India Navy is set to commission INS Dhruv to track satellites, strategic missiles and map the Indian Ocean bed later this year.

INS Dhruv is no ordinary vessel for the Indian Navy. Read its stealth capabilities and utilities.

INS Dhruv

• INS Dhruv has been developed with the help of the DRDO and Indian Navy with India’s Strategic Force Command and National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) as main intelligence consumers.
• The indigenously-developed surveillance ship has been built by Hindustan Shipyard Ltd at its Visakhapatnam facility under the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan initiative.
• The 15,000-tonne ship, part of a classified project, will not only create maritime domain awareness for India in the Indian Ocean but also act as an early warning system for adversary missiles headed towards India.

Stealth capabilities

• INS Dhruv is equipped with active electronically scanned array radars, or AESA considered a game-changer in radar technology.
• It can scan various spectrums to monitor satellites of adversaries that are watching over India.
• It can also understand the range and true missile capability of adversary nations that it finds in the Indo-Pacific.

Benefits offered

• Once the vessel is commissioned, India will be the only country outside the P-5 – the US, the UK, China, Russia and France – to have this capability
• It will act as a major force multiplier to India’s ocean surveillance capabilities.
• It will be able to provide the Indian Navy with an “ECG of the Indian Ocean”.

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