NEW DELHI, Jan 21: A supersonic cruise missile jointly developed by Russia and India failed to hit its target in a test previously reported as successful, Indian military scientists said on Wednesday.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation, which on Tuesday claimed the test of the BrahMos missile had been a “total success,” said the missile had flown only in the general direction of its target.

“The missile performance was absolutely normal till the last phase, but it missed the target, though it maintained the direction,” BrahMos project chief Sivathanu Pillai told the Press Trust of India.

The eight-metre missile weighs about three tons and can be launched from land, ships, submarines or aircraft. It has a range of 290km and is designed to carry a conventional warhead.

The missile was fired from the Pokhran range in the western desert state of Rajasthan.

The Times of India newspaper on Wednesday suggested the failure was the result of an attempt to configure the missile to carry a nuclear warhead.

Pillai did not comment on the report but said his scientists were trying to debug the guidance system of a missile that had been tested 20 times in the past eight years.

“A new software used for this mission will be revalidated through extensive simulations and a flight trial will be carried out in a month’s time to prove the augmented capabilities of the missile,” he said.—AFP