The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Chairman G Sateesh Reddy recently in an interview confirmed that India’s premier developmental trial of a Nirbhay cruise missile equipped with an indigenous Small Turbo Fan Engine (STFE) developed by DRDO’s Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) will be tested soon in coming days.
Nirbhay is the country’s first home-designed and developed long-range cruise missile that can carry 200-300 Kilograms warheads and can hit land targets at a distance of up to 1,000 Kilometers. Nirbhay Long Range Land Attack Cruise Missile is already deployed in limited numbers with Russian NPO Saturn 36MT mini turbofan but India is enhancing the missile system with a more indigenous system that includes a new radio frequency seeker.
Navy and DRDO have agreed to work on the development of a new class of Long-Range Land Attack Cruise Missile that will have a longer range than Army and Air Force variant to be integrated on frontline Naval warships and both India’s Nuclear Attack submarine program and India’s Project-75I program for Six new generations conventional-Diesel submarine program.
