Ballistic missile and Cruise missile difference UPSC 

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What is Ballistic missile? What is cruise missile? What is the main difference between them? 

Ballistic vs Cruise 

A missile is a targeted weapon with self propelled flight. They are kind of rocket intended to hit a target. There are five major components to make a missile properly work.

• Guidance System 
• Targeting system 
• Flight System 
• Engine 
• Warhead 
Many kind of missiles exist in the world such as Ballistic missiles,cruise missiles,Air to air missiles,surface to air missiles etc. In this blog we will focus on Ballistic and Cruise missiles. 

Ballistic missile 

Before diving into what ballistic missile is,we need to understand the term "Ballistic". What does it mean? 
If you go through class 11 Physics textbook,you will see a kind of motion that is projectile motion. A projectile motion is something in which the objects follows a parabolic trajectory . 

Ballistic Trajectory

The study of such motion is called Ballistics and the trajectory is ballistic trajectory.
 A ballistic missile follows a ballistic trajectory over most of its flight path. The target is predetermined. They are powered by rockets or stages of rockets, but once the fuel is burnt they follow a unpowered trajectory and with the help of gravity, they attack the target.  They can carry nuclear warhead or any kind of warheads.  Ballistic missiles can travel a lot of distance .

         Short range.     :  less than 1000 km 

         Medium range : 1000-3000 km 

         Intermediate    : 3000-5500 km 

        Long range.        : More than 5500 km such as Intercontinental ballistic missiles( ICBM). 

Ballistic missile

Cruise missile 

Cruise missiles are like unmanned aircrafts that are propelled by jet engines. The basic difference between Ballistic and Cruise missile is once the ballistic missile is launched and fuel is burnt the trajectory cannot be changed, whereas in case of Cruise missile, it is self guided, it can change its trajectory any time even after launching with the help of technology. 
Cruise missile remains in the atmosphere and in its flight  path, the velocity is always approximately constant. It can fly as low as the metre off the ground. That's why its its hard to detect.  

BrahMos Cruise missile