India opens new BrahMos missile facility

A BrahMos cruise missile is pictured on a Tata launch vehicle. (Janes/Patrick Allen)

India's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has opened a new testing and integration facility to support the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile operated by the Indian Armed Forces.

The MoD said on 11 May that investment in the new facility, which is spread over 200 acres (81 ha) of land in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, is worth INR3 billion (USD35 million). The facility is known as the BrahMos Integration and Testing Facility Centre.

According to the MoD, the facility will be capable of integrating “booster subassemblies, avionics, propellant, [and] ramjet engines”.

“The programme centre with design and administrative blocks are also being planned in the complex,” the MoD added, indicating that the facility is under construction and has yet to become fully operational. “The entire defence ecosystem of ancillary and subassemblies will be developed in the vicinity to support the complex.”

The BrahMos missile family includes land-, sea-, and air-launched variants. However, it is not known whether the new facility will support all these types.

The BrahMos missile was developed by BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture (JV) between India's Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia's NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM). The registration of the JV was finalised in 1995 with 50.5% and 49.5% ownership between India and Russia.

The Indian Army operates 23 BrahMos mobile autonomous launchers that fire the land variant of the missile. The Indian Navy operates an unknown number of ship-based and shore-based maritime attack variants of the missile. The Indian Air Force operates an unknown number of air-launched variants.

The BrahMos missile is derived from Russia's 3M55 Oniks/Yakhont system (NATO designation SS-N-26) that was developed by NPOM in the 1980s.