New Delhi: The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile was successfully flight tested from Rajasthan's Pokhran test range on Thursday morning.
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman congratulated the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for a successful strike of the BrahMos missile which flew "in its designated trajectory and hit the target with pinpoint accuracy" and said it will further bolster the national security.
The missile flies almost three times the speed of sound at Mach 2.8 and has a range of 290 km.
The range of the BrahMos missile, an Indo-Russia joint venture, can be extended up to 400 km as certain technical restrictions were lifted after India became a full member of the Missile Technology Control Regime or MTCR in 2016.
The successful test comes on the backdrop of the recent milestone for BrahMos, the world’s fastest supersonic cruise missile, which was in November 2017, flight-tested first time from the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) frontline fighter aircraft Sukhoi-30MKI against a sea-based target in the Bay of Bengal.
The BrahMos missile has been jointly developed with Russia and is named for the rivers Brahmaputra and Moskva.
The air-launched variant of the BrahMos, the world's fastest supersonic cruise missile, was successfully test fired from a Sukhoi-30 combat jet on November 22, marking a major milestone to enhance the precision strike capability of the air force.
The project is expected to be completed by 2020.
The fleet of 40 Sukhoi jets will undergo structural modifications at the state-run aerospace major Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd or HAL for integration of the missile on them.
BrahMos missile is the heaviest weapon to be deployed on India's Su-30 fighter aircraft.
