Indus Valley Times

By Sudam Patra

Balasore, May 22: India on Monday successfully flight-tested BrahMos cruise missile from Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur along Odisha coast under life extension programme.

The The supersonic cruise missile was test-fired at 10.40 am from Launch Pad 3 of the ITR located in Balasore district.

In fact, BrahMos is the first indigenously built missile whose life has been extended from 10 years to 15 years.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman congratulated Team BrahMos and DRDO for the successful flight.

“Smt @nsitharaman congratulates Team Brahmos & @DRDO_India for successful flight test carried out at 1040 hrs on 21 May 2018 from ITR, Balasore to validate BRAHMOS missile life extension technologies developed for the first time in India. The successful test will result in huge savings of replacement cost of missiles held in the inventory of Indian Armed Forces,” Ministry of Defence tweeted.

Worth mentioning, the Indian Army became world’s first land force to deploy the tactical BrahMos.

At present, the Army operates three regiments equipped with various configurations of BrahMos land attack cruise missiles (LACM) which has been operationalised since 2007.

The Indian Army has already inducted three regiments of BrahMos in its arsenal, all equipped with Block-III version.

As per reports, India will develop next-generation BrahMos missiles, which will be lighter than the earlier ones and can be mounted on aircraft or torpedos.