BALASORE : The surface to surface supersonic cruise medium range missile Brahmos, an Indo-Russian joint venture project, was successfully test-fired from a mobile launcher at the Integrated Test Range (ITR) off Odisha coast here today.
The army version of the missile, with a range of 290 km, operating on the principle of fire, with a capacity of carrying a conventional warhead up to 200 kg, was test fired from the launch complex-3 of the ITR at 1027 hours.
The nine-meter long missile with a diameter of 670 mm, weighing nearly three tones can fly up to a height of 14 km at twice the speed of sound when fired from a ship. It is charged by a solid propellant and has a preset trajectory and could change its course to strike 20 km from the target.
Brahmos has been derived from two rivers, Brahmaputra of India and Moskva of Russia.
The test carried out in the user-deployment configuration fulfilled all the mission objectives. The missile followed a predetermined trajectory at a very low altitude impacting with precision on the designated land target, sources said.
The flight trial was witnessed by the officials of the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) and Integrated Test Range (ITR).
Brahmos was currently one of the few supersonic cruise missiles in the world which has already been accepted by the Indian Navy with advance Fire Control System for its warships.
The missile was under development as a joint venture between the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) of India and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM) (Russia) under Brahmos Aerospace.
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