India added one more missile to its armoury by successfully launching a naval version of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile and recorded the time 10:30 am, March 05 in perpetuity—the time, when the missile departed from a naval warship INS Rajput towards its set target in the Andaman & Nicobar island.
The development of the Brahmos missile was the consequence of the joint effort of Russia and India that fetched success to its launch for the 15th time on Wednesday. The launch was also significant as for the first time the target was set from a naval ship towards a land based target.
“The mission is also very important as it has established the sea to land attack capability of the formidable weapon system,” the defence official informed. “It was the 15th successive successful launch of the Brahmos missile, developed jointly by India and Russia,” they added further.
The two-stage missile, Brahmos is a nine-metre long, has a diameter of 70 cm, and weighs 3.9 tonnes including the container. It can carry conventional warheads weighing 300 kg.
It is a versatile missile that can be launched from ships, silos, trucks, submarines and aircraft.
“The launch was precisely executed and the mission was a 100 per cent successful,” said A. Sivathanu Pillai, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Brahmos Aerospace Private Limited.
The Indian Navy’s Andaman & Nicobar Command provided all the logistic support to the missile test. As per the defence ministry spokesman, it deployed ten ships, three aircraft, and three helicopters for mission support.
The parameters set for the mission during its launch, flight were kept extremely difficult, including the positioning of the target from among a group of targets to achieve maximum output, the official said.
Scientists of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) had also been involved in the joint development of the missile with their Russian counterparts, which conducted the launch with the support of the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) of the Indian Navy.
The work on the project was initiated in 1998 and the missile was first test fired in December 22, 2004.
Besides the successful launch of the naval version, the work is also progressing on an Indian Air Force version that will be delivered from the Sukhoi SU-30 MKI platform.
The next version of the missile to be developed successfully was the land-attack cruise missile (LACM) version for the Indian Army.
Work is currently heading towards the creation of aircraft-and submarine-based versions of the Brahmos. Dr Pillai said that the submarine version of the missile would be tested as soon as the Navy identified a suitable platform.
Sagarika- ballistic missile
On Feb 26, India achieved a remarkable success and scripted its name among the selected group of five countries Russia, US, France, Britain and China after successfully test firing its first undersea nuclear ballistic missile Sagarika from a pontoon off the coast of Vishakhapatnam.
Earlier in December last year India test fired indigenously build interceptor missile called Advance Air Defence (AAD), which has a capacity to destroy incoming hostile ballistic missiles.
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