DRDO to Develop BrahMos as Hypersonic Missile
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India Defence Online, New Delhi -- The State-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has indicated that the prestigious Indo-Russian cruise missile ‘BrahMos’ is being upgraded to a hypersonic missile from supersonic for increased speed. According to Dr. A.S. Pillai, CEO and Managing Director of BrahMos, the cruise missile upgrade will take five years and the budget is being worked out. India and Russia agreed to develop and induct the new hypersonic version of their joint venture 290-kilometre-range BrahMos cruise missile by 2015. Even a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in this regard was signed between the two sides last month, in which they agreed on the final parameters for the new version of the cruise missile. The upgraded version of the BrahMos will require lots of modifications in the cruise missile. In order to make BrahMos a hypersonic cruise missile, there will alterations in the scram-jet engine and various other technologies besides the reduction in weight and size. The new missile will be known as 'BrahMos-2' and will have a speed of over 6 Mach (around 6,000 kilometres per hour) with a striking-range of 290 kilometres. The range of the missile will not be extended as the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), to which Russia is a signatory, does not allow it to help other countries to develop missiles with ranges above 300 kilometres. The BrahMos cruise missile was developed by the joint venture between India’s DRDO and Russia's NPO Mashinostroeyenia who have together formed BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited. The BrahMos is the only supersonic cruise missile in the world since it has 2.8 mach speeds while even the US Tomahawk missile has only .75 mach. The BrahMos cruise missile can be launched from submarines, ships, aircraft or land. The BrahMos missile has already been inducted into Army and Navy. A recently conducted steep dive test of BrahMos missile was carried out successfully making the missile a multi-faceted and multi-discipline missile. The air version of BrahMos for the IAF will be ready by 2012 and after the induction of this version; India will be the only country which will have supersonic missiles in all the defence forces. Indian defence news and strategic intelligence
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