Bangalore: BrahMos Aerospace, the Indo-Russian joint venture will begin production of the Naval variant of BrahMos, the supersonic cruise missile in January.

"We will begin production of the missile next month," BrahMos Aerospace CEO and Managing Director A Sivathanu Pillai told reporters in Bangalore today (Dec 25, 2003).

The supersonic cruise missile, developed jointly by Indian and Russian Defence scientists has attained success in the six trials, including from a mobile autonomous launcher (MAL) striking a moving ship.

The missile will be integrated at Hyderabad in India by BrahMos with components sourced from most of the public sector Defence undertakings and the private sector, Pillai said, adding the Russian consortium led by its design NPO Mashinostroyenia is also gearing up for production in Russia.

"The supersonic BrahMos cruise missile warhead hits the target nine times more powerful than a subsonic class cruise missile which other countries possess," he said.

BrahMos Aerospace, Pillai said, was planning to increase its capital base of $ 250 million for the development of the land base cruise missile to begin next year.

"We will build the air-to-air missile after the Army version," he said, of BrahMos, which cruises three times faster than sound at 2.8 Mach as the first supersonic cruise missile in the world. BrahMos is coined by linking the names of the mighty Indian river Brahmaputra and the Russian river Moskva.