| Nishant | |
|---|---|
| |
| Nishant UAV on its launcher | |
| Role | Military UAV |
| Design group | ARDE CISR-NAL R&DE(E) |
| First flight | August 1996[1] |
| Introduction | 2011 |
| Retired | 2015 |
| Status | "Abandoned project" |
| Primary user | Indian Army |
| Number built | 4[2] |
The DRDO Nishant ("End of Night") - is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by India's Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), a branch of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for the Indian Armed Forces. The Nishant UAV is primarily tasked with intelligence gathering over enemy territory and also for reconnaissance, training, surveillance, target designation, artillery fire correction, damage assessment, ELINT and SIGINT. The UAV has an endurance of four hours and thirty minutes. Nishant has completed development phase and user trials. However, further development of the project was cancelled after all of the four prototypes and production UAVs crashed due to various and unkown reasons.[3]
- ^ "Directory: unmanned air vehicles". Flight International. Reed Business Information. 21–27 June 2005. p. 54.
- ^ "DRDO claims Nishant programme still alive after crash". 26 February 2016.
- ^ "Homegrown Nishant Drone's Perfect Crash Record". NDTV.com. Archived from the original on 2024-10-01. Retrieved 2024-10-01.