Glitches mar BrahMos test
21 Jan 2009
New Delhi: DRDO scientists have said some minor glitches were responsible for an unsuccessful test of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile yesterday. They said these glitches were being looked into.
According to these officials, some minor glitches in the second stage resulted in the missile missing its target. Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) officials said that the missile test fired yesterday was a new version.
The 20 January test was the fifth such for the land-attack version of the Indo-Russian BrahMos. The supersonic anti-ship versions have already been inducted into the Indian Navy. An air launched version is being developed and is intended to be fitted onto the Indian Air Force's Sukhoi-30MKI fighters.
Two such aircraft have been dispatched to Russia to be retro-fitted for the test of the air launched version.
The missile, with a 290-km range and capable of touching a speed 2.8 times that of sound, was launched during the trial in its vertical mode, DRDO officials said.
BrahMos Aerospace is already developing a hypersonic version of the missile, which would be capable of speeds of up to Mach 5-7.
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