India to launch first nuclear submarine

[홍순명]

* Writer: Varun Sood in Mumbai and James Lamont in New Delhi
* Source: Financial Times
* Date: July 8 2009

India is expected to launch a locally built nuclear-powered submarine later this month, making it one of only a handful of countries with the technology to produce such a vessel.

Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, is scheduled to visit the Visakhapatnam naval base in Andhra Pradesh on July 26 to inspect the submarine before it is launched from its dry dock for sea trials, senior government officials told the Financial Times.

The deployment of a nuclear-powered submarine would be a major step for the Indian navy, which is anxious to maintain its authority in the shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. The submarine could allow New Delhi to develop a nuclear weapon strike capability from the sea.

The submarine, the INS Chakra, has been produced at a cost of $2.9bn under the country’s Advanced Technology Vessel Programme and is expected to go into full service in two years’ time. The vessel is based on the Russian Akula-I class submarine, and is powered by a single pressurised water reactor. Its nuclear reactor has been developed at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research at Kalpakkam in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

India’s government is channelling spending towards the modernisation of India’s armed forces, to the ire of development agencies, who say the money would be better spent on poverty alleviation. The finance ministry raised military spending by 25 per cent in the national budget earlier this week.

India has plans to lease an Akula-class nuclear submarine from Moscow. It is also awaiting the delivery of a 30-year-old refitted Russian aircraft carrier, the Admiral Gorshkov . Additionally, India is building six French-designed Scorpene diesel submarines.

The country lags behind China’s naval might in the region. C. Uday Bhaskar, director of the Delhi-based National Maritime Foundation and a respected military analyst, said Beijing had a fleet of eight nuclear submarines, some with ballistic missile capability, although it lacked an aircraft carrier.

The Chinese navy has three times the number of combat vessels (about 630) as Indiaand a personnel strength of 225,000 — five times that of the Indian navy.

“This [the building of the nuclear submarine] is a historic and big step forward,” said C. Raja Mohan, professor of South Asian studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. “The project is quite indigenous and it opens the door for deploying nuclear weapons in the ocean.”

An official spokesman declined to confirm‎ that Mr Singh, who is currently attending the Group of Eight summit in Italy, would visit Visakhapatnam.

But K. Santhanam, former chief of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, a state defence contractor, said: “This [visit] is partly a public relations exercise and partly to give a fillip to the [submarine] project.”

India embarked on its quest for a nuclear submarine in 1982. They are considered better than conventional diesel counterparts as they can go deeper and faster and spend lengthy times at sea.

Defence industry experts stressed that the commissioning of the INS Chakra may still have some way to go.

“The technology required to build a small but powerful and safe reactor that can perform through the difficulties of a wartime environment is no easy task,” said one. “Some of India’s great projects in defence have gone on for decades and been unbelievably costly.”

[백선호]

러시아 아쿨라 I에 기반했다니 흠... Arjun이나 Tejas처럼 사업관리를 하면 한 2030년대에도 보기 힘들 수 있고, 핵무기 개발하듯이 했으면 다르겠고... 인도는 핵무기 보유국으로 사실상 인정을 받았으니 돈과 의지만 있으면 언젠가 가질 것 같네요.

[ssn688]

원자로는 독자개발이라는 데 어쩌면 이것은 프랑스'향'이 첨가되었을지도... :) 요즘 인도와 브라질에 프랑스가 장사 잘하는 것을 보면 괜히 망상이 뻗습니다. 그나저나 인도의 프로젝트는 수십 년 단위로 노는 게 일반이고 "아직~" 진행형 투성이인데, 뭔가 하나가 진척이 되니 괜히 구경꾼인 본햏도 반가워하네요. (먼 산)