New Delhi: The Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) on Wednesday successfully test-fired the Brahmos surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Defense officials including Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhary were present on this occasion. The defense official said that this test was a complete success, the extended-range missile managed to hit its target properly.
The defense official said that Air Chief Marshal Chaudhary has congratulated him on this success. He was in Andaman and Nicobar Islands to review missile preparedness. Earlier, news agency ANI had quoted sources as saying that the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile’s range was recently increased to 500 km. This has become possible only by upgrading the software. No changes have been made to the missile. Now it has been successful to increase the capability of this missile to 800 km. It can be released from very high altitudes through fighter planes. The Indian Air Force has deployed BrahMos cruise missiles on 40 of its Sukhoi aircraft. These missiles can be more lethal and hurt the enemy far away.
BrahMos missile has been developed in collaboration with Russia. They fly at three times the speed of sound i.e. 2.8 Mach. It can also dodge radar. Earlier its range was 290 km, which was increased to 350-400. Now its 800 km variant is being worked on. The air version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile was successfully test-fired from Sukhoi 30MKI on December 8 last year. Now there are plans to deploy them on other fighter aircraft as well.
