India Test-fires Brahmos Missile With 450km Range

Balasore: India on Saturday successfully test-fired the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, which is capable of carrying a warhead of 300 kg, from a test range along the Odisha coast.

The cruise missile was test fired from a mobile launcher from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur near here at about 11.33 AM, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) officials said.

"It was an excellent launch and a great success," a senior DRDO scientist associated with this project said. The missile is capable of carrying a warhead of 300 kg.

The two-stage missile, one being solid and the second one ramjet liquid propellant, has already been inducted into the Army and Navy, while the Air Force version is in final stage of trial, they said. The Army is already equipped with three regiments of Block III version of Brahmos missiles. While induction of the first version of Brahmos missile system in the Indian Navy began in 2005 with INS Rajput, it is now fully operational with two regiments of the Army, they said.

After two successful test trials of Brahmos missile from INS Kolkata in June 2014 and February 2015, test firing from INS Kochi on September 30, 2015 had validated the newly commissioned ship's systems. The air launch version and the submarine launch version of the missile system are in progress.

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.

BrahMos Aerospace, an Indo-Russian joint venture, is also in advance stage of test launching the air version of the sophisticated missile system and work on the project is in progress.

PTI