The Hindu : National : BrahMos delivered to Navy

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Friday, Jul 28, 2006

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BrahMos delivered to Navy

Santosh Patnaik

Will be integrated with naval warships

VISAKHAPATNAM: Supersonic cruise missile BrahMos was delivered to the Navy here on Thursday.

The event was celebrated at INS Kalinga on Visakhapatnam-Bhimunipatnam beach road. A. Sivathanu Pillai, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited; Vice-Admiral Sureesh Mehta, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Eastern Naval Command; Rear Admiral (retired) S. Mohapatra, in charge of BrahMos missile delivery; and V. Bhujanga Rao, Director, Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL) were among those present. A top source in BrahMos Aerospace told The Hindu that for the first time, the missile, mostly produced indigenously in Hyderabad, has several unique features.

Joint venture

The BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited is a joint venture with Russia, in which India has a 50.5 per cent equity. The company designs, produces and markets the missiles.

In the past three years, the missile had been successfully test-fired from Interim Test Range at Chandipur-on-sea in south Orissa.

The missile will be integrated with various naval warships and shore-based complexes.

The NSTL's efforts to design advance models of stealth ships received a shot in the arm with the launching of work on instrumentation radar centre atop Dolphin hills overlooking the sea here on Thursday.

The centre, being developed at a cost of Rs.10 crores on a site allotted by the Navy, will be an advanced facility for measuring the radar signature of ships by the NSTL. Ships can evade attacks during hostilities if they are undetectable by enemy radars.

The centre will help the NSTL in studying various stealth design features of ships.

The new facility, expected to be ready by May next year, will help reduce radar signature of ships by using newly-developed stealth material.

Laying the stone for the centre, Dr. Sivathanu Pillai said: "I know, a few years back, the NSTL embarked upon an integrated stealth technology programme.

As part of it, it developed a lot of stealth hardware, software and stealth materials." He said some of the stealth materials developed by the NSTL and Mumbai-based Naval Material Research Laboratory (NMRL) were inducted on first of class stealth ship INS Shivalik.

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