Upgraded BrahMos with 500-km range ready: CEO of BrahMos Aerospace

The upgraded version of the homegrown BrahMos missile with an enhanced range of up to 500 km is ready, the CEO of BrahMos Aerospace, Sudhir Kumar Mishra, has said.

Mishra, in an interview broadcast on Doordarshan News Sunday, said it is possible to increase the range of this missile because India is now a part of the elite Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

"India has successfully test-fired a vertical deep dive version of BrahMos, the world's fastest supersonic cruise missile, that can now change the dynamics of conventional warfare... The upgraded version of the missile with enhanced range of up to 500 km is also ready," he said.

He said India is now the only country in the world to integrate long-range missiles onto fighter jets after the BrahMos missile was test-fired from a Sukhoi 30 aircraft of the Indian Air Force.

Brahmos missile, which cruises at almost three times the speed of sound at Mach 2.8, is the heaviest weapon to be deployed on the Su-30 fighters.

"We can take on any ship at sea up to 300 to 400 km (far) and after some time, may be longer; we can take on land targets up to hundreds of km and with the test that we have conducted some time back (from Sukhoi 30), ranges up to thousands of km," he said, according to a release by the state-run broadcaster.

Mishra said for the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, Brahmos has become a weapon of choice and the steep 90-degree version has become an ultimate aircraft carrier killer.

He said the technologies that BrahMos Aerospace has developed did not exist either in India or Russia earlier.

BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture company owned by the governments of India and Russia and its missiles are produced in India.

Former Deputy Chief of the Army, Lt General Subrata Saha, who also spoke on the programme, said the steep dive version of the missile is a game changer for mountain warfare (of the kind that was witnessed during the Kargil war).