BrahMos, Indo-Russian Joint Venture, which makes the BrahMos Supersonic cruise missile is moving ahead with its hypersonic version BRAH...
BrahMos, Indo-Russian Joint Venture, which makes the BrahMos Supersonic cruise missile is moving ahead with its hypersonic version BRAHMOS-II which will have a scramjet engine in place of ramjet.
As a variation of the ramjet engine in BrahMos cruise missile, scramjet engine allow combustion to occur in a supersonic airflow, thereby expanding the operating range above 4 Mach.
The first prototype of a hypersonic cruise missile will be ready for flight testing in 2017.
'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.
BrahMos Aerospace had made a demonstrator vehicle in 2011, to conduct an actual flight of the hypersonic missile, which would have a speed between 7 and 8 mach. A successful test of technology of the missile has been carried out in a laboratory, at a speed of 6.5 mach.
Two sides have decided to retain the physical parameters of the BrahMos missile so that after the induction of the missiles there is no need to replace the launchers and other ground infrastructure for using BrahMos-2 missiles.
The hypersonic weapon’s immense destructive power will result from kinetic energy. An object striking a target at 6 Mach will generate 36 times the force of an object of the same mass striking the target at 1 Mach.
This phenomenon makes hypersonic weapons well suited to attacking hardened or deeply buried targets such as bunkers or nuclear and biological-weapon storage facilities.
Indian DRDO and Russian NPO Mashinostroyenia are working on a sustained flight scramjet, which will be the core engine of the hypersonic version.
The BrahMos-2 will be supplied only to India and Russia, without exports to third countries.
India and Russia has decided to sign an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) to ensure that the Brahmos hypersonic cruise missile programme can move fast. It was decided at the 12th meeting of the India-Russia Inter-governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) in New Delhi that Russia would cooperate in the programme formally by signing an IGA, after which the flow of funds, technology and other work-share will be streamlined.
As of now, both sides, DRDO-BrahMos of India and NPO-Mash of Russia, are working independently on the design of this highly advanced missile.
