BrahMos cruise missile to be test-fired from Su-30MKI before end 2016

A supersonic BrahMos cruise missile will be tested from a Su-30MKI (NATO reporting name: Flanker-H) fighter jet for the first time in the second half of 2016, the head of Russian-Indian BrahMos Aerospace enterprise, Sudhir Mishra, said Thursday.

According to Mishra, around three or four varieties of the missile will be launched first to test integration. After this, dummy and technology tests will be carried out before testing the actual missile on land and naval targets.

"We should be able to reach to that stage in the second part of 2016… The day BrahMos is successfully test-fired from Su-30MKI, the whole aeronautics community would be saluting us for achieving a very, very difficult milestone in missile and aeronautical technology," Mishra told the Economic Times news outlet.

BrahMos, a word combining Brahmaputra and Moskva, is a short-range supersonic missile, which has been used by the Indian Navy since 2005. The missile has a range of 180 miles and can carry a conventional warhead of up to 660 pounds.

BrahMos Aerospace was formed by India’s Defense Research and Development Organization and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia. It produces weapons systems using Russian and Indian technology.

First published by Sputnik.

The BrahMos is just beginning

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