INDIA'S BEST CRUISE MISSILE

INTRODUCTION- A cruise missile is basically a small, pilotless airplane. Cruise missiles have an 8.5-foot (2.61-meter) wingspan, are powered by turbofan engines and can fly 500 to 1,000 miles (805 to 1,610 km) depending on the configuration.

WORKING- A cruise missile's job in life is to deliver a 1,000-pound (450-kg) high-explosive bomb to a precise location the target. The missile is destroyed when the bomb explodes. Since cruise missiles cost between $500,000 and $1,000,000 each, it's a fairly expensive way to deliver a 1,000-pound package.

Cruise missiles come in a number of variations (see the links at the end of the article for more information) and can be launched from submarines, destroyers or aircraft Cruise missiles are 20 feet (6.25 meters) long and 21 inches (0.52 meters) in diameter. At launch, they include a 550-pound (250-kg) solid rocket booster and weigh 3,200 pounds (1450 kg).

The booster falls away once it has burned its fuel. The wings, tail fins and air inlet unfold, and the turbofan engine takes over. This engine weighs just 145 pounds (65 kg) and produces 600 pounds thrust burning RJ4 fuel. The fuel load is 800 to 1,000 pounds (about 450 kg) of fuel at launch, or approximately 150 gallons (600 liters). The missile has a cruising speed of 550 mph (880 kph).

GUIDANCE

The hallmark of a cruise missile is its incredible accuracy. A common statement made about the cruise missile is, "It can fly 1,000 miles and hit a target the size of a single-car garage." Cruise missiles are also very effective at evading detection by the enemy because they fly very low to   ground (out of the view of most radar)

Four different systems help guide a cruise missile to its target:

Ø  IGS - Inertial Guidance System

Ø  Tercom - Terrain Contour Matching

Ø  GPS – Global Positioning System

Ø  DSMAC - Digital Scene Matching Area Correlation

The IGS is a standard acceleration-based system that can roughly keep track of where the missile is located based on the accelerations it detects in the missile's motor.  Tercom uses an on-board 3-D database of the terrain the missile will be flying over. The Tercom system "sees" the terrain it is flying over using its radar systems and matches this to the 3-D map stored in memory. The Tercom system is responsible for a cruise missile's ability to "hug the ground" during flight. The GPS system uses the military's network of GPS satellites and an onboard GPS receiver to detect its position with very high accuracy.

The DSMAC system uses a camera and an image correlate to find the target.