BrahMos

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Specifications Table
Specifications
Origin	India/Russia
Speed	Mach 2.5 -2.8
Type	Anti-Ship and Land Attack
Length	8.4m
Diametre	60cm
Launch Weight	3000 kg
Warhead	300 kg Conventional semi-armour pierceing warhead
Range	290 kms
Propulsion	Two Stage integrated rocket/ramjet concept
1st stage	Solid propellant rocket booster (installed in the combustion chamber of the sustainer) which accelerates the missile up to 2 mach
2nd stage	After achieving 2 mach speed liquid propelled ram-jet accelerates it to maximum speed and sustain it during cruise phase.
Flight profile
Variable flight	The optimal trajectory is selected according to nature and characteristics of target.
Sea-Skiming	To avoid anti-missile defence Brahmos remains at an altitude of 10-15 from launch to impact. Range achieved is about 120kms.

IMAGES/PHOTOGRAPHS



BRAHMOS is a Supersonic Cruise Missile that can be launched from submarine, ship, aircraft and land based Mobile Autonomous Launchers (MAL). The missile is launched from a Transport-Launch Canister (TLC), which also acts as storage and transportation container.

Primarily BRAHMOS is an anti-ship missile. It has the capability to engage land based targets also. The missile can be launched either in vertical or inclined position and will cover 360 degrees.

The BRAHMOS missile has identical configuration for land, sea and sub sea platforms. The air-launched version has a smaller booster and additional tail fins for stability during launch.

Features

• High Supersonic Velocity


• Long flight range


• Varieties of flight trajectories


• "Fire & Forget" principle


• Universal for multiple platforms


• Low Radar Signature


• Simplicity of technical operations


• High lethal power


• Higher effectiveness

Maximum range profile

290kms distance is achieved in lo/hi/lo flight profile. On launch it climbs to 14000-15000m for cruise phase. 40 km's away from the target it descends to sea skimming altitude. The closing speed is about 750m/sec which increases its kinetic energy to extreme heights. Impact at this speed and subsequent detonation of the war head ensures maximum damage. Brahmos KE lethality is nine times greater than conventional subsonic missile as kinetic energy being proportional to square of velocity.

Seeker

The seeker relies on airborne radar platforms like Ka-31 helicopter. The target coordinates are inserted in missile memory immediately before launch and during the cruise phase the missile steers itself via Inertial platform with autopilot. At pre determined distance from target Brahmos switches on its active radar seeker to detect target. In case os of sea skimming profile missile starts radar search and achieve lock-on upon "popping up" from under the radar range which is about 25 km's.

In the lo/hi/lo profile it performs a first short radar search at a range of 50 km to verify target position and then reverts to inertial navigation in radar silence for the descent phase to sea skimming attack run before switching the radar on again at closer range.

There is no provision of in-flight data updates via data link from launch or airborne platform. Its estimated that Brahmos can perform both active or passive homing modes. passive modes like anti-radiation or home-on-jam.

Supersonic speed in cruise phase will ensure ships will not be able to move much farther away from the estimated position. As a result the missile will be able to start active radar search closer to target on a narrower sector of 40-45 degree. Hence the targets ESM detection and countermeasure will have just 3.3 seconds to react.

The seeker uses a hybrid form of pulse compression, in which bursts of short pulses are phase-coded so that they can be compressed; the bursts can also be Furier-transformed to discriminate chaff clouds. This particular pulse compression technique was adopted to hold down peak power, so making ESM detection difficult. The missile can also scan a number of targets in the area to identify the one it is supposed to hit. This capability is normally obtained through screen matching criteria, but Brahmos employs special algorithm that classifies targets based on their radar cross section as contained in the pre launch data.

On shore attack mode the seeker can detect large structures or DRDO has developed navigation and flight control computers to guide missile to precision impact against fixed targets (capability already tested).

SOURCES/REFERENCES

http://www.brahmos.com
http://www.india-defence.com
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com

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