Next generation Mach 5-7 BrahMos missile on anvil
25 Feb 2013
BrahMos Aerospace, the joint Indo-Russian missile venture, has initiated efforts to develop technology for a hypersonic version of the BrahMos missile, which can travel at five to seven times the speed of sound, according to company managing director and chief executive officer A Sivathanu Pillai.
"The company is roping in academics to develop the requisite technology before going in for designing and developing missiles, which can travel at Mach 5 to 7. It will be BrahMos II version next to the present variants capable of Mach 2.8 to 3.5," Pillai told PTI.
He said the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, would collaborate with the company with a 20 member team of scientists to develop technologies for high temperature material required to build the missile, cram-jet propulsions and energy modules and the requisite algorithms.
A separate centre has been created for this purpose in the IISc while its Russian counterpart, the Moscow Institute of Aviation, would produce technologies for propulsion, kinetic energy modules for the hypersonic version.
It is expected to take a minimum of five years for these initiatives to crystallise. In the meantime, BrahMos would work out blueprints for setting up a production centre, choice of vendors for supply of necessary components and investment structure, he said.
After these operations, BrahMos Aerospace would take up development of missiles that can come back to the originating mode after destroying the designated target, Pillai said.
