The development timeline of India’s next-generation BrahMos-NG supersonic cruise missile has suffered another setback, with flight testing now expected to be delayed by at least a year after project authorities introduced stricter performance requirements that necessitate additional redesign work.
The delay was confirmed by BrahMos Aerospace Joint Venture Managing Co-Director Alexander Maksichev during the International Maritime Defense Show Fleet 2026, where he spoke to Russian news agency TASS on June 10.
“Flight tests of the new-generation BrahMos-NG missile have not yet begun due to the fact that the customer has slightly changed its requirements. Therefore, we still have to make some improvements,” Maksichev said.
He emphasized that the modifications stem from more demanding operational expectations rather than technical difficulties with the existing design.
“In other words, the requirements for the missile have become stricter and more demanding, so we will need some time to upgrade this missile and meet the new requirements. So we are still acting according to plan,” he added.
According to Maksichev, the redesign effort is expected to take approximately one year before the program can proceed toward testing.
The latest delay adds another chapter to a missile project that has been under discussion for more than fifteen years. BrahMos Aerospace first unveiled the BrahMos-NG concept in March 2011 as part of its long-term strategy to develop a lighter and more versatile successor to the existing BrahMos missile family.
Despite sharing the BrahMos name, the BrahMos-NG is not simply a reduced-size variant of the current missile. Instead, it represents a clean-sheet design intended to deliver high-supersonic performance while significantly reducing weight and dimensions.
The objective has always been to create a missile suitable for carriage by a wider range of aircraft than the current BrahMos, which weighs roughly three tonnes and is restricted to larger platforms such as the Su-30MKI.
The BrahMos-NG is intended to be compact enough for lighter fighter aircraft including the Tejas Mk.1A and MiG-29UPG. Earlier plans also envisioned compatibility with the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA), a joint Indo-Russian project that was subsequently shelved.
Initial specifications projected a missile approximately six meters long and 0.5 meters in diameter. It was expected to travel at speeds of up to Mach 3.5 while carrying a warhead weighing between 200 and 300 kilograms. Its maximum range was estimated at around 290 kilometers, reflecting the restrictions imposed by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) prior to India’s membership.
Over the years, however, various reports have suggested substantial refinements to the design. In 2019, a BrahMos official reportedly told India Today that the missile length had been reduced to approximately five meters. The change immediately sparked speculation that the missile might be adapted for submarine torpedo-tube launches.
Subsequent reports strengthened that assessment, claiming the missile would be capable of launch from standard submarine torpedo tubes in a manner comparable to submarine-launched variants of the Exocet missile carried by Scorpène-class submarines.
Such a capability would significantly expand the missile’s operational flexibility. Instead of requiring dedicated vertical launch systems, the weapon could potentially be deployed from a broader range of conventional submarines already in service with the Indian Navy.
Yet torpedo-tube launch capability alone does not appear to explain the latest redesign effort.
The possibility of torpedo-tube launch has been publicly discussed since at least 2019, making it unlikely to qualify as a newly introduced requirement. This has prompted analysts to search for other explanations behind the customer-requested modifications that have delayed flight testing.
An important clue may lie in comments made by Maksichev himself less than a year ago.
In September 2025, he told TASS that BrahMos-NG remained in the working design stage and that the design phase would be completed during 2026 before autonomous testing could begin.
At the time, he cautioned that it was still premature to discuss actual flight-test schedules.
Those remarks suggested that the missile was still undergoing significant engineering development even before the latest changes emerged.
Additional uncertainty surfaced in April 2026 when Navbharat Times reported that the BrahMos-NG project had not yet received formal government clearance.
With Maksichev now confirming the existence of revised customer requirements, it appears possible that approval was withheld pending incorporation of additional qualitative demands into the design.
Among the most plausible explanations is a major propulsion-related change involving the missile’s ramjet engine.
Unlike the existing BrahMos missile, which uses a larger Russian-derived propulsion system, the BrahMos-NG requires a completely new ramjet engine scaled to fit a smaller and lighter airframe.
During Aero India 2019, BrahMos officials disclosed that Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia was developing the engine intended for the next-generation missile.
The engine was reportedly a clean-sheet design rather than a derivative of existing BrahMos propulsion technology. Feasibility studies and engineering analyses were believed to have been completed around 2020, setting the stage for subsequent development.
However, India’s strategic emphasis on defense self-reliance has intensified considerably since then.
As a result, it is conceivable that the Indian Ministry of Defence—currently the primary customer for the BrahMos-NG—has requested that the missile be redesigned around an indigenous ramjet engine rather than a Russian-developed propulsion system.
Such a decision would align with broader government efforts to reduce dependence on imported defense technologies and strengthen domestic industrial capabilities.
India has already made significant progress in localizing production of the existing BrahMos missile. Initially, BrahMos Aerospace assembled missiles in India using ramjet engines manufactured in Russia’s Orenburg region.
Subsequent technology-transfer agreements enabled increasing levels of indigenous production.
Today, India manufactures key airframe and propulsion-related assemblies domestically. These include metallic and composite structures that form part of the ramjet fuel tank, fuel-delivery systems, and other critical components.
Building upon the experience gained through the BrahMos joint venture, India launched independent liquid-fuelled ramjet (LFRJ) development efforts through the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
The Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), a key DRDO facility, has been developing a technology-demonstrator ramjet engine with a diameter of approximately 350 millimeters.
The demonstrator serves as the propulsion core of DRDO’s Supersonic TARget (STAR) program.
Designed primarily as a target drone for training air-defense and air-to-air missile systems, STAR employs a booster-ramjet propulsion arrangement capable of speeds ranging from Mach 1.8 to Mach 2.5. Depending on the mission profile, the system can achieve ranges between 55 and 175 kilometers while operating at altitudes from near sea level up to 10 kilometers.
The program has evolved beyond its original training role and is increasingly viewed as a potential basis for combat-capable missile systems.
Defense observers have suggested that variants could eventually perform anti-ship, anti-radiation, and even anti-AWACS missions at substantially lower cost than larger cruise missiles.
Reports have also indicated that derivatives of the DRDL liquid-fuelled ramjet are being considered for integration into the BrahMos-NG program.
Further evidence emerged in November 2025 when DRDO reportedly issued a Request for Information seeking a Development-cum-Production Partner for an advanced LFRJ engine program.
Although the agency did not publicly identify the intended end-user platform, many analysts interpreted the move as a precursor to indigenous propulsion development for BrahMos-NG.
If DRDL has now finalized key design parameters for such an engine, it could explain why the missile itself requires modification.
Even relatively small dimensional differences between a Russian-designed ramjet and an Indian-developed alternative could necessitate extensive redesign work. Missile propulsion systems affect not only internal packaging but also weight distribution, inlet geometry, fuel storage arrangements, thermal management, and aerodynamic performance.
Although ramjets are mechanically simpler than turbojet engines, they remain among the most technically demanding propulsion systems to develop successfully.
Challenges include high-temperature materials, inlet airflow optimization, combustion stability, fuel-flow control, and integration with the overall missile airframe.
Consequently, propulsion technology often represents one of the last major dependencies that countries seek to eliminate when pursuing full missile-industry self-sufficiency.
Should India ultimately decide to field BrahMos-NG with a domestically developed ramjet engine, the move would represent a significant milestone in the country’s missile-development journey.
The decision would likely increase development risk and may result in additional schedule delays beyond the currently projected one-year redesign period.
However, proponents argue that such risks are acceptable when weighed against the long-term strategic benefits of technological independence.
India already possesses access to proven imported propulsion technologies through its partnership with Russia and could continue procuring foreign systems if urgent operational requirements emerge.
Temporary dependence during a developmental transition is widely viewed as less problematic than embedding permanent reliance on foreign suppliers into a next-generation indigenous weapons program.
Whether the latest redesign is indeed driven by propulsion-related changes remains unconfirmed. Yet as BrahMos-NG enters another year of development, the balance between rapid deployment and strategic self-reliance appears increasingly central to the missile’s future.
For now, flight testing remains on hold, and one of India’s most anticipated missile projects will continue its evolution behind the drawing board before it finally reaches the launch pad.
