India · Russia · since 1998
One of the fastest cruise missiles in service. Here it is, taken apart one section at a time.
Scroll to take it apart
The name
Two rivers, two countries. BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture of India's DRDO and Russia's NPO Mashinostroyeniya, set up by an agreement signed on 12 February 1998. The missile grew out of the Russian P-800 Oniks.
Anatomy
A rocket to get it moving and a ramjet to keep it fast. Everything else is there to find a target and hit it.
Assembled
It is stored, carried and fired from its own canister. Keep scrolling to watch it launch.
The cone in the middle of the nose holds the missile's own radar. It stays off for most of the flight and turns on near the end, when the missile has to find its target.
A ramjet has no fan and no compressor. The missile's speed does that job: air rushes into the ring around the cone, and shock waves off the cone slow it down and squeeze it before it reaches the engine.
Gyroscopes and accelerometers (an inertial navigation system) track every turn the missile makes. Satellite fixes stop that estimate from drifting, so it stays on course over hundreds of kilometres.
A conventional semi-armour-piercing warhead, 200 kg on ship and land versions and up to 300 kg on the air-launched one. It is built to punch through first and explode inside.
The longest section. It carries liquid fuel for the ramjet. That is the key to range: the ramjet takes oxygen from the air, so the tank only has to hold fuel.
Four wings in the middle give lift. Four fins at the tail are moved by actuators to steer. Together they let a missile at Mach 2.8 swerve and then dive steeply.
This engine does most of the work. Squeezed air from the intake mixes with fuel, burns in the combustion chamber and blasts out of the nozzle. It holds the missile near Mach 2.8 for the whole cruise.
A ramjet can't start from a standstill, so a solid rocket fires first. It sits inside the ramjet's empty combustion chamber, a layout taken from the P-800 Oniks. This keeps the missile short.
Flight
The missile lives in a sealed transport-launch canister. It can fire from a ship's vertical launcher, a 12×12 truck carrying three canisters, a Su-30MKI fighter or a submarine.
The solid rocket fires. The missile leaves the canister, then tips over toward the target as it speeds up.
Once it is supersonic, the spent booster is pushed out of the tail and falls away. Air is now coming into the intake fast enough to run the ramjet, and it lights.
It climbs as high as 15 km, where the thin air means less drag and more range, and holds about Mach 2.8. It can also fly the whole way low, skimming the sea.
Near the target it drops to as low as 3–10 m above the water and turns its radar seeker on. That low, it stays below the horizon of the target's radar until it is very close.
A weaving "S" manoeuvre at Mach 2.8 makes it harder to shoot down. Against land targets it can dive steeply instead. Defenders have seconds to react.
Illustrative profile. Actual height, timing and range depend on the mission.
One missile, every platform
Fires from vertical launch cells or angled launchers. It equips about 20 frontline Indian Navy warships. The first vertical launch was from INS Ranvir in 2008.
Mobile Autonomous Launchers on 12×12 trucks. The Indian Army raised its first BrahMos regiment in 2007, and newer blocks add land attack and steep dives.
Carried under the Su-30MKI. A lighter build (about 2.5 t) with a smaller booster. First fired from the air on 22 November 2017.
First fired on 20 March 2013 from a pontoon submerged 40–50 m deep off Visakhapatnam. It can strike both ships and land targets.
"Next Generation": about 6 m long and 1.2–1.5 t, so smaller fighters and ships can carry it. Planned with an AESA radar seeker.
A planned hypersonic successor with a scramjet, aiming well beyond Mach 5. It is still in development.
Timeline
India and Russia sign the agreement that creates BrahMos Aerospace (12 Feb).
First test firing from Chandipur, Odisha (12 Jun).
The Indian Army raises its first BrahMos regiment.
First land-attack test from INS Rajput, then the first vertical launch from INS Ranvir.
First launch from under water.
India joins the MTCR, so the range can go past 290 km.
First extended-range test (11 Mar). First air launch from a Su-30MKI (22 Nov).
Indian-built radar seeker flies for the first time.
The Philippines signs the first export deal, for about US$375 M.
The first export battery is delivered to the Philippines.
Reported first combat use, in the May India–Pakistan conflict. A new production site opens in Lucknow.
Target date for the 800 km version, now in trials.
Spec sheet
Public figures. They vary by variant and by source.
| Type | Two-stage supersonic cruise missile |
|---|---|
| Length · diameter | 8.4 m · 0.6 m |
| Launch mass | 3,000 kg (ship/land) · ≈2,500 kg (air) |
| Warhead | 200–300 kg, conventional semi-armour-piercing |
| Propulsion | Solid rocket booster → liquid-fuel ramjet |
| Speed | Mach 2.8–3.0 |
| Range | 290 km (export) · 450–500 km and more (Indian service) · 800 km version in trials |
| Altitude | Up to 15 km cruise · 3–10 m sea-skimming |
| Guidance | INS + satellite navigation mid-course · active radar seeker at the end |
| Makers | DRDO (India) · NPO Mashinostroyeniya (Russia) |