What Is BrahMos And How It Helps India Maintain Missile Supremacy?

 

 A new manufacturing unit for the BrahMos missile is set to come up in the Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridor. The supersonic cruise missile is one of India’s most potent strategic defence assets.
The new missile factory will reportedly be located near Lucknow and will be set up in a 200-acre area with an investment of Rs 300 crore. Apart from missile manufacturing, the facility will also engage in research and development activities.
More than 100 BrahMos missiles will be made over the next three years in a project that will not just create thousands of jobs but will also be immensely significant in India’s future defence strategies.

1. Jointly Developed By India And Russia
The state-of-the-art cruise missiles are designed and produced by BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia's NPO Mashinostroeyenia. The name BrahMos is a comes from combining the names of India’s Brahmaputra and Russia’s Moskva rivers.

2. Strategic Importance To India
The world’s fastest anti-ship cruise missile, BrahMos is a part of the arsenal of all three arms of the Indian defence forces - Army, Navy, and Air Force. Several versions of BrahMos exist which can be fired from land, from water via warships and submarines and from air via the Sukhoi-30 fighter jets. The Indian Navy and Army have had BrahMos capabilities since 2005 and 2007 respectively. In 2019, version entered service with the Air Force.

3. BrahMos Missile Details
It is a two-stage missile with ranges 290 kilometres in the earliest versions to around 400 kilometres with the newer versions. The first stage is a solid propellant booster while the second is a liquid ramjet. Versions with higher ranges up to 1000 kilometres are currently under development. Sukhoi-30s armed with BrahMos missiles and having a range of 1,500 kilometres act as a key tool of strategic deterrence to hostile neighbours across land borders as well as India’s ocean waters.

4. Next-Gen BrahMos
The BrahMos Aerospace JV which proposed the missile manufacturing unit to the UP government, is also developing a next-gen hypersonic version, BrahMos-II. This missile will reportedly have a speed in excess of Mach 7–8 along with extended range. The UP government has also signalled intent for a production unit for the next-gen BrahMos missiles to also come up in the state’s Defence Corridor.

 dnaindia