Bhubaneswar: India Sunday successfully tested the supersonic cruise missile 'BrahMos' from a defence base in Odisha, an official said.
The missile was launched around 10.45 a.m. from the Integrated Test Range in Chandipur in Balasore district, about 230 km from here. "It was an experimental repeat of a previous version," M.V.K.V. Prasad, director of the test range, informed.
The BrahMos has a range of 290 km and can carry a conventional warhead of up to 300 kg. It has a top speed of Mach 2.8, which is about three times faster than the US subsonic Tomahawk cruise missile. This makes BrahMos one of the fastest cruise missiles in the world.
The missile can be launched from submarines, ships and aircrafts. Sea and ground launched versions of the missile have been successfully tested and put into service with the army and navy.
The cruise missile, a surface-to-surface Army version, was test fired as part of user trial by the Army, they said. The two-stage missile, the first one being solid and the second one ramjet liquid propellant, has already been inducted into the Army and Navy, and the Air-Force version is in final stage of trial, a defence official said.
While induction of the first version of Brahmos missile system in the Indian Navy commenced from 2005 with INS Rajput, it is now fully operational with two regiments of the Army.
The air launch version and the submarine launch version of the missile system are in progress, he said. The Army has so far placed orders for the Brahmos missile to be deployed by three regiments of the Army and two of them have already been inducted operationally.
The Defence Ministry has also given a go-ahead to Army to induct a third regiment equipped with the missile system to be deployed in Arunachal Pradesh along the China border.
Brahmos Aerospace, an Indo-Russian joint venture company headed by a distinguished Indian defence scientist, is also working to develop the air as well as the submarine launch version of the missile system and work on the project is in progress.
The last trial was conducted on March 28, 2012 from the same base and it was successful.
