Long-Range Hypersonic Missile

Table of Contents☰

About Long-Range Hypersonic Missile:

The missile can carry various payloads for ranges greater than 1,500 km for the Armed Forces.
It has been indigenously developed by laboratories of the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Missile Complex, Hyderabad, along with various other DRDO labs and industry partners.

What are Hypersonic missiles?

The term “Hypersonic” refers to a speed at least five times the speed of sound (also called Mach-5).
Another key feature of such missiles is manoeuvrability, setting them apart from a ballistic missile that follows a set course or trajectory.
Hypersonic Cruise Missiles use scramjet engines to sustain hypersonic speeds throughout their flight, flying at lower altitudes and also possessing manoeuvrability.
The two types of hypersonic weapons systems are Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGV) and Hypersonic Cruise Missiles.
- The HGVs are launched from a rocket before gliding to the intended target while HCMs are powered by air-breathing high-speed engines or ‘scramjets’ after acquiring their target.
Advantages of hypersonic missiles
- Hypersonic weapons can enable responsive, long-range strike options against distant, defended or time-critical threats (such as road-mobile missiles) when other forces are unavailable, denied access or not preferred.
- Conventional hypersonic weapons use only kinetic energy, i.e. energy derived from motion, to destroy unhardened targets or even underground facilities.
- They fly at lower altitudes than ballistic missiles, which means that they may be harder to track at long distances with some surface-based sensors, such as certain radar
Russia and China are believed to be ahead in developing hypersonic missiles while the US is developing a range of such weapons under an ambitious programme.

Q1: What are Ballistic Missiles?

A ballistic missile is a rocket-propelled, self-guided strategic-weapons system that follows a ballistic trajectory to deliver a payload from its launch site to a predetermined target. They are powered initially by a rocket or series of rockets in stages, but then follow an unpowered trajectory that arches upwards before descending to reach its intended target.

News: With DRDO successfully testing India’s first long-range hypersonic missile, all you need to know about the weapon