Russia, India to build new joint hypersonic missile in 5-7 yrs

RIA Novosti

24/09/2007 14:57 (Recasts para 2, adds background in paras 3-8)

NEW DELHI, September 24 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian-Indian joint venture BrahMos will complete work on a new hypersonic missile in five to seven years' time, an Indian defense official said Monday.

The official said the missile, five times faster than the speed of sound, will be practically impossible to intercept, adding that countries were set to discuss the details of the project shortly.

In 1998, Russia and India established a joint venture, BrahMos Aerospace, to design, develop, produce and market a supersonic cruise missile. Sea-based and land-based versions of the missile have been successfully tested and put into service with the Indian Army and Navy.

The Brahmos missile, named after India's Brahmaputra River and Russia's Moskva River, has a range of 180 miles and can carry a conventional warhead of up to 660 pounds. It can hit ground targets flying at an altitude as low as 10 meters (30 feet) and at a speed of Mach 2.8, which is about three times faster than the U.S.-made subsonic Tomahawk cruise missile.

Work is currently underway to create aircraft and submarine-based BrahMos missiles.

The airborne version could be installed on the Sukhoi-30MKI air superiority fighters of the Indian Air Force.

Experts estimate that India might purchase up to 1,000 BrahMos missiles for its Armed Forces in the next decade, and export 2,000 to third countries during the same period.

In 2000, Russia and India signed a 10-year program on military-technical cooperation, which currently lists about 130 R&D and production projects.

