India on Sunday test-fired the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile developed jointly with Russia, from a military range in eastern state of Orissa, officials said, according to DPA. The surface-to-surface missile was launched from the Integrated Test Range in Chandipur, located 220 kilometres north-east of state capital Bhubaneshwar, said defence officials. "The launch was successful but we will have to analyse data for making an evaluation," a defence official was quoted by the PTI news agency as saying. The trajectory of the missile's flight was tracked by sophisticated instruments and radars on a ship located close to the point of impact in the Bay of Bengal, he added. BrahMos - named after the Indian and Russian rivers Brahmaputra and Moskva - has been configured for launch from land, ships, submarines or aircraft. It can achieve speeds of up to 2.8 Mach, or nearly three times the speed of sound. The missile has a range of 290 kilometres and can carry a conventional warhead weighing 200 to 300 kilogrammes. Since its first test in June 2001 from the Chandipur base, it has undergone more than a dozen successful trials. India and Russia intend to manufacture 1,000 BrahMos missiles over the next 10 years, and nearly 50 per cent of them would be sold to other countries.
