India Successfully Tests BrahMos Supersonic Cruise Missile With Indigenously Built Seeker

The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, which flies almost three times the speed of sound at Mach 2.8, was successfully tested today with an Indian-made seeker in Rajasthan’s Pokhran, International Business Times has reported.

This development comes after India successfully tested Akash surface-to-air missile with an indigenous radio frequency seeker in Odisha on 5 December last year. India has been developing seekers for a number of its missiles.

This test of BrahMos comes just months after India successfully test-fired an air-launched version of the missile, called BrahMos-A, from a Su-30MKI fighter of the Indian Air Force (IAF) over the Bay of Bengal.

India plans to modify Su-30MKIs of the IAF to carry the air-launched BrahMos missile. The effort to arm IAF’s upgraded MiG-29s, Rafale jets and Indian Navy’s MiG-29Ks are also underway. For this, lighter and smaller-diameter versions of the supersonic cruise missile are being developed.

India is currently working on extending the range of the missile to 800 km, reports say. The range of the missile has already been extended to 400 km.