Old but related news
Dream missile on the horizon: Kalam
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
NEW DELHI, May 15: India is trying to develop a nuke warhead compatible long-range missile that can be used again and again for as many as 100 times. According to A P J Abdul Kalam, chief of the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO), the design of the reusable missile is in the conceptual stage. He declined to give details but said the reusable missile "is a marriage of aircraft, cruise missile and remotely piloted vehicle," the technologies for which already exist in India.
Kalam said that in the next "three to five years" the DRDO will be ready to make a formal proposal to the Defence Ministry for funding of the project. "This is our dream missile. We are trying to use several technologies. Someday it will become a competitor to manned combat aircraft," he said in an interview before this week's serial nuclear blasts.
Some main characteristics of this missile include hypersonic speed and ability to escape detection by radar because it will be virtually made of composite material.
Themissile will use a "referential guidance system (RGS)" to hit the target and return to base, a concept that Kalam declined to explain. He said that in order to establish the RGS, one would need a powerful computer with a huge memory. "We are working on this and also in the areas of composite materials and on system engineering and multiple planning," Kalam said. The reusable missile will have multiple paths to carry out its mission "and that is where systems engineering comes in", he said.
The missile will employ air-breathing propulsion system called ramjet and scramjet engines in which air sucked in during flight will be mixed with hydrogen and burned to produce a thrust pushing the missile to seven times the speed of sound (5000 kilometres per hour).
