Pinaka Long Range Rocket Clears 60 km Guided Flight Test at Chandipur

The Pinaka Long Range Rocket completed a successful guided flight-test at the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur on July 08, 2026, with the Defence Research and Development Organisation putting the munition through a user defined minimum range of 60 kilometres. The rocket flew every in-flight manoeuvre as planned and struck its target on the predicted trajectory.

Pinaka Long Range Rocket hits target on the predicted path

DRDO called the impact textbook. The rocket held its planned course from launch to strike, and every range instrument deployed for the trial tracked the flight along its full trajectory, handing the teams a complete data set on the shot.

The 60 kilometre figure was a user defined minimum, the floor the user asked the system to demonstrate rather than the ceiling of what the guided rocket can reach.

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The laboratories behind the rocket

Armament Research and Development Establishment designed the Long Range Guided Rocket in association with the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory, with support from the Defence Research and Development Laboratory and Research Centre Imarat. The Integrated Test Range and the Proof and Experimental Establishment coordinated the flight-trial.

That spread of laboratories maps the two halves of a guided rocket, the airframe and propulsion on one side and the guidance and control package on the other. DRDO has spent recent years folding guidance kits into the Pinaka family to stretch range and tighten accuracy well past the original unguided rocket. The same indigenisation drive has pushed India's defence production to a record figure this financial year.

One launcher, many ranges

The rocket went up from an in-service Pinaka launcher already fielded by the Army. DRDO flagged this as proof of the system's versatility: the same launcher can fire Pinaka variants of different ranges without modification.

For a regiment that means one platform covering several rungs of the range ladder, from the older area-fire rockets out to the guided long range round tested here. It is the kind of flexibility the Army has been chasing across its artillery, and it fits the wider push behind indigenous programmes such as the recently exported Astra beyond visual range missile.

How the guided round changes Pinaka

The base Pinaka is a saturation weapon, throwing rockets across a grid. A guided round narrows that to a point target, which is what the Chandipur shot set out to prove. It puts the Pinaka Long Range Rocket in the same precision-fires class the Army now favours, backed by a DRDO development pipeline in transition.

Rajnath Singh calls it a milestone

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh congratulated DRDO, the Indian Army and the domestic industry on the successful test. He called it a major milestone in India's indigenous design and development capability for long range guided rockets, tying it to the wider self-reliance drive in munitions.

Defence Secretary and Chairman DRDO Rajesh Kumar Singh monitored the trials closely and complimented the teams involved. The Ministry of Defence announced the result the same evening through an official release.