May 12, 2025 - The BrahMos Aerospace Integration and Testing Facility in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (UP), which was inaugurated yesterday, May 11, by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, is a joint venture between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s State-owned company NPO Mashinostroyenia (Scientific Production Association of Machine-Building). India holds a 50.5% and Russia holds 49.5% stake in BrahMos Aerospace.

BrahMos is a universal precision-strike missile that can be launched from land, sea and air platforms. It can be used in all weather conditions, for day-and-night operations.

This state-of-the-art unit has been established under the Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor, which includes six major nodes - Lucknow, Kanpur, Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi and Chitrakoot. The unit will be used for the assembly and testing of existing supersonic BrahMos cruise missiles.

Currently, BrahMos missiles are being produced in Thiruvananthapuram, Nagpur, Hyderabad and Pilani. Only lighter and next-generation missiles will be manufactured in Lucknow.

The corridor was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 2018 Global Investors' Summit. The UP government allocated 80 hectares of land free of cost for the project in 2021. The foundation stone was laid in 2021 and the entire project was completed in three-and-a-half years at a cost of Rs 300 crore.

This new unit will annually produce 80 to 100 BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles with a strike range of 290 to 400 kilometres, capable of flying at a maximum speed of Mach 2.8 (approximately 3,430 km/hour). Later, it will be expanded to produce 100 to 150 next-generation variants per year.

The next-generation BrahMos will weigh 1,260 kilograms, enabling fighter jets like the Sukhoi Su-30MKI to carry 3-to-5 missiles instead of just one. The current version of BrahMos weighs 2,900 kilograms.

It is India’s first defence joint venture launched with a foreign government.

With Media Inputs