Hypersonic BrahMos Prototype In 6-7 Years

The development of Indo-Russian first BrahMos hypersonic missile prototype may take six to seven years.

Sudhir Mishra, Director General of the joint company BrahMos Aerospace in an interview with Ria Novosti at MAKS-2015 on Wednesday said, “This new missile is thought of as a revolutionary weapon, capable of flying at speeds of 5-7 mach. The exact configuration of this system has not yet been decided. It may take six to seven years to develop the prototype for a hypersonic BrahMos missile.”

“Research work for this project is being carried out in India at the Indian Institute of Science and in Russia at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MIA). The project for developing a hypersonic BrahMos missile is so far at the very earliest stages. We are working with India’s and Russia’s best research centers in order to achieve the best configuration for implementing this system. It is well known that metallurgy plays an important role in high speed system and we need to find materials which can endure extremely high temperatures and maintain their properties,” Mishra said.

Presently BrahMos is the only supersonic cruise missile in service. The joint venture between India and Russia is working on BrahMos-II hypersonic missile that will have a scramjet engine in place of ramjet. Scramjet allows combustion to occur in a supersonic airflow, thereby expanding the operational range above Mach 4.

The Hypersonic weapon’s immense destructive power will result from kinetic energy. An object striking at Mach6 or 7 will generate 36 times the force of the same mass striking the target at 1 Mach. The hypersonic missile will be well suited for attacking hardened or deeply buried targets such as bunkers or nuclear and biological-weapon storage facilities.