BrahMos Missiles

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The Ministry of Defence signed a Rs 1,700-crore deal with BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited (BAPL) for acquisition of dual-role capable surface-to-surface BrahMos missiles for deployment on warships of the Indian Navy.

• A combination of the names of Brahmaputra and Moskva rivers, BrahMos missiles are designed, developed and produced by BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture company set up by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Mashinostroyenia of Russia. 
• The first test launch of the initial version of Brahmos took place in 2001. Various types of the BrahMos, including those which can be fired from land, warships and the Sukhoi-30 fighter jets, have already been developed and successfully tested and inducted since then.

Strategic Significance

• BrahMos is a two-stage missile with a solid propellant booster engine.
• Its first stage brings the missile to supersonic speed and then gets separated. 
• The liquid ramjet or the second stage then takes the missile closer to three times the speed of sound in cruise phase. 
• The missile has a very low radar signature, making it stealthy, and can achieve a variety of trajectories. 
• The ‘fire and forget’ type missile can achieve a cruising altitude of 15 km and a terminal altitude as low as 10m to hit the target. 
• The enhanced range version of the missile has a range of 4,000km, as compared to the original range of 290km.
• Cruise missiles such as BrahMos, called “standoff range weapons”, are fired from a range far enough to allow the attacker to evade defensive counter-fire.
• The BrahMos has three times the speed, 2.5 times flight range and higher range compared to subsonic cruise missiles.