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Brahmos inducted to army; Kalam favours 'hypersonic' version

Kalam suggested that the country should move ahead with developing a 'hypersonic' version of the missile to maintain supremacy in force levels.

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NEW DELHI: President A P J Abdul Kalam on Thursday suggested that the country should move ahead with developing a 'hypersonic' version of the supersonic cruise missile Brahmos to maintain supremacy in force levels.

"Time has come for BrahMos Aerospace to work on Mark-II version of Brahmos," Kalam, himself a missile scientist, said adding it would enable India to be a market leader in hypersonic cruise missiles.

Turning Brahmos into a hypersonic missile entails incorporating scramjet technology, on which Indian defence scientists are already working to give it capability to attain Mach 8 speeds and to enhance its range considerably.

Inducting the surface-to-surface version of missile into the army, Kalam, who is the Supreme Commander of the armed forces, suggested to scientists to develop re-usable class of cruise missiles.

"I visualise long range hypersonic cruise missiles not only delivering pay loads, but also returning to base after the mission," Kalam said while handing over a replica of the missile to the Army Chief General J J Singh.

India, he said, should within next decade develop re-usable missiles emphasising that the three services should work as a team to evolve the Qualitative requirements for such a system in a time bound manner.

Supporting the idea of export of Brahmos missiles, the President called for aggressive marketing of this world class product saying it was must as the missile only had a short shelf life of five years. He warned that otherwise there would be competitors who would be developing contemporary products.

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