India test fires BrahMos cruise missile

India on Monday successfully conducted the first test of the BrahMos cruise missile aimed at increasing its life from 10 to 15 years.

The missile was test fired from a mobile launcher from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur along the Odisha coast at about 10.44 a.m., said sources in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman congratulated Team Brahmos and DRDO for the successful test carried out from ITR in Balasore to validate the Brahmos missile life extension technologies developed for the first time in India.

BrahMos is the first Indian missile whose life has been extended from 10 to 15 years.

"The successful test will result in huge savings of replacement cost of missiles held in the inventory of the Indian armed forces," tweeted the Defence Minister.

The Indian Army has already inducted three regiments of BrahMos in its arsenal. All are are equipped with Block-III version of the missile.

The land-attack version of BrahMos has been operationalised in the Indian Army since 2007.

The fire-and-forget missile has the capability to take on surface targets by flying a combined hi-lo trajectory, thus evading enemy air defence systems.

--IANS

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