NEW DELHI : India’s armed forces on Monday carried out another successful test of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile.
“The launch was carried out at the Pokhran range in the State of Rajasthan in the northwest of India at 13:00, local time to the maximum range of 290 kilometres,” he said. The missile that had been adopted by the country’s armed forces in 2007 was launched from a mobile launcher, in service in two Indian regiments. One more launcher of this type is to be delivered soon to another regiment of the Indian army. The Russian-Indian JV BrahMos Aerospace at the Defexpo-2014 Land, Naval and Internal Homeland Security Systems Exhibition that was held in New Delhi in February for the first time presented a full-scale mock-up of its new BrahMos-M missile, a smaller version of the supersonic BrahMos cruise missile.
The missile length is expected to be six metres, and diameter is 50 cm. It will be able to fly 3.5 times faster than sound and carry a warhead of 200 to 300 kilograms to a maximum range of 290 kilometres. The BrahMos missiles that have been tested as of today are two-stage cruise missiles with the length of 10 metres and diameter of 70 cm.
In March 2013, India also for the first time had tested a sub-launched version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, and by the end of the current year intends to test an air-launched version of the missile from the Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter.