NEW DELHI: Indian President A P J Abdul Kalam on Thursday said that the country should aim to develop a “hypersonic” version of the supersonic cruise missile Brahmos to maintain supremacy in force levels, PTI said.

“Time has come for BrahMos Aerospace to work on Mark-II version of Brahmos,” President Kalam, himself a missile scientist, said adding it would enable India to be a market leader in hypersonic cruise missiles.

PTI said turning Brahmos into a hypersonic missile would mean incorporating scramjet technology, on which Indian defence scientists are already working to give it capability to attain Mach 8 speeds and to enhance its range considerably Inducting the surface-to-surface version of missile into the army on Thursday, Mr Kalam suggested to scientists to develop re-usable class of cruise missiles.

“I visualise long range hypersonic cruise missiles not only delivering pay loads, but also returning to base after the mission,” Mr Kalam said while handing over a replica of the missile to India's Army Chief Gen J J Singh.