Hello, Warriors! Former President APJ Abdul Kalam’s death in July this year triggered a nationwide outpouring of grief. It is a well-known fact among defence aspirants that Dr. Kalam wanted to join the IAF but can’t make it only because he stood 9th out of available 8 vacancies.
But it didn’t stop Dr. Kalam to move forward in life and he later became the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. ‘The Missile Man of India’, Dr. Kalam has many contributions to his name in the defence sector. To honor these contributions, the government of Odisha, in September this year, renamed the ‘Wheeler Island’- A missile testing site after Dr. Kalam.
Here’s everything you need to know about Kalam Island:
- Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on 4th September renamed Bhadrak district’s Wheeler Island after India’s recently-deceased former President and Missile Man, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
- The move will encourage the youth to further pursue a scientific temperament. It will be Odisha’s humble homage to the legendary scientist.
- It was during the tenure of then chief minister Biju Patnaik that Wheeler Island was given away to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Kalam’s request for missile testing in 1993.
- The Wheeler Island (Now Kalam Island) is located approximately 10 kilometres off the Odisha coast on the Bay of Bengal. The Island, which is about 2 kilometres in length and 390 acres, is considered as country’s most advanced missile testing site.
- There was a growing demand across sections of society to rename the island after the former president, who described the island as his ‘Theatre of Action’.
- Wheeler Island, located off the coast of Odisha, is used as a missile-testing facility by the union government. The maiden successful test fire of the land-to-land Prithvi Missile was conducted from the mainland and it landed on the then uninhabited Wheeler Island on November 30, 1993.
- The island was previously named after an English commandant Lieutenant Wheeler.
- The missiles which were launched from the Wheeler Island include Akash, Agni, Astra, BrahMos, Nirbhay, Prahaar, Prithvi, Shaurya and Advanced Air Defence, and Prithvi Air Defence.
- Access to the test facility is by ship, as there is no bridge or airport connecting the island to the mainland. There is a small helipad, but missile airframes and all supplies, construction materials and heavy equipment arrive by ship.
