To add more lethal and precision, India is developing Hyper-sonic BrahMos missile to meet the requirements of the defence forces. Sudhir Kumar Mishra, CEO and MD of BrahMos Aerospace told The Pioneer at the ongoing 11th edition of aero India in Bengaluru that they were working on to increase the speed of the BrahMos missile to Mach 3 to Mach 5 .
He said “We are trying to increase its speed from Mach 3 to Mach 5. With this, we will enter into the hypersonic regime.”
“We have been reinventing ourselves every two to three years. BrahMos is a universal supersonic missile. We are trying to miniaturise the existing missile. We have named it BrahMos NG. It is still on the drawing board and we are talking to various users. We have not committed the funds to it yet. In BrahMos NG, we are trying to bring its weight to 1.4 tonne and the range will be smaller at 120-250 km,” Mishra said.
He also said they were looking at integrating this missile to many other platforms which include Indian own lCA Tejas.
BrahMos Corporation, an Indo-Russian joint venture is also looking at exporting the missile to friendly countries if they are given goes ahead from the Government.
“The idea is to mass produce the missile so that we can integrate it on a variety of platforms. It is a new business initiative and we see a huge market for it in India and abroad,” he said.
Talking about the performance of the missile he said “the missile cruises (at supersonic speed) at the land level, close to the surface and one gets around 20 seconds to react. In those 20 seconds, one cannot fire a missile against it. Just before hitting the target, the missile makes an S manoeuvre and it is impossible to engage it. These can take down a subsonic cruise missile”.
India is a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime(MTCR).
India is the only country to develop a supersonic cruise missile and when it makes a hypersonic cruise missile, it will again be the only country to do so.
Defence Research and Development Organisation chief S Christopher told reporters at Aero India-2017 that the configuration of the existing missile - the world’s fastest supersonic cruise missile – has been tweaked to enhance its range. He said the test was likely to be conducted on March 10.
Christopher said another version of the missile with a strike range of 800 km was under development.
The missile could be tested in two-and-a-half years. BrahMos variants can be launched from land, air, sea and under water.
Air-launched BrahMos is expected to be ready for deployment later this year, and at least two Su-30 squadrons with 20 planes each are likely to be equipped with it. eom/blr