BrahMos cruise missile for Indian Air Force by 2012

BANGALORE - The brahmos supersonic cruise missile will be commissioned by the Indian air force in 2012. "The missile will be put in service in 2012," the company's CEO, Sivathanu Pillai said, at the Aero India-2009. BrahMos Aerospace is a joint Indian-Russian venture for producing and marketing BrahMos supersonic missiles. The sea-based and land-based versions of BrahMos have been successfully tested and put into service with the Indian Army and Navy. The BrahMos missile has a range of 290 km and can carry a conventional warhead of up to 300 kg. It can effectively engage ground targets from an altitude as low as 10 meters (30 feet) and has a top speed of Mach 2.8, which is about three times faster than the U.S.-made subsonic Tomahawk cruise missile. For the airborne version we had to reduce the mass of the missile and to ensure aerodynamic stability after its separation from the aircraft. The air-launched platform has its own initial speed during the launch of the missile, so we have reduced the size of the booster, said Pillai. The Indian Air Force had chosen Russian-made SU-30 MKI Flanker-H multirole fighter as a trial platform for the missile, but it will take up to four years to complete the upgrade of the aircraft so that it can carry and launch BrahMos missiles, the official added. According to analysts India could purchase up to 1,000 BrahMos missiles for its armed forces in the next decade, and export 2,000 to other countries during the same period. During a visit by Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to India last year, the two sides agreed to develop a hypersonic version of the missile, to be known as BrahMos-2.