The Hindu : First BrahMos launch from a mobile complex

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 10, 2003

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First BrahMos launch from a mobile complex

CHENNAI. NOV. 9. BrahMos, the supersonic cruise missile jointly developed by India and Russia, was launched for the fifth time from the Interim-Test-Range at Chandipur-on-Sea, 13 km from Balasore, Orissa, today. The flight was successful and met all the mission objectives. The missile took off shortly after noon — at 12.02 p.m. and landed 290 km away in the Bay of Bengal. It flew at a speed of 2.8 times that of sound.

"The importance of today's mission was that the BrahMos was launched from a mobile complex, which has the indigenously-built TATRA truck as the base," A. Sivathanu Pillai, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited, told The Hindu. He described it as an excellent flight. It demonstrated the BrahMos's "reliability and ruggedness," he said. Of the five flights, this is the first time it was launched from a mobile launch complex. All the five flights were successful. The last one was on October 29.

When contacted at Chandipur, Dr. Pillai called it a successful flight because the mission objectives were met. All the parameters were captured by tracking stations on the ground and ships located at various points on the sea. "They confirmed the success of the mission," he said. He is also the Chief Controller, Research and Development, DRDO.

Today's launch was to prove that the BrahMos was suitable for launching attacks on targets located both on land and at sea. The missile enjoys a manoeuvrable trajectory. It took off vertically from the mobile launch complex today, took off in no time to an altitude of 14 km, changed its course and plunged to a very low altitude when it was closer to the target on the sea. Then it homed in on the target, which was 290 km from the mobile launch complex on the beachfront.

The complex consists of an indigenously built multi-axle truck called TATRA, which has a cross-country capability. In other words, TATRA is the base around which the mobile complex has been built and TATRA can carry the BrahMos to different types of terrain. It has its own fire-control system for the missile.

The BrahMos is capable of carrying warheads weighing between 200 kg and 300 kg. It could cruise at a speed of 3 Mach at an altitude of 15 km. It can be launched from a variety of platforms — fixed and mobile platforms on land, surface ships, submarines and aircraft. It has multi-target capability.

The Defence Minister, George Fernandes, rang up Dr. Pillai and congratulated the Indian and Russian missile specialists who were behind the success of the mission. The Vice-Chief of Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral Arun Prakash, officers belonging to the three Services, missile specialists from the DRDO and Russia, and representatives from the Indian industry witnessed the launch.

The name BrahMos is coined from the two rivers, the Brahmaputra and the Moskva, because this supersonic cruise missile is a joint venture product of India and Russia. It is jointly produced by the DRDO and NPO Mashnistroyenia, an enterprise owned by the Russian Federation. An industrial complex has been established in Hyderabad to produce the missile.

The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, then Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister and Herbert A. Yefremov, an acknowledged expert in cruise missiles, were the architects behind the joint venture. The BrahMos company, in both India and Russia, came into existence following an agreement signed by the two countries on February 12, 1998. The first BrahMos flight took place on June 12, 2001, the second on April 18, 2002, the third on February 12, 2003 and the fourth on October 29, 2003. So there have been three launches this year.

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