Aero India 2011 News

Bangalore: The country’s first indigenous subsonic cruise missile, Nirbhay (Fearless), will be ready early next year.
“The integration of the engine is under way. All processes are on for the sub-sonic medium-range cruise missile,” said Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief VK Saraswat at the air show.
The missile with a range of 1,000km can be launched from multiple launchers. It will arm all the three services.Nirbhay is expected to supplement the BrahMos cruise missile, which has a range of 300km.
About the hypersonic cruise missile, a more advanced version of the BrahMos, Dr Saraswat said it also would be ready by 2012. A successful test of the technology of the missile was carried out in a laboratory in May 2008 at a speed of 6.5 Mach. The hypersonic demonstrator vehicle will attain a level flight, for a ground-to-ground test, at a height of 30 km from the ground, before it hits the target with a speed between seven and eight Mach.
The hypersonic missile BrahMos-2 will be the Mach 8 version of the missile. It will be the country’s first hypersonic cruise missile. It is an advanced version of the present air-launched missile.
DRDO and NPO-Mash are working on a sustained flight scramjet, which will be the core element in the Mark-2 version of BrahMos.
12/02/11 Suman Sharma/Daily News & Analysis