Dr. Sudhir Kumar Mishra outlines plans to double or triple BrahMos range by shrinking electronics for more fuel, develop a smaller next-generation version that keeps ~300 km range for multi-missile loads, and pursue hypersonic BrahMos-II via a tested scramjet.

Hypersonic flight requires a wave-rider body, plasma-tolerant seekers, redesigned guidance and materials surviving nearly 1,500 °C.

Export demand is growing (Philippines already a customer; Indonesia and Vietnam signed), with 80–85 percent of the missile now Indian-made under the Indo-Russian joint venture.

Somewhere over the Indian Ocean, a Sukhoi-30 fighter streaks across the sky with a BrahMos tucked under its belly. When the pilot presses release, the missile does not start from zero. It inherits the jet’s speed, the way a cricketer’s throw carries farther when he is already running. That borrowed momentum, Dr. Sudhir Kumar Mishra explains, can add a few hundred kilometres to the missile’s reach compared with a ground launch. It is a small detail, but it captures how the man who once led BrahMos Aerospace thinks about weapons: as living systems that keep finding ways to go further.

Few Indians understand this missile as deeply as Dr. Mishra does. He is a distinguished missile scientist who played a leading role in developing the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile programme. He has served as Director-General of DRDO’s BrahMos programme and as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace, the........

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