100 To 150 Missiles Every Year: Inside India's New BrahMos Production Unit

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday virtually inaugurated the BrahMos Aerospace Integration and Testing Facility in Lucknow. The state-of-the-art unit is built under the Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor, which consists of six key nodes - Lucknow, Kanpur, Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi, and Chitrakoot.

The Lucknow unit will assemble and test the existing supersonic BrahMos cruise missiles and also produce the lighter, next-generation (NG) variants that will dramatically boost India's precision-strike capabilities from land, air, and sea.

What Is BrahMos?

BrahMos is a universal precision-strike missile that can be launched from land, sea, and air platforms. It is designed for day-and-night operations in all weather conditions. With multi-role, multi-target, and multi-platform capabilities, BrahMos has earned the reputation of a true force multiplier on the modern battlefield. It has undergone over 100 successful test firings.

About The BrahMos Production Unit

The facility is designed to manufacture 80 to 100 BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles annually and will later scale up to produce 100 to 150 next-generation variants each year.

It is developed by BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia's NPO Mashinostroyeniya (Scientific Production Association of Machine-Building).

The unit will produce missiles which will have a range of 290 to 400 km and will fly at a top speed of Mach 2.8 (approximately 3,430 kmph).

The BrahMos missile uses a "fire and forget" guidance system for high-precision strikes, IANS reported.

The next-generation BrahMos variant is significantly lighter at 1,290 kg (down from 2,900 kg), enabling fighter jets like the Sukhoi Su-30MKI to carry up to three missiles instead of just one.

Inside The Facility And What It Offers

The missile unit has been constructed at a cost of Rs 300 crore on 80 hectares of land provided free of charge by the Uttar Pradesh government.

The foundation stone for the facility was laid in 2021, and the entire project was completed in a short span of just three and a half years.

The Lucknow unit will also house the Titanium and Super Alloys Materials Plant, officially known as the Strategic Materials Technology Complex, for producing aerospace-grade materials critical for defence systems.

A separate facility -- the Defence Testing Infrastructure System (DTIS) -- will also have its foundation stone laid during the event. DTIS will serve as a dedicated hub for testing and certifying a wide range of defence products.

The corridor was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 2018 Global Investors' Summit.

Uttar Pradesh is the second state, after Tamil Nadu, to establish a dedicated defence corridor.