India's Defense Minister Rajnath Singh recently said that a new defense facility manufacturing the BrahMos missile would become operational in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh in March 2024.
BrahMos Production Hub in Uttar Pradesh
The minister revealed that the production unit - part of the Uttar Pradesh Defense Industrial Corridor (UPDIC), which the state's head Yogi Adityanath and the Narendra Modi-led central governments were developing jointly - is due to open in Lucknow city.
"The work on the BrahMos missile project is carrying on apace and after next February/March, missile manufacture will begin on the soil of Lucknow," Singh told reporters during his visit to Lucknow in September.
Interest in where India's missiles - especially the BrahMos - are made has always been rife throughout the region, and Singh has obligingly lifted the lid on one of India's most closely guarded secrets.
With this in mind, Sputnik India takes readers on a tour of the BrahMos production facility to satisfy their curiosity about where the world's largest democratic nation produces the missile.
Facilities Where Brahmos Missiles Are Manufactured in India
According to the BrahMos website, the company is headquartered in New Delhi, where its design center and aerospace research wing are housed.
But there is no mention of the New Delhi facility being used to make the missiles.
However, BrahMos Aerospace, as the company is officially called, does have an integration complex in Hyderabad, the capital city of Telangana state in the eastern part of the country.
The company has also confirmed that it has a missile production center in the city of Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala state down south.
Furthermore, Pilani, a small town in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, serves as an assembly center for BrahMos missiles at present.
Brahmos missile
© AP Photo / MANISH SWARUP
What Makes The BrahMos So Special?
The missile's supersonic speed, which can exceed 3,700 km per hour makes it extremely difficult to detect, according to military pundits.
Air Marshal (Retd) Muthumanikam Matheswaran emphasised that air defense systems across the world cannot compete with missiles that fly at supersonic speeds, such as the BrahMos.
BrahMos Missile Range
The original version of the BrahMos missile could hit targets at up to a range of 290 kilometers away.
But this is set to change in the next few months as India has carried out several trials of the extended range (ER) variants of the rocket which are said to have a range of 500km, giving India's Armed Forces greater ability to strike deep inside enemy territory.