India’s Strategic Forces Test-Launch Agni-I Missile

India’s Strategic Forces Command, on Friday (May 22, 2026), successfully test-launched the nuclear-capable Agni-I ballistic missile.

The Ministry of Defence announced that the test validated all operational and technical parameters. The test was conducted at the Integrated Test Range in Chandipur, Odisha, on India’s eastern coast.

“Short Range Ballistic Missile ‘Agni-1’ was successfully test-launched from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, Odisha, on May 22, 2026. The launch validated all operational and technical parameters. The test was carried out under the aegis of the Strategic Forces Command,” the MoD statement said.

The Indian ballistic missile test came just a week after Pakistan had test-launched its indigenous Fatah-4 ground-launched cruise missile as part of a user trial for its Army Rocket Force Command.

The Indian Agni-I missile, developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), can carry a one-tonne payload between 700 km and 900 km.

The missile is already operational with the Strategic Forces Command that stocks and deploys the nuclear-capable missiles and the launch platform.

Agni-I has a single-stage, solid-fuel rocket motor propulsion system and can be launched with road and rail mobility.

The missile is part of the Integrated Guided Missile Development programme spearheaded by former DRDO chief and former President of India Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

India tested the Agni-I missile for the first time 27 years ago on the same day in 1989 from Chandipur in Odisha on the eastern coast.

This test provided India’s precision guidance and atmospheric re-entry structural technologies. Agni-I was inducted into the Indian armed forces in 2007.