BrahMos cruise missile achieves supersonic dive (Second Lead)

BALASOREBHUBANESWAR - In a first in the military world, the BrahMos cruise missile being jointly developed by India and Russia achieved a supersonic dive after being fired from a defence base in Orissa as part of the trials to fine-tune its capabilities, an official said.

“The missile flew in the designated complex trajectory conducting large manoeuvres and steep dive. This is the first time in the world that a supersonic dive has been realised by a cruise missile,” said BrahMos Aerospace spokesperson Praveen Pathak.

The Indian armed forces termed it a “perfectly precise flight”, he added.

The 290-km range BrahMos missile, which can travel 2.8 times the speed of sound, was tested for the army from the Integrated Test Range of Chandipur in here, some 230 km from Orissa capial Bhubaneswar, director of the test range S.P. Dash told IANS.

“The launch met all mission requirements. It was a 100 percent fantastic launch,” Dash said.

Defence Minister A.K. Antony congratulated the armed forces and the defence scientists associated with the project for the “success”.

The launch was conducted in the presence of Director General of Artillery Lt. Gen. Vinod Nayanar, BrahMos Aerospace CEO and MD A.S. Pillai, scientists from the Defence Research and Developments Organisation, industry representatives and officers from different units of the army.

The sophisticated cruise missile has already been inducted into the Indian army and the navy. The Block-II version capabilities to hit precisely a small target in a cluster of larger targets were demonstrated from Pokhran recently.

“This new capability has made it even more lethal,” Pathak said in a statement.

The BrahMos missile is a two-stage vehicle that has a solid propellant booster and a liquid propellant ramjet system. It can carry conventional warheads up to 300 kg for a range of 290 km.

The cruise missile is capable of being launched from multiple platforms based on land, ships, submarines and aircraft, and currently the focus in on for the development of its air-launched and submarine-launched versions.

India and Russia are jointly designing the BrahMos missile, named after the Brahmaputra (India) and Moskva (Russia) rivers.

A regiment of the BrahMos-I variant, consisting of 67 missiles, five mobile autonomous launchers on 12×12 Tatra vehicles and two mobile command posts, among other equipment, is already operational with the army.