India test fires Brahmos supersonic Cruise Missiles successfully

November 25, 2020

On November 24, 2020, India successfully test fired the land attack version of Brahmos supersonic missile. It was test fired in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The range of the missile has been extended to 400 km from 290 km. Its speed has been increased to 2.8 Mach which is almost three times the speed of sound.

About Brahmos missile

The missile can be launched from ships, submarines, aircraft and from land platforms. Brahmos was a joint venture of DRDO and Russia. It was developed based on the Russian P-800 Oniks Cruise missile. The name of Brahmos missile was coined from the two rivers Brahmaputra of India and Moskva of Russia. It is the fastest anti-ship cruise missile in the world. Brahmos-II is currently under development with a speed of Mach 7-8. After India became a member of Missile Technology Control Regime in 2016, Russia is to jointly build a new version of Brahmos missile that has a range of 800 km.
India recently launched the first Varunastra torpedo, a heavy weight version.

Recent missile launches

On October 23, 2020, the Indian Navy released a video showing the INS Prabal launching a missile. Similar tests were conducted by Indian Navy on October 30, 2020 as well. On October 30, 2020, the Indian Navy test fired an anti-ship missile from INS Kora in Bay of Bengal.

The other recently conducted missile test fires of India are as follows