New Delhi: A vertical deep dive version of the home-grown BrahMos supersonic missile has been successfully test-fired by India. CEO of BrahMos Aerospace, Sudhir Kumar Mishra, said on Sunday that the upgraded version of the world's fastest supersonic cruise missile which has an enhanced range of up to 500 km was also ready.

In an interview, Mishra also added that if needed, the range of this missile could also be increased because India was now a part of the prestigious Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

With this, India has attained the status of becoming the only country in the world to integrate long-range missiles onto fighter jets with the test-firing of the BrahMos missile from a Sukhoi 30 aircraft of the Indian Air Force.

BrahMos missile cruises at a speed of Mach 2.8, which is almost three times more than the speed of sound. It is the heaviest weapon to be deployed on the Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighters.

Speaking to state-run Doordarshan News, Mishra said, “We can take on any ship at sea up to 300 to 400 km and after some time, maybe longer; we can take on land targets up to hundreds of km and with the test that we have conducted some time back (from Sukhoi Su-30MKI), ranges up to thousands of km."

BrahMos has become a weapon of choice for all three armed forces -the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, Mishra said. He added that the owing to the 90-degree version, the missile has also become an ultimate aircraft carrier killer.

Mishra asserted that the technologies developed by the BrahMos Aerospace were not available either in India or Russia earlier, news agency PTI reported.

The governments of India and Russia co-own the BrahMos Aerospace, and its missiles are produced in India.

Meanwhile, former Deputy Chief of the Army, Lt General Subrata Saha, also stated that the steep dive version of the missile was a "game-changer for mountain warfare," the news agency quoted him as saying during the program.

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