2018. It was the third in a row from a canister on a road mobile launcher, and all five missions had succeeded, the release says. The 2016 PIB feature says the missile can be transported and swiftly launched from anywhere.

On 27 October 2021 the ministry described the three-stage solid-fuel missile as capable of striking targets at ranges up to 5,000 km. That release also placed the launch within the policy of credible minimum deterrence, which it said underpins the commitment to no first use of nuclear weapons. A launch at Chandipur on 20 August 2025, run under the aegis of the Strategic Forces Command, validated all operational and technical parameters, the release says.

Mission Divyastra

The Defence Ministry’s release of 11 March 2024 says the flight test, named Mission Divyastra, was the first of Agni-5 with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-Entry Vehicle technology, known as MIRV. The missile flew from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Island in Odisha. In a MIRV missile, one rocket carries several separate re-entry vehicles, and each can be aimed at a different target.

Telemetry and radar stations tracked and monitored the multiple re-entry vehicles, and the mission accomplished its designed parameters, the release says. The Prime Minister praised the DRDO scientists on the social platform X, and the Defence Minister called the result an exceptional success.

A second MIRV flight took place on 8 May 2026, according to the ministry’s release of 9 May. It says an Advanced Agni missile with a MIRV system flew from the same island with multiple payloads aimed at different targets spread over a large area of the Indian Ocean Region. Ground stations and ships tracked the whole trajectory from lift-off to the impact of every payload, and flight data confirmed all mission objectives were met. DRDO laboratories developed the missile with support from industry across the country, the release says. The account of DRDO’s 2026 test series covers that flight and the Agni-1 launch two weeks later.

Agni-Prime and the rail launcher

Agni-Prime, which the ministry also writes as Agni P, first flew on 28 June 2021 from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Island. The release calls it a new-generation advanced variant of the Agni class, canisterised, with a range between 1,000 and 2,000 km.

On 7 June 2023 users in the armed forces carried out its first pre-induction night launch, after three successful developmental trials, and the release says the flight paved the way for induction into the armed forces. The ministry has since said the road-mobile Agni-P is inducted.

On 24 September 2025 DRDO and the Strategic Forces Command launched an Agni-Prime from a rail-based mobile launcher under what the release calls a full operational scenario. The release describes the missile as designed to cover up to 2,000 km, says the launcher can move on the rail network without pre-conditions and fire after a short reaction time, and calls it a first-of-its-kind launch. The Defence Minister said the flight put India among select nations with a canisterised launch system from the rail network.

What the numbers do and do not say

The official range figures were written at different times and do not always match. The 2012 release gives Agni-V as more than 5,000 km, while the 2021 release says up to 5,000 km. The PIB feature’s 700 to 1,250 km for Agni-I and 3,000 to 3,500 km for Agni-III are wider bands than the single figures in the ministry’s own releases. The August 2025 release on Agni-5 and the August 2026 release on Agni-4 give no range at all.

The ministry’s labels have moved too. A 2018 release calls Agni-5 a long-range missile and the August 2025 release calls it an intermediate-range ballistic missile. The 2011 release for Agni-4 says long range, and the August 2026 release says medium range. The releases read for this article give no inventory figures, warhead numbers or yields. Who may order a launch is set out in the account of India’s Nuclear Command Authority. The latest launch in the releases used here is the Agni-4 flight from Chandipur on 6 August 2026, carried out under the aegis of the Strategic Forces Command.