According to Atul Rane, Operations Director for BrahMos Aerospace, the BrahMos-II cruise missile’s supersonic variant will likely share many technological characteristics with the Zircon (Tsirkon) missile’s hypersonic variant.
India’s Defense Research and Development Organization and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya collaborated to create the BrahMos missile (DRDO). In 2001, the first test launch occurred. This missile has been fielded in a number of iterations by the Indian Army, Air Force, and Navy.
The headquarters of BrahMos Aerospace are in New Delhi. The names of the Russian Moskva River and the Indian Brahmaputra River are combined to form the name BrahMos.
According to Atul Rane, both sides have created “technical bricks” for hypersonic missiles.
Asked if the BrahMos-II missile would use some of the technology of the Zircon missile, Rane said it was “possible”. It will be about 5-6 years before the first tests of BrahMos-II take place.
“The whole world is working on hypersonics. I have not seen anyone in the world with a supersonic cruise missile. Russia said it has tested the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile developed by NPO Mashinostroyeniya,” Rane said, emphasizing that although the US and China are both working on hypersonic cruise missiles, both countries are still working on supersonic cruise missiles.
According to Rane, BrahMos-II will not be exported, but only produced for Russia and India. He explained that India, as a party to the Missile Technology Control Mechanism, could develop missiles with a range of over 300 km and a weight of over 500 kg, but could not deliver them to third countries
