• Source:JND

India and Russia are jointly developing small and hypersonic variants of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile. Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov, confirmed the development and said it will significantly enhance the multi-domain strike capability of the Indian armed forces.

India-Russia to develop BrahMos variants

Alipov made the remarks as India and Russia marked 25 years since the first test-launch of the BrahMos missile on 12 June 2001 from the Chandipur test range in Odisha. According to a video on RT India’s X account, “India and Russia are working on a 800-km strike version of a BrahMos, a submarine-launched variant of BrahMos under the P751 programme; a miniaturised lighter version of BrahMos for integration with aircraft and a hypersonic BrahMos missile.”

New versions under development

The existing BrahMos missile weighs nearly 3 tonnes and travels at Mach 2.8. BrahMos Aerospace, an Indo-Russian joint venture with DRDO, is already developing BrahMos-NG (Next-Generation), a smaller, lighter and stealthier version. Once developed, BrahMos-NG will weigh around 1.2 tonnes, reach speeds of Mach 5, and can be deployed on platforms such as LCA Tejas and Su-30MKI fighter jets.

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Due to its lighter weight and smaller size, BrahMos-NG can be deployed on fighter jets like the LCA Tejas and Sukhoi-30 MKI. Defence sources say a Su-30 aircraft could carry up to five BrahMos-NG missiles, while land-based launchers could carry eight missiles, and naval platforms could carry even more.

BrahMos Aerospace Chief on missile development

While flagging off the 100th indigenous booster for the BrahMos missile manufactured at Solar Industries’ facility in Nagpur, BrahMos Aerospace chief Jaiteerth Joshi said on Thursday that future developments include work on BrahMos-NG and very long-range variants, with a focus on lighter designs using composite materials. He added that final specifications will be decided after design validation and simulation studies are completed.

Joshi said newer versions will reduce costs by around 20 per cent (one standard BrahMos costs around Rs 34-35 crore) and also increase indigenous content in the missile system. He added, "Solar Industries has also done warhead trials and we will be going ahead with the trials in near future and once it is successful, we will implement and replace the thing with the indigenous warhead."

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