All the technologies for BrahMos were developed by DRDO, says veteran DRDO scientist

Veteran DRDO scientist Sudhir Kumar Mishra on Friday said that all the technologies for BrahMos was developed by DRDO and the main thing was to integrate it with the Sukhoi aircraft.

Mishra is former DRDO DG and former MD & CEO of BrahMos Aerospace. He currently holds the DRDO chair (Prof. S Bhagavantham).

"We started by 250 million dollars. The company was registered in Delhi. We did the first flight test of Brahmos in 2001. When I joined in 2013, I developed various version -- ship to ship, land-based, air-based. The main thing was to integrate with the Sukhoi aircraft. That took a couple of years and it was critical. We created the world's largest launcher in-house in DRDO," said Mishra in an interaction with Moneycontrol's Managing Editor Dr Nalin Mehta during Network 18's Powering Bharat Summit.

Mishra said that BrahMos is a very potent universal weapon and is impossible for anyone to stop it.

"We conducted more than 130 tests, in every test parameters were improved. We always believed that we should not always go to L1 (if you are going for the lowest, quality can be compromised), we go for the T1," said Mishra.

Additionally, Mishra said that India is on the brink of a major defence milestone with the upcoming debut of an indigenous hypersonic missile capable of flying at Mach 5.

"Two-three weeks back, we tested a hypersonic engine. Soon, we will come out with a hypersonic missile that will reach Mach 5 speed. All the technologies for BrahMos were developed in-house by DRDO — we even built the world’s largest launcher ourselves," Mishra said, adding that when other nations compare missile systems and choose to induct India’s, “it means ours is the best.”

Mishra was speaking on a panel titled Defending Bharat: Indian Drones, Missiles, Defence Tech, alongside leading voices in the drone and defence tech ecosystem.

Additionally, Lt Gen (Dr) Inderjit Singh, Strategic Advisor at ideaForge Technology, said India has been proactive about drone technology for over a decade.

“Today, we are the biggest company in ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) technologies. The Ministry of Defence is significantly scaling up efforts to acquire to acquire cutting-edge technologies,” he said.