NEW DELHI, December 19. /TASS/. BrahMos Aerospace joint Russian-Indian venture plans to launch a new enterprise in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh State 500 kilometers east of New Delhi in late 2025 - early 2026, new Director General Jaiteerth Joshi told TASS.

"Construction of this new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility is going on and we are hopeful to start operations in a phase-wise manner by 2025-end or early 2026. Full-fledged operations, however, may take some time as we have to ensure that a secure, strong, full-proof system with all modern amenities is in place for seamless production and all related work. Once fully operational, this facility would roll out existing BrahMos systems before producing the BrahMos-NG weapon variant in future," he said.

The company hopes to sign a new export contract shortly for BrahMos missiles.

"There are many countries which have evinced strong interest in buying BrahMos. We are advancing in our negotiations with all the interested parties, and are quite hopeful to sign our next export order soon," he said.

So far, the Philippines has purchased three batteries of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles with a range of 290 kilometers worth $375 million in 2022. The deal also envisages training of operators and logistical support.

"The first consignment was delivered to the customer country in April 2024 which is a remarkable feat for us. We remain fully committed to complete the delivery of all the missile batteries as per the contractual timeline. Our first customer country is very satisfied with the BrahMos system. Once fully operational, the formidable weapon is going to enormously widen the defense and deterrence architecture of the archipelago nation," Joshi said.

BrahMos Aerospace has completed the design of the latest BrahMos NG airborne supersonic missile and began its development.

"The project is progressing smoothly. The design blueprint for the new missile has been finalized and we are now moving towards the development phase. The first prototype would be fielded for integration on the Su-30MKI air combat platform. After all the development and integration-related work gets over, we will then proceed towards the trials phase. All these tasks may take 2 - 3 years," Joshi said.

"It will be a very compact weapon packed with higher speed, firepower, accuracy and lethality. It will be a smaller, lighter derivative of existing BrahMos. Our plan is to first develop this ‘smart weapon’ for aerial platforms and subsequently make it adaptable onboard warships, submarines and ground platforms. BrahMos-NG would feature smart guidance and avionics along with next-generation stealth in addition to many other superior technologies and features," he said.

The company also eyes hypersonic missile development. "The prospect for a hypersonic BrahMos variant is there. However, it maybe some years away as we are currently focused on the next-generation missile project. The hypersonic technology is currently at a stage of evolution across the world, and being abreast of all the developments that are happening in this high-tech domain, we are going to build our strategy accordingly," Joshi said.