Development history Development of a long-range space launch vehicle began in 1999 with an aim of a rocket engines reaching the range of to . The Indian military had moved its strategic commands to
east and the range of was determined by a need to be able to target the
Nicobar and Andaman Islands in the eastern part of the
Indian Ocean that are "developed as strategic bases" where "Indian military might think of putting its weapons", according to Shaheen-III's program manager, the Strategic Plans Division (SPD). With this mission,
Shaheen-III was actively pursued along with
Ghauri-III'. Initially, there were two earlier designs were shown in
IDEAS held in 2002 and its design was centered on developing a space booster based on the design technologies of the
Shaheen-I. Despite strong advocacy by
Abdul Qadeer Khan for the Ghauri-III program made to be feasible, the program was terminated by then-
President Pervez Musharraf who made the funding available for
Shaheen-III program which was to be led under
Samar Mubarakmand. The
Shaheen-III was initially purposed as the
space booster for the
space program to make it possible for installing the satellite
payload applications. Although no confirmation or denial of
Shaheen program's existence was given by Dr.
Mubarakmand, the rumors and speculations yet to be continued for the existence of the program. The
Shaheen-III uses the Pakistan-engineered
WS21200 transporter erector launcher (TEL) manufactured in China by
Wanshan Special Vehicle. ==Testing==