BrahMos hypersonic missile to touch Mach 5 to 7 speeds

Indo-Russian joint venture BrahMos Aerospace is working on a hypersonic cruise missile that can touch speeds ranging from five to seven times that of sound.

The cruise missile's supersonic version for the land forces can touch speeds of two times the speed of sound and has a 290-km range.

"The hypersonic version of the BrahMos, to be called BrahMos-II, is in its design and technological development stage. It will take some time to mature. But our aim is for it to touch Mach 5 to 7 speeds, making it the fastest cruise missile in the world," BrahMos' Chief Executive Officer A Sivathanu Pillai told PTI at the DefExpo here.

"The hypersonic missile, which will be smaller than BrahMos-I, will definitely provide an advantage to the Indian armed forces in future warfare," Pillai said when asked about the need for the missile. The hypersonic version of the BrahMos would be built for its air platforms.

Already, the BrahMos is in the process of developing an air platform-based supersonic cruise missile and Sukhoi fighter jets of the IAF have been chosen as the platform for integrating the missile.

"The BrahMos will be integrated in to the Su-30MKI's built in India. But the aircraft would be sent to Russia for fitting a modified structure for the missile's integration. We plan to get it done by 2012," he said.