The Hindu : National : Kalam congratulates scientists

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 14, 2004

National

National

Kalam congratulates scientists

By T.S. Subramanian

CHENNAI, JUNE 13. The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a missile technologist himself, today congratulated the Indian and Russian scientists behind the seventh successful flight of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile that took place from the Interim-Test-Range at Chandipur-on-sea, Orissa.

V.K. Aatre, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, and the Chief of Army Staff, N.C. Vij, also congratulated the Indian and Russian missile engineers behind the mission.

Dr. Kalam, then Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, and N.V. Mikhailov, first Deputy Defence Minister, Russia, signed the Inter- Governmental Agreement on February 12, 1998, on the formation of the Indo-Russian joint venture to produce BrahMos missiles.

Today's flight was an Army version of BrahMos. The Director-General of Artillery, R.S. Nagra, other Army top brass, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited, A. Sivathanu Pillai, and the Indian and Russian missile technologists were present at the launch complex. Dr. Sivathanu Pillai called the flight "a big success" and "a textbook flight."

All the seven flights have been successful in a row. The first flight took place from the same range on June 12, 2001. The six flights took place on November 23, 2003. BrahMos missiles are anti-ship missiles.

BrahMos is a universal missile. It can be launched from a variety of platforms: from silos on the ground, from mobile launchers, from ships, from submarines, and from aircraft. Of the seven flights so far, two were from ships, three from land, and two from a mobile launcher called TATRA. Thus it can be launched from ground, ships and submarines without undergoing design changes. The missile has not yet been launched from a submarine but the submarine class was ready, a DRDO source said. It had not been launched from an aircraft either. It is a two-stage missile, with a solid propellant booster and a liquid propellant ram jet system.

What adds credit to today's flight was that the two-stage missile was integrated and checked out from the BrahMos Integration Complex (BIC) at the DRDL campus at Hyderabad. This was the first of the production series. The components and subsystems used in the missile were mostly manufactured by Indian industries situated in various parts of the country.

Many specialised laboratories belonging to the DRDO and NPO Mashinostroyenia, a Russian space-missile enterprise, and Indian industries took part in the manufacture of various components and sub-systems for the missile. The two stages of the vehicles, its components and sub-systems were flown to Hyderabad and integrated at the BIC there. The BIC consists of mechanical and electrical integration facilities, depots to fill fuel, magazine storage, bonded stores inter alia. The missile was then transported to the Interim Test Range near Balasore in Orissa.

The missile can reach up to 2.8 Mach, that is it can travel at a speed 2.8 times that of sound. India and Russia are the only countries that have a supersonic cruise missile. Even the United States has only a sub-sonic missile.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National