India on Tuesday test-fired an advanced version of the 290-km range BrahMos supersonic cruise missile from the Odisha coast. The missile was test-fired from a mobile launcher from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur at about 10.40 am, Defence Research and Development Organisation said.
The missile is capable of carrying a conventional warhead of 300 kg. "It was a developmental trial of BrahMos," Ravi Kumar Gupta, senior defence scientist and director, Directorate of Public Interface, DRDO told PTI over phone.
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The two-stage missile, the first one being solid and the second one ramjet liquid propellant, has already been inducted into the army and navy, and the Air Force version is in final stages of trial, a defence official said.
While induction of the first version of Brahmos system in the Indian Navy commenced from 2005 with the missile being deployed onboard warship INS Rajput, it is now fully
operational with two regiments of the army. Brahmos Aerospace, an Indo-Russian joint venture company, is also working to develop the air as well as the submarine-launched versions of the missile system and work on the projects is in progress.
The army has so far placed orders for the Brahmos missile to be inducted by three of its regiments and two out of them have already become operational. The defence ministry has also given a go-ahead to the army to induct a third regiment equipped with the missile system to be deployed in Arunachal Pradesh.
