Solar Defence Begins Delivering Nagastra-2 Anti-Tank Loitering Munitions to the Army After Mahajan Trials

Nagpur's Solar Defence and Aerospace Ltd (SDAL) has started delivering the Nagastra-2 anti-tank loitering munition to the Indian Army. The deliveries were reported on 23 October 2026. Nagastra-2 is the armour-killing member of a family of home-grown "kamikaze" drones that has moved, in under two years, from first orders to combat use and now to a second-generation variant built specifically to hunt tanks.

The company says the system cleared technical trials at the Mahajan Field Firing Range in Rajasthan in August 2026. During those trials the Army checked its operational performance and its electronic counter-countermeasure (ECCM) features, meaning its ability to keep working when an adversary tries to jam it. SDAL says Nagastra-2 met every operational and ECCM compliance parameter the user set.

What Nagastra-2 is

A loitering munition sits somewhere between a reconnaissance drone and a missile. It launches, flies to an area of interest and circles there while an operator studies the live video feed. When a target is confirmed, the drone dives onto it and its warhead detonates. Because the operator can watch the target until the last moment, these weapons can hit vehicles that are moving or hidden. They also cost far less than a guided missile.

According to the company's figures, as reported by several outlets:

• Warhead: a 4 kg tandem shaped-charge warhead. SDAL says it can penetrate up to 650 mm of rolled homogeneous armour (RHA), the standard steel used to compare anti-tank weapons. A tandem charge uses a small first charge to set off or defeat reactive armour, and a main charge to punch through the hull behind it.
• Range: up to 25 km in "recover-and-reuse" mode, where the operator can bring the drone back if no target is found, and about 50 km in one-way "fire-and-forget" mode.
• Endurance: up to 60 minutes in the air. One secondary report gives 90 minutes, but most coverage uses the 60-minute figure.
• Electronic resilience: the system is designed to resist communication and GPS jamming. Its video and telemetry links use proprietary encryption.
• Indigenous content: more than 80%, according to reports of the company statement.

The 650 mm figure and the range numbers are the manufacturer's claims. They are not independently verified results, but they match what the Army is reported to have tested at Mahajan.

From Nagastra-1 to an anti-tank variant

Nagastra-1, the first member of the family, was developed by Economic Explosives Ltd, a wholly owned Solar Industries subsidiary, with Bengaluru start-up Z-Motion Autonomous Systems, and won a ₹212 crore Ministry of Defence contract in 2023. It was an anti-personnel and light-target weapon, and reports say the Army used it during Operation Sindoor in 2025. A recovery-capable version, Nagastra-1R, followed. Earlier this month SDAL delivered a batch of about 450 Nagastra-1R units to the Army in a single consignment.

Nagastra-2 targets a different threat. The war in Ukraine showed how cheap, precise loitering munitions and FPV drones can destroy armoured vehicles costing many crores each. Since then, armies worldwide have been rushing to give infantry and artillery units a man-portable or vehicle-launched way to hit tanks well beyond the line of sight. India's western and northern borders both include long stretches of terrain where armoured formations could operate. Nagastra-2 fills a gap between shoulder-fired anti-tank guided missiles, with ranges of a few kilometres, and long-range artillery or air strikes.

Why the electronic-warfare tests matter

Lessons from Ukraine and from Operation Sindoor show that jamming now largely decides whether a drone succeeds. A loitering munition that loses its GPS fix or video link in a contested area is wasted money. The Army made ECCM compliance a formal trial parameter at Mahajan, and SDAL highlights encrypted, jam-resistant links. Together these signal that buyers now treat survivability in a contested electromagnetic environment as a core requirement rather than an extra.

This also helps explain why indigenous content matters beyond the headline percentage. A drone whose radios, flight controller and encryption are designed in India can have its software and frequencies changed quickly when an adversary adapts. That is much harder with imported subsystems whose firmware the Army cannot see.

The bigger picture for India's drone industrial base

The Nagastra-2 deliveries come in a busy month for Indian unmanned systems. In October 2026 alone, the Army received hundreds of Nagastra-1R units. Private firms also reported progress on jet-powered strike drones and rocket-assisted launches, and the Army placed orders for FPV drones after high-altitude trials. Together these point to a shift in Indian defence procurement. Instead of decade-long development programmes run by public-sector units, the Army is now buying small batches from private manufacturers, testing them quickly and placing follow-on orders.

For Solar Industries, best known as an explosives and ammunition maker, the Nagastra line gives it a foothold in precision weapons, a higher-value segment. For the Army, it offers a domestic source for a type of weapon that is used up in large numbers in any real conflict. That matters because imports can be interrupted by sanctions or by the supplier's own wartime demand.

What to watch

The company has not said publicly how many Nagastra-2 units are in the current consignment, or the value of the order. Key questions now are how fast SDAL can scale production, whether the Army orders the system in quantity after field use, and how it performs against modern tanks fitted with active protection systems designed to shoot down incoming munitions.

Sources

• https://www.theweek.in/news/defence/2026/10/23/indian-army-gets-indigenous-nagastra-2-capable-of-striking-armoured-targets-50-km-away.html
• https://www.defencewatch.in/defence-manufacturing/sdal-delivers-indigenous-nagastra-2-anti-tank-loitering-munitions-to-indian-army
• https://www.indiandefensenews.in/2026/10/solar-defence-delivers-indigenous.html
• https://thenewsmill.com/2026/10/solar-defence-delivers-nagastra-2-anti-tank-loiter-munitions-to-indian-army/
• https://www.latestly.com/agency-news/india-news-solar-delivers-indigenous-nagastra-2-anti-tank-loiter-munitions-to-indian-army-7654030.html
• https://indianmasterminds.com/news/defence/nagastra-2-army-trials-650mm-penetration-245064/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagastra-1