| Nishant | |
|---|---|
 Nishant UAV on its launcher | |
| General information | |
| Type | Military UAV |
| Designer | ARDE CISR-NAL R&DE(E) |
| Status | "Abandoned project" |
| Primary user | Indian Army |
| Number built | 4[1] |
| History | |
| Introduction date | 2011 |
| First flight | August 1996[2] |
| Retired | 2015 |
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]
- ^ "DRDO claims Nishant programme still alive after crash". 26 February 2016.
- ^ "Directory: unmanned air vehicles". Flight International. Reed Business Information. 21–27 June 2005. p. 54.
- ^ "Homegrown Nishant Drone's Perfect Crash Record". NDTV.com. Archived from the original on 2024-10-01. Retrieved 2024-10-01.