Bhubaneswar: India successfully test-fired a BrahMos missile from a warship in Bay of Bengal in the Bay of Bengal, paving the way for its induction into the Indian Navy.
This came amid concern over presence of three Chinese warships, a submarine and a research vessel in the Indian Ocean Region, and rapidly-expanding collusiveness between China and Pakistan in the maritime domain.
The test was carried out on November 1 from an indigenously-built stealth destroyer based in the Navy’s eastern fleet. The supersonic missile successfully destroyed its target with pinpoint precision. The Indian Navy also shared a picture of the test firing on its X handle and wrote: “The missile achieved all mission objectives.”
This was the third test of the two-stage BrahMos missile in 3 weeks.
On October 18, Indian Air Force (IAF) Sukhoi Su-30 MKI jets flew from Thanjavur Air Base in Tamil Nadu, covering a distance of 1,500 km and launched a BrahMos-A missile, successfully destroying its target in the Bay of Bengal. A week prior to this, the IAF and the army jointly fired four BrahMos-ER extended-range supersonic cruise missiles over two days.
BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd, an India-Russian joint venture, produces supersonic cruise missiles that can be launched from submarines, ships, aircraft, or land platforms. The two-stage missile with a solid propellant booster engine and second stage liquid ramjet flies at a speed of 2.8 Mach or almost three times the speed of sound.
The strike range of the nine-metre-long missile has been extended from 290 km to 450 km plus after India’s full membership to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) that removed caps on the range of BrahMos cruise missile.
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