BrahMos Missile, With An Extended Range Of 450km, To Be Tested On 10 March
BrahMos cruise missile, with an extended range of 450km, will be tested on 10 March, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief Dr S Christopher has said. The Economic Times has quoted him as saying,
The range of 450 km was possible even earlier but we were under MTCR restrictions. We are also working on a BrahMos version 2 that can go to 800-850 km. These are the two initial benefits of the MTCR.
In its current form, BrahMos has a range of 290km, and developed by BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between India's DRDO and the Russian NPO. Land- and ship-launched versions are already in service, and the air- and submarine-launched versions are currently in the testing phase.
This development comes just months after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the two countries will work to increase BrahMos’ range. “We have also agreed to improve the BrahMos missile, which will be land-, air- and sea-launched. We will also work to increase its range,” Putin had said during the annual Russia-India summit on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in 2016.
India became a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) last year, and can now work with other members of the exclusive missile group on the development of delivery vehicles that have a range of over 300km. A member of the MTCR is not allowed to work with a non-MTCR member on such a project. When the idea of developing BrahMos was conceived, Russia was a member of MTCR but India was not. Therefore, the range of the missile was restricted to 290km.