China's CX-1 missile is not copy of BrahMos: Ex-DRDO scientist

INDORE: A noted defence scientist today rejected suggestions that China's new missile Chaoxun-1 (CX-1) was a copy of Indian supersonic cruise missile BrahMos.

The technology used in CX-1 and BrahMos, an Indo-Russian joint production, was completely different, said A Sivathanu Pillai, who formerly served as Chief Controller of Research and Development at DRDO.

In outward appearance, CX-1 resembles BrahMos, but similarity ends there. Both missiles are different products in terms of engine and other technological parameters. The Chinese missile has nothing to do with BrahMos, he maintained.

Pillai, a Padma Bhushan awardee and founder-CEO and Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd, is also called "the father of BrahMos".

The distinguished scientist, who was here to take part in a function at IIM-Indore, was talking to reporters on sidelines of the event.

Pillai said it was wrong to speculate that Russia had leaked BrahMos' technology to China so that the latter could produce a similar missile.

The supersonic cruise missile underwent first successful flight test in 2001 and since then superior versions of the weapon system have been developed, he said.

Pillai said to realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious 'Make in India' programme, there was a need to build a military-industry complex in the country in partnership between public and private companies.