NEW DELHI – The Indian armed forces have successfully test-firednuclear-capable surface-to-surface ballistic missile Dhanushfor the third time in a month.

The Friday test was in full operational configuration from a naval warshippositioned in the Bay of Bengal.

The trial was conducted at about 10.52 am (Indian Standard Time) by theStrategic Forces Command (SFC) of the Navy from an undisclosed locationnearly 45 km from the Paradip coast.

The Dhanush missile is a single-stage, liquid-propelled, short-rangeballistic missile and is the naval variant of the Prithvi missile.

This was the third test of this version of a Prithvi missile this month. OnWednesday, the SFC of Indian Army had successfully conducted the firstnight trial of Prithvi-II ballistic missile from the Integrated Test Range(ITR) off Odisha coast.

“It was a textbook launch and fantastic mission accomplished. The missilehas achieved close to zero circular error probability,” a defense officialwho did not wish to be named confirmed to Sputnik.

The missile is about 8.53 meters in length and 0.9 meters in diameter; itslaunch weight totals about 4.4 metric tons. Dhanush has already beeninducted into the armed forces and is under production after itsuccessfully completed several developmental and user trials.