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| Edited By: |Source: PTI |Updated: Mar 11, 2018, 04:32 AM IST
In a bid to give a cutting edge to its missile capability, India on Wednesday successfully test fired the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile in a new mode from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur off Odisha coast.
"The missile was test fired from a ground mobile launcher from the launch complex-3 at about 11.22am and the trial was successful," a defence official said.
The superonic missile, which has a flight range of up to 290km, is capable of carrying a conventional warhead of 200 to 300kg.
"Today's trial was special as for the first time Brahmos missile was launched in a 'steep drive' mode," A Sivathanu Pillai, chief of the ‘Brahmos Aerospace’, an Indo-Russian joint venture company developing the missile system, told PTI.
Pillai, a noted Indian defence scientist, said the missile moved at supersonic speed of 2.5 mach during the 29th trial conducted on Wednesday.
The cruise missile, a surface-to-surface Army version, was test fired in the presence of senior Army officials and scientists of the Defence Research Development Organisation, a defence official said.
The two-stage missile, the first one being solid and the second one ramjet liquid propellant, has already been inducted into the Army and Navy, he said.
While induction of the first version of the Brahmos missile system in the Indian Navy commenced from 2005 with INS Rajput, it is now fully operational with two regiments of the Army.
The air and submarine launch versions of the missile system are in progress, said the official.
The Army has so far placed orders for the Brahmos missile to be deployed by three regiments of the Army and two of them have already been inducted operationally.
The Defence Ministry has also given a go-ahead to the Army to induct a third regiment equipped with the missile system to be deployed in Arunachal Pradesh along the China border.
‘Brahmos Aerospace’ is also working to develop the air as well as the submarine launch version of the misile system and work on the project is in progress.
