Indian Hypersonic Propulsion Developments
- Thread starter Ashwin
- Start date
The new hypersonic propulsion will be ready in two years.
Only thing it has is speed nothing more... In all likelihood it's Zircon build in India. Characteristics will be similar to Zircon with top speed of Mach 9 if Russians sources are to be believed ( highly unlikely ) & terminal speed of Mach 5 to 6. It's thermal signature will be off the charts.... Easily detectable but hard to intercept for now. What we really need to invest heavily is in VLO based subsonic cruise missile like SCALP & AGM 158C.....Stealth will triumph speed in future wars against all type of AD weapons.
Speed matters bro! That's why BrahMos is so deadly. In fact, it's far more deadly and harder to intercept than the stealthy Scalp-EG. Hypersonic Cruise Missiles, flying nap of the earth profile are going to be nightmares for IADS to stop.
Even the French are developing RJ10 Supersonic Cruise missile for future SEAD/Anti-Ship role. It's going to be complemented by TP-15 aka Scalp-EG replacement.
Not like that actually, most likely HCM in the initial version will be a mach 7 scramjet mode and mach 2 terminal impact speed article.
About the detection part, wait for a nice surprise.
Nature of warfare is such dynamic that there is nothing foolproof weapon system. Igla has great record against subsonic cm.
By the times, they come in west, we shall be operating Hypersonic Brahmos with Mach 9 speed with burn time of 1050 second+. We can hit China main land from sea or from borders of India.
Sirjee none of the next gen hypersonic missions will have scramjet operation of such duration. It is done just to prove that the tech is valid and the combustor is robust enough that it can handle long duration burn like such under ground level test conditions (70 bar pressure at sea level). This is similar to load testing where to prove the load carrying capacity of a certain rating the company has to show 1.5 times safe load handling which satisfies the factor of safety of that load carrying product, usually 1.5-2 times. This does not mean for a 1 ton rated lifting belt you should lift more , it can tear anytime.
Actual scramjet operation would be somewhere between 200-300sec initially. The missile would comfortably be quick reaction and cover roughly 600km+ ground level distance and hit a target. When Prahaar was tested it covered 150km in under 250sec in a complete ballistic flight profile, without much engagement of control surfaces and trajectory optimisation. It was conceived as longer range arty mainly So you can easily understand how much further a mach 6-7 article in 30-40km altitude would go.
Range is not the concern, only cowards try to throw stuff from afar. If you are in aggressive pose, you would like to hit from as close as possible.
In this particular interview, he is talking about DRDO development. It will be a fully Indian missile. Why would we rebrand it as part of the Russian-owned BrahMos Aerospace? If there is a Brahmos 2 it will be Zircon. If its DRDO project it will not be given to Brahmos.
Your example is inappropriate because you intend to lift that load again and again. It has repeated use while missile is fired once only. Does ISRO rockets which burns for say 110 second in ground are actually burnt for 30 seconds in actual flight? No, what is their burn time in test is actual time in flight.
In case of missiles ie the final product there will be various burn times according to the spec selected by a committee , for instance the solid rocket motor booster stage will lift the article to a desired altitude of operation. But this solid motor burn time is not calculated with the scramjet burn time for the hypersonic cruise mission. The hypersonic phase where the scramjet is ignited has its own burn duration suitable for the range envelope the missile is intended for. Like if you need to cover 500-600km , a mach 6 to 6.5 operation for a duration of 200-240 sec is ok. The total mission duration ie total time of flight will be different to the scramjet operation part. This is easy to understand. If the velocity is almost 2km per second horizontally , then unless you do a steep dive from high up at a high angle of attack (80deg) there is good chance the accuracy will be poor because only a velocity trimming mechanism can provide the necessity homing in with accuracy towards a fixed target.
The longer burn duration is to prove the core scramjet technology, that the combustor part is capable of operation upto or more than 1000 sec duration. This will be proven and certified. Based on this tech demo, the final product ie missile variants can be created according to various range of target.
The missiles will not be different for different distance target. Did we use different Brahmos for different distance targets? Missile to be used shall be same. If distance is less, missile will hit target with spare fuel. If the target is far away, missile will hit target with less amount of fuel left. It is simple. No need to make it complicated.
US has a hypersonic Quick strike program which aims to hit distance beyond 2500 k.m. Why would you reduce the range when your engine is capable to burn for 1050 second. If atall any effort is made, it will be to enhance the range not to reduce it.
Currently there is only 1 or 2 versions available (old MTCR 290km and Brahmos ER 400+km onwards) and if we go by block basis then there are Block III Brahmos with steep dive capability. Hence Sir it is true that there are different Brahmos for different range targets , hence also the old versions are software upgraded to remove the 300km restriction. In future we will have Brahmos NG and Brahmos LR available.
The difference is the different phase of operations. You did not mention the spent solid fuel booster part Sir. That part is always spent as it is used to gain the required kinetic thrust to start the ramjet. The scramjet operation will also be similar technically. Without this solid fuel based booster the ramjet will not start. Similarly the scramjet will also not start if not attain certain kinetic thrust.
As for the fuel, the amount of fuel filled in the missile is mission specific and center of gravity, mass etc testing is done to find the equilibrium for op. The amount of fuel is unlikely to be for 1000sec + operation because here the fuel itself also acts as the coolant inside the combustion chamber. Hence a large amount of fuel is needed and not all of it is to be burned for flight.
This program is completely different to a scramjet powered cruise mission. This quick strike program is akin to a BGRV/HGV with a common hypersonic glide body. In a way this is akin to the LRAShM program but in our case we made the kill vehicle part customised for anti ship mission.
There are 2 types of hypersonic propulsion, one is powered propulsion via scramjet that will operate at a much lower altitude. The other is the unpowered glide where you send the glide body up to a high altitude at a very high speed so the initial kinematic thrust is so high, the glide body uses its own special aerodynamic shape & lift generating surfaces to generate enough aerodynamic lift to cover a long distance by gliding in the atmosphere.