The Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) has tested its Long Range Subsonic Missile Nirbhay. It is India’s first indigenously designed long-range cruise missile. Let’s know about it in detail.
Long-Range Subsonic Cruise Missile: Nirbhay
What is Cruise Missile?
A cruise missile is guided missile, that is used against terrestrial targets that remain in the atmosphere and flies at a constant speed.
Modern cruise missiles are capable of travelling at supersonic or subsonic speeds. They are self-navigating and can fly on an extremely low-altitude, non-ballistic trajectory.
They are classified as:
Supersonic cruise missile:
Supersonic Cruise missiles are those which travel faster than the speed of sound. The combination of supersonic speed and warhead mass provides tremendous lethal effect with high kinetic energy. For eg - BrahMos
Hypersonic cruise missile:
Hypersonic cruise missile travels at a speed of more than 5 Mach. Brahmos-II is a cruise missile of hypersonic nature.
Subsonic cruise missile:
It flies at a velocity lower than the sound. It travels at about 0.8 Mach speed. The recently tested Nirbhay is the well-known subsonic missile.
Nirbhay Missile
Nirbhay was designed and developed by the Defense Research and Development Organization in India as a multitude of subsonic cruise missiles.
The missile can be launched from several platforms and can transport conventional and nuclear weapons. It is being developed and flight tests are underway.
The indigenously developed missile was test-fired from the ITR, Chandipur, off the Odisha coast.
The Nirbhay missile has a range between 700 and 1,000 km.
The missile's guidance, control and navigation systems are configured around the inertial navigation system based on the indigenously designed Ring Laser Gyroscope and MEMS.
India’s Cruise missiles:
- Nirbhay
- Brahmos
- Brahmos-II
NOTE: 1Mach = 1234.8 km/h
Let us now have a closer look at what differentiates the three.
Nirbhay | Brahmos | Brahmos-II | |
Origin | India | India and Russia | India |
Speed(Mach) | 0.8 | 2.8-3 | 7 |
Type | Subsonic | Supersonic | Hypersonic |
Range(km) | 1000-1500 | 290 | 300 |
Warhead | 300kg | 300 kg | 300kg |
Per Unit cost | 6.7 million USD | 2.73 million USD | 2.73 million USD |
Now that we have understood how Nirbhay stands out from the league of other Indian Cruise Missiles, below table lists the features in comparison to Babur(Pakistan) and Tomahawk(USA)
Nirbhay | Babur | Tomahawk | |
Launch from fighter aircrafts | Possible(increases range) | Not possible | Not possible. |
In -Service | Yet to start | Since 2005 | Since 1983 |
Range(km) | 1500 | 700 | 2000 |
Speed(mach) | 0.8 | 0.7 | 0.7 |
Warhead | Nuclear and Conventional (Capable of delivering 24 different types of Warheads) | Supports few | Supports MAjorty including Bunker Busting Warheads |
Propulsion and Navigation | - Gas turbine Engine - Internal - Navigation Systems (INS IRNSS_ | Solid Fuel(Booster Rocket, Liquid Fuel(Jet Engine) - INS, TERCOM/DSMAC, GPS, GLONASS | - TH-Dimer Fuel, Solid Fuel Rocket Booster - GPS, INS, Terrain Contour Matching(TERCOM), Digital Scene Matchin and Area Co-relation(DSMAC) |
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