That is not a great speed for Ballistic missile. Agni V goes over Mach 25 in space. This speed is a speed where they travel in space where there is no resistance of air. Almost all the ballistic missiles of over 500 k.m range are hypersonic in high altitude. That is why they are not considered very special. Even our outdated Pruthvi missile used to travel at a speed more than double the speed of Brahmos but nobody talk of pruthvi. Whole Agni series is more than Mach 10.
When anybody talks of faster missiles such as Brahmos or Khinzal or Zircon, its specialty is that they achieves a great speed inside atmosphere at low altitude where they are not visible because of line of site. When they are visible, you are left with no time to intercept it.
Fatah 2 like missile goes very high in space and visible from a long distance. You can plant to counter it by sending interceptor.
Mix of cruise and ballistic is called hypersonic glide vehicle. In this category, missile travels like ballistic missile, enters atmosphere like ballistic missile and in terminal stage, they starts traveling like cruise missile using a great kinetic energy they gathered while gong high. This is an advancement over simple ballistic missile. It uses rocket engine. India has many missile in this category. China was farting a lot by testing one such missile. India has many missile in this category.
There is an another category of missile like K 15 and shaurya which uses depressed trajectory but uses rocket engine. They are heavy because you have to put a big amount of fuel to counter air drag.
The most technologically advance missile are one that uses Ramjet and scramjet engines. These are special engines which does not carry oxidizer with them. They uses atmospheric air to burn fule and hence they are light in weight. However, they requires booster to achieve a speed where fuel can automatically start burning because rise in temperature because of compression in air. These category is most difficult to make and technology is very hard to master. India leads in this technology far ahead of China and US and competing with Russia for No.1 position. We are preparing for 1500 k.m range hypersonic scramjet powered missile test. Once we are successful, we shall be undisputed no 1 in this technology and category.
Indian Defense
