BrahMos Aerospace has expressed strong confidence that the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile will remain effectively impossible to intercept well into the next decade, underscoring the weapon’s central role in India’s conventional deterrence posture despite rapid advances in global air defence technology.
According to a senior official associated with the Indo-Russian joint venture, the probability of a single BrahMos missile being shot down will remain negligible through at least the mid-2030s, with survivability potentially extending up to 2040. The official argued that even as adversaries deploy more advanced sensors, integrated air defence networks and space-based tracking systems, the missile’s design philosophy has already anticipated and mitigated such threats.
“The BrahMos has been engineered to defeat layered defences, not just one generation of them,” the official said, adding that in operational scenarios the missile retains a theoretical interception rate of zero per cent. This assessment, the official noted, is backed by both extensive testing and real-world combat validation.
That combat record was most recently reinforced during Operation Sindoor in May 2025, when India carried out a series of precision strikes against terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan. During the operation, Indian Air Force Sukhoi-30MKI fighters launched coordinated salvos of air-launched BrahMos missiles. According to defence officials, every missile successfully penetrated enemy air defences and struck its assigned target, further cementing the BrahMos’s reputation as the backbone of India’s strategic conventional strike capability.
BrahMos Aerospace officials also pointed to recent geopolitical conflicts to contextualise the missile’s survivability. In particular, they cited the performance of Russia’s P-800 Oniks cruise missile during the Ukraine war. The P-800, widely regarded as the technological precursor to the BrahMos, was employed against targets protected by sophisticated, Western-backed air defence systems. Despite this, its interception rate was assessed at only around six per cent.
Defence analysts attribute such low interception figures to the unforgiving physics of supersonic sea-skimming flight. Travelling at speeds between Mach 2.8 and Mach 3 at altitudes as low as 10 to 15 metres, missiles like BrahMos remain below the radar horizon for most of their trajectory. As a result, defending radar systems detect them only at the last moment, often leaving air defence batteries with mere seconds to react before impact.
Looking ahead to the threat environment of 2040, the official acknowledged that India’s regional adversaries, notably Pakistan and China, are investing heavily in countermeasures. These include Gallium Nitride (GaN)-based Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars, faster data fusion networks, and high-velocity interceptors specifically designed to engage supersonic cruise missiles.
Even in what the official described as a “worst-case scenario,” where such technologies are fully matured and deployed, the projected interception rate for BrahMos would likely top out at just 15 to 20 per cent. The scale, complexity and financial cost of building dense, nationwide air defence shields along long land borders and vast maritime approaches make comprehensive coverage improbable, preserving the missile’s tactical edge.
At the heart of the BrahMos’s enduring dominance are its unique flight and guidance characteristics. The missile combines sustained supersonic speed with an advanced guidance package that integrates inertial navigation with satellite updates for mid-course corrections. In its terminal phase, the missile executes a high-G “S-manoeuvre,” sharply weaving to defeat close-in weapon systems and last-ditch interceptors.
Since entering service, the BrahMos family has evolved significantly. Its range has expanded from the original 290 km to newer variants capable of striking targets at distances between 450 km and 900 km, offering Indian commanders flexible strike options across land, sea and air domains.
Beyond 2040, BrahMos Aerospace is already looking to the next leap in capability. Development is underway on the BrahMos-2, a hypersonic successor expected to conduct its first flight tests around 2028. Designed to fly at speeds exceeding Mach 7 and powered by scramjet technology, the future missile is intended to exploit immense kinetic energy and hypersonic trajectories, potentially rendering current air defence systems obsolete and securing India’s deep-strike capabilities for decades to come.
