Article Posted on : - Aug 20, 2008

MOSCOW (BNS): The Indian Army has placed further orders for Brahmos missiles, taking the total booking for the Indo-Russian cruise missile to two billion dollars.

"The order by the Indian armed forces comes to two billion dollars," Brahmos CEO and MD Dr A Sivathanu Pillai told the Russian Interfax news agency in Moscow. Pillai said the total order for Brahmos could go up to $10 billion including exports and future bookings from Indian military.

Presently, Brahmos is fitted on the naval ships, and is being inducted into the Army. Besides, work is underway to mount an air version of the missile on Sukhoi-30 MKI fighters. Design stage work is complete for putting Brahmos missiles on submarines too.

The world's only super sonic cruise missile has a range of 290 kilometers and can achieve a speed of up to 2.8 mach. A futuristic hypersonic cruise missile, the next generation Brahmos, is also proposed, according to Brahmos officials.

Started in 1998, Brahmos is an Indo-Russian joint venture now seen as a model for defence JVs. The Ministry of Defence has for sometime been encouraging similar JVs.