Kalam asks BrahMos team to develop 'Mark-II' version
President Kalam says time has come for BrahMos Aerospace to work on Mark-II version of BRAHMOS so that it can remain the market leader in hypersonic cruise missiles.
President APJ Abdul Kalam on Thursday asked BrahMos team to work on developing "Mark-II" version of BrahMos hypersonic cruise missile system and also reusable class of cruise missiles.
"Time has come for BrahMos Aerospace to work on Mark-II version of BRAHMOS so that you will still be the market leader in hypersonic cruise missiles," Kalam said while commencing the delivery of BrahMos missile system to the Army in New Delhi.
Observing that fast deployment of hypersonic missile systems will be necessary to maintain India's force level supremacy, he said "I visualize long range hypersonic cruise missiles not only delivering pay loads but also returning to the base after the mission, leading to re-usable class of cruise missiles within the next decade".
He said it was time that the three services work with the team of BrahMos Aerospace to evolve such a system in a time bound manner.
The President also asked the BrahMos joint venture firm between India and Russia to aggressively market "world class" product which will have a market shelf life of not more than five years.
"What is market shelf life? Naturally, there will be competitors who would be developing contemporary products which will be detrimental to the market leadership.
"No smart developer can afford to lose the competitive edge which he has generated and hence increasing the orders and continuously improving the products have to be aggressively pursued," he said.