BrahMos
cruise missile achieves supersonic dive
Sunday, September 05, 2010 06:17:45 PM,
IANS
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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 12x12 Tatra vehicles and two
mobile command posts, among other equipment, is already
operational with the army.
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