BrahMos set for another test on Sunday

Preparation for the test firing of super-sonic cruise missile BrahMos, likely to be held on Sunday, reached its final stage on Saturday at the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur near Orissa.

The sophisticated missile, being developed under Indo-Russian joint venture, has already been inducted into the Indian army as well as navy and the proposed test is a routine one by the users, defence officials said.

One regiment of the 290-km range BrahMos-I variant, consisting of 67 missiles, five mobile autonomous launchers on 12x12 'Tatra' vehicles and two mobile command posts, among other equipment, is already operational in the Army, they said.

The Army is set to induct two more regiments of the BrahMos Block-II land-attack cruise missiles (LACM), which have been designed as "precision strike weapons" capable of hitting small targets in cluttered urban environment.

BrahMos-II can potentially be used for "surgical strikes" at terror training camps across the border without causing collateral damage.

The BrahMos Block-II variant has been developed to take out a specific small target, with a low radar cross-section, in a multi-target environment.

The BrahMos missile is a two-stage vehicle that has a solid propellant booster and a liquid propellant ram-jet system. The missile can fly at 2.8 times the speed of sound. It can carry conventional warheads up to 300 kg for a range of 290 km.

Though the missile is capable of being launched from multiple platforms based on land, ship, sub-marines and air, focus in on for the development of its air-launched and the submarine-launched versions.

The last trial of the naval version of BrahMos was carried out successfully on March 21, 2010 from navy ship INS Ranvir off Orissa coast and it successfully hit the target.