The Hindu : BrahMos launch a `big breakthrough'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 30, 2003

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National

BrahMos launch a `big breakthrough'

By T.S. Subramanian

Chennai Oct. 29. The fourth flight-test of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile conducted today from Chandipur-on-sea was "a 100 per cent success".

This was the third launch from land. It was once from a naval ship.

"Today's launch was a big breakthrough," A. Sivathanu Pillai, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of BrahMos Company that produces the missile, told The Hindu. He said the launch was a breakthrough because the missile was "precisely guided to its target". Its precision guidance mechanism was thus proved, he said.

The missile was tested for a 290-km range with high accuracy. "We got excellent results," he said.

Dr. Pillai, who is also the Chief Controller, Research and Development, DRDO, New Delhi, said the importance of today's flight was that the missile was launched in a surface-to-surface role.

The missile is a product of an Indo-Russian joint venture company, BrahMos. It is a portmanteau term, derived from the Brahmaputra river and the Moscow river in Russia. According to DRDO officials, the name was chosen because the missile packs the fury of the Brahmaputra river and the gentle grace of the Moscow river, when it is in flight.

The BrahMos is the first and only supersonic cruise missile that uses liquid ram jet technology. It cruises in the atmosphere at speeds faster than sound. It can travel at Mach 2.8 to 3 (2.8 to three times the speed of sound) and has been configured to be launched from ground including silos and ships, submarines and aircraft.

Besides, it can blast off from a mobile platform on land, that is, from a vehicle. Essentially an anti-ship missile, it can also take out targets on land.

Weighing about three tonnes, the missile is eight metres long and carries a conventional warhead weighing about 200 kg. It cannot carry nuclear warheads. Its fuel is aviation kerosene.

A two-stage vehicle, its propulsion consists of a solid propellant booster and a liquid propellant ram jet system. It is called liquid ram jet system because the missile collects the air (oxidiser) available in the atmosphere, rams the air on the liquid propellant, and the propellants burn in the combustion chamber.

Three developmental flights of the missile have already been done. The first demonstration flight took place in a vertical configuration on June 12, 2001 from the Interim Test Range at Chandipur-on-sea. The second took place in an inclined plane on April 28, 2002 from the same site.

The third launch was from a warship of the Navy in the Bay of Bengal on February 12, 2003.

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