Brahmos manufacturing likely to begin in March 2024, says Rajnath Singh

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, on Saturday, September 17, said that the work on the Brahmos missile manufacturing site in Lucknow is likely to be completed by March 2024. The Defence Minister was speaking at his parliamentary constituency.

Rajnath Singh was on a tour of Gomti Nagar. He said that the work on the Brahmos missile project is going on at a fast phase and after next February-March, the missile manufacturing will begin on the soil in Lucknow.

All about the Brahmos missiles 

Brahmos is a medium-range ramjet supersonic cruise missile that can be launched from submarines, ships, fighter jets and TEL. This missile is notably the fastest supersonic cruise missile in the world. It is manufactured in a joint venture between India's DRDO and Russia's NPO Mashinostroyeniya who have jointly formed Brahmos Aerospace.

The name of the missile Brahmos is derived from the name of rivers from two countries India's Brahmaputra and Moskva river of Russia. In 2016 India became a member of the MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime), India and Russia are planning to jointly develop a new generation Brahmos missile with 800 KM range and ability to hit protected targets with pinpoint accuracy. The missiles are used by all three services that is the Army, the Navy and the Air Force in India.

Brahmos is manufactured by Brahmos Aerospace Limited and has different variants which are the ship-launched variant, land-launched variant, submarine and air-launched variant which are used by the three services of the country. The headquarters of Brahmos is located in Hyderabad and a production centre is located at Thiruvananthapuram. Another assembly line is being established at Pilani.

The mass of the missile is 3000 KG, the Mass of Brahmos-A is 2500 Kg and Brahmos NG is 1200-1500 KG. The length of the Brahmos is 8.4m and Brahmos NG is 6M. It can carry a 200-300 KG nuclear conventional semi-armour piercing warhead. It has two stages, the first stage is Solid fuel and the second stage is Liquid Fuel. Its operational range from ship is more than 500 Km, from land is also more than 500Km, and the range from air is 450-500KM.

It has a sea-skimming flight altitude as low as 3-4 metres. These missiles can be fired from Fighter aircraft, warships, Land-based TEL, and Submarines. India has also exported these missiles to the Philippines in a government-to-government deal. The deal was signed in March 2021.

The high speed of the BrahMos likely gives it better target-penetration characteristics than lighter subsonic cruise missiles, such as Tomahawk missiles. Being twice as heavy and almost four times as fast as the Tomahawk, the BrahMos has more than 32 times the on-cruise kinetic energy of a Tomahawk missile, although it carries only 3/5 the payload and a fraction of the range, which suggests that the missile was designed with a different tactical role. Its Mach 2.8 speed means that it cannot be intercepted by some existing missile defence systems and its precision makes it lethal to water targets. The induction of these missiles will boost the Indian armed force's missile fighting capability.