Bhubaneswar, November 23
India successfully test fired the supersonic anti-ship Brahmos cruise missile from a naval warship for the first time today, defence officials said.
The test was conducted from INS Kalinga in the Bay of Bengal off the Orissa coast, the officials said.
“The test flight fulfilled all mission objectives”, a defence official said.
The missile was tracked from launch to impact from the Chandipur defence base, 230 km from here, and from the warship in the Bay of Bengal.
Senior scientists and defence officers witnessed the test.
This was the sixth test flight of the missile, which has been jointly developed by India and Russia. The previous five tests have been conducted from land-based launchers at the Chandipur base. The last test was conducted on November 9.
The missile — which derives its name from the Brahmaputra and Moscow rivers — has a range of almost 300 km and is designed for use from land, sea and aerial platforms.
Brahmos, which operates on a ‘fire-and-forget’ principle, differs from other cruise missiles in that it can travel at speed of up to 2.8 mach, or thrice the speed of sound, with a 200-kg warhead.
The missile is a little over eight-metre-long and weighs 3,000 kg.
It was developed by a joint venture established in February 1998 between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia. India has a 61 per cent stake in the project, with Russia holding 39 per cent.
Both countries will induct the missile in their armed forces and market it globally in countries identified by India and Russia, said a source. Commercial production of the missile would begin in India in 2004.
India’s ambitious missile programme has gone into high gear with the successive successful tests of several other missiles like the nuclear-capable Agni and the surface-to-air Akash.
— IANS
