Russia Preps Mach 7 Missiles — With India’s Help

If it works, the missile — called the BrahMos 2 — is expected to travel up to Mach 7 from sea-, land- and air-launched platforms. And it’s supposed to be ready for flight tests in 2017, which is overly optimistic, at best. “I think we will need about 5 years to develop the first fully functional prototype,” Sivathanu Pillai, CEO of India-based BraHmos Aerospace said in Moscow on Wednesday. Pillai also suggested the missile already exists, and that BrahMos has conducted ”lab tests [of the missile] at the speed of 6.5 Mach.”

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/hypersonic/