R&D work on the hypersonic version of the Russian-Indian BrahMos missile will start approximately in 2022, Marketing Director of the Russian-Indian BrahMos Aerospace Company Praveen Pathak told TASS on Thursday.
A prototype of the BrahMos hypersonic missile is expected to be manufactured in 2024, the marketing director added.
“This will be another missile with a speed of about 6 Mach,” Pathak said at the KADEX 2016 arms exhibition in Astana in Kazakhstan.
According to the marketing director, the speed of the existing BrahMos supersonic missile is planned to be increased to 4 Mach within the coming three-four years.
As Pathak said, a preliminary design of the missile is currently being worked out. Russia and India are simultaneously considering various designs of the future missile.
According to the marketing director, this stage will take “at least five-six years.” R&D work is expected to start approximately in 2022 and the first prototype of the missile is planned to be manufactured two years later.
Pathak said that the future missile was expected to have the same weight and size as the existing BrahMos missile so that it can be used with the same platforms and launchers.
“Developers cannot tell the project’s total cost yet. This will be known when the preliminary design is worked out and a decision on the missile’s configuration is made,” the marketing director said.
According to him, the missile’s price will be mostly determined by the materials that will be used for its production.
The company said earlier that the hypersonic version of the BrahMos missile could be developed within five-ten years and its speed would exceed 7 Mach.
