Mighty India Power

The Indian-Russian venture BrahMos Aerospace Ltd. is planning to make the engines for Brahmos missiles in India. This is told by , BrahMos Aerospace CEO Sivathanu Pillai said on Friday. The engines will be produced at the Brahmos plant in Kerala. Currently it is being manufactured in plant in Russia's Orenburg, where the requirement is expected to exceed its capabilities. The BrahMos missile has a range of 290 km (180 miles) and can carry a conventional warhead of up to 300 kg (660 lbs). It can effectively engage ground targets from an altitude as low as 10 meters (30 feet) and has a top speed of Mach 2.8, which is about three times faster than the U.S.-made subsonic Tomahawk cruise missile. Established in 1998, BrahMos Aerospace, a joint Indian-Russian venture, produces the BrahMos supersonic missiles. The sea- and ground-launched versions have been successfully tested and put into service with the Indian Army and Navy. The air and underwater version are planned for the tests....

India's indegenous 5,000-km range Agni-V nuclear-capable missile is ready for test-firing. This was announced by Defence Minister AK Antony in Hyderabad after laying foundation stone for expansion of the Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited (Midhani) defence public sector company. The missile was developed following the denial of technology to India. "The denial has only given us an opportunity to develop a 5,000-km range missile," Antony said. He said Indian scientists working in many critical areas have proved that India can overcome sanctions and denials. "When we face denial, we should take it us a God-sent opportunity and a challenge," he told the scientists present on the occassion. The missile is capable of hitting targets in northernmost China and is India's only inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM).

The Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE)’s  first micro air vehicle (MAV) by the end of the year. ADE, along with the National Aeronautical Laboratory, has designed and developed MAVs for counter-terrorism, urban warfare and relief and rescue operations Micro and nano air vehicles are used to provide information in real time, while taking videos and transmitting the same back to the ground, enabling minimum reaction time. With miniaturisation being of paramount importance in developing the platform, efforts are on to design MAVs of 100 mm to 200 mm in size, and weighing less than 200 gm. The currently developed MAV weighs 300 gm.

The air-to-land version supersonic missile is almost ready, A Sivathanu Pillai, CEO and Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace, said on Wednesday. "All the modifications have been completed. We are now in the process of readying with the missile". This air-to-land supersonic missile "very precisely" attacks the target, he added. The hurdle is in getting the Sukhoi-30 MKI aircraft, in which the missile has to be fitted, requires to be modified to take the extra load of the missile. Initially two Sukhoi-30 MKIs is planned to be modified. The modifications are expected to take two years. Since the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile is "heavier" and "elaborate", the Sukhois, which could carry other weapons, needed to be modified "exclusively" for BrahMos, including in the context of pilot's console and "mission computer should take the (extra) load" and interface issues. These missiles would be inducted by the IAF after 2012 ...

The fleet-footed Dragon may be rapidly spreading its wings across the globe but remains a wee bit wary of the flat-footed Elephant next door. The US Pentagon's latest assessment of the expanding military might of China, which has now overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, holds that Beijing is "concerned" with the "strategic ramifications of India's rising economic, political and military power". Consequently, "to improve regional deterrence", the 2.25-million strong People's Liberation Army has moved "more advanced and survivable" solid-fuelled CCS-5 nuclear-capable ballistic missiles closer to the borders with India. Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6328056.cms

Once the Indian defence requirements are met, India may look for exporting the  BrahMos supersonic cruise missile. This was told by the  Defense Minister A.K. Antony said   in a written response to a question in the Parliament . The agrement between India anad Russia on the Brahmos allows the foriegn sale.  The two countries have signed an agreement on the missile, which has been approved by the Indo-Russian Inter-Governmental Commission for Military Technical Cooperation. Several countries have shown an interest, he said, but no decisions have been made about who the customers would be or when the BrahMos will be available for export. The move already has the approval of the Indo-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Military Technical Cooperation for Export. The BrahMos missile could become one of India’s major contributions to the world arms export market between 2010-2020. The system is superior to other available platforms on three counts: The spe...

India will launch a satellite to monitor sea water levels in collaboration with the French space agency, Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan said on Wednesday. The satellite, called Saral, will carry an altimetre (ALTIKA) for studying the sea surface heights and an ARGOS payload, which is a satellite-based data collection platform. "The project is a joint project of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the French National Space Agency (FNSA). The ALTIKA and ARGOS payloads are built and supplied by the French space agency. The satellite building and launching are the responsibilities of ISRO," Chavan told the Lok Sabha.

The Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Shri Praful Patel will launch the GAGAN – a Satellite Based Augmentation System Services over India and neighbouring regions. GAGAN stands for GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation. This system will provide enhanced navigation performance for critical applications like Civil Aviation, Marine Navigation, Train & Road Transport, Precision Farming, Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, Surveying and Mapping (Geodetic & Geodynamic), Mining etc. With the service being launched, India will be the 4th Country in the World to have Satellite Based Navigation System. GAGAN will be compatible with other SBAS systems such as the Wide Area Augmentation System in the US, the European Geo-stationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) and the Multi-Functional Satellite Augmentation System in Japan. The project is based on a signal broadcast from a geo-stationary satellite, GSAT-4. The system involves the measurement of positioning errors from GPS satellite...

India is developing a series of directed energy weapons (DEW) to improve the anti-ballistic missile capability, local media reported on Tuesday. A laser weapon of the DEW family are being developed, which could fire a beam with a potency of 25 kilowatt. This type of laser weapon would intercept a ballistic missile in its terminal phase within the range of seven kilometers, Indian newspaper the Indian Times quoted Anil Kumar Maini, the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO)'s Laser Science and Technology Center director, as saying. The ballistic missile would explode as its shell temperature is heated to 200-300 degrees Celsius by the laser beam, the Director explained. The DEW is a sophisticated weapon that could destroy a target by emitting and transferring the energy to a target in an aimed direction. Some types are in development in some countries. Among the DEW, laser weapons usually generate high-energy pulses against targets. According to the weapon d...