Russia, India to develop hypersonic cruise missiles

08.09.2010 In Dec 2010 Russia and India will sign an agreement to co-develop hypersonic cruise missiles capable to accelerate to the speed over 6,000 kph. According to PTI, the document will be signed during the visit of Dmitry Medvedev to India. Constructively, the new missiles will be based on Russian-Indian BrahMos. Indian military officials repeatedly reported that development of a hypersonic cruise missile was in progress.

Present-day BrahMos cruise missiles are capable to accelerate up to 3,500 kph. Flight range of the new missile will be 290 km. According to preliminary estimate, hypersonic missiles BrahMos will enter service in 2015-2016. Presently, production of air-, ground-, and sea-based supersonic missiles BrahMos is carried out by Russian-Indian company BrahMos Aerospace established in 1998.

It was previously reported that order value of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles reached $13 bln. In particular, Brazil, Chile, South Africa and some other countries are interested in the missile procurement. Export of the missiles will start only when demand of Indian Air Force is satisfied; they ordered BrahMos missiles for $3 bln. Those missiles will be used by Su-30MKI fighters which are currently being upgraded in India.

BrahMos design is based on antiship missile P-800 Onyx (export variant named Yakhont) which was developed in the USSR late 80's. Length of the two-stage cruise missile makes about 10 meters; all-up-weight is somewhat 3.9 tons; payload weight may reach 300 kg. Reportedly, India does not plan to use super- and hypersonic BrahMos missiles as nuclear warhead carriers. For this purpose, India independently develops long-range subsonic cruise missile Nirbhay.