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CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories unveiled three indigenous micro and small gas turbine engines at the SSB Auditorium, CSIR Headquarters, New Delhi, on 25 August 2026.
The engines are named NJ-05, NJ-50 and NJ-100, with thrust ratings of 5 kg, 50 kg and 100 kg respectively.
They are designed for tactical unmanned aerial vehicles, drone interceptors and compact missile systems.
The NJ-100 was developed using data from earlier flight tests of the scaled-down NJ-5 technology demonstrator.
Air Marshal Tejinder Singh, Chief of Integrated Defence Staff, was Chief Guest; CSIR Director General Dr N. Kalaiselvi linked the engines to the Atmanirbhar Bharat framework.
A gas turbine is an internal combustion engine that draws in air, compresses it, mixes it with fuel, burns the mixture, and expands the hot gases through a turbine to produce thrust or shaft power. The thermodynamic cycle it follows is the Brayton cycle, which is also the basis of jet propulsion and gas-turbine power generation. Miniaturising this to micro and small sizes is difficult for two reasons: the turbomachinery must spin at very high RPM to stay efficient at small diameters, and the combustor must sustain high-temperature combustion in a very small volume. Those two constraints are why compact propulsion has been a persistent import dependency for unmanned platforms.
Simple Analogy: Like a hand-held fan that draws air in at one end and blows it out much faster at the other - except the air is set alight in between, so what leaves is hot, fast and forceful enough to push an aircraft.
India's civil aerospace research laboratory; works on aircraft design, composites, aerodynamics and propulsion. Its programmes include the HANSA-3(NG) all-composite two-seater trainer and the 19-seater SARAS Mk-2 light transport aircraft
India's largest publicly funded R&D organisation, a consortium of national laboratories of which NAL is a constituent unit
India's larger engine effort is the Kaveri programme of DRDO's Gas Turbine Research Establishment, Bengaluru; the NJ family addresses the opposite end of the size range, where imports have dominated.
Drone interceptors need small, high-thrust engines producible in volume - a supply-chain question as much as a technology one, which is why NAL asked startups to take up manufacture.
The same laboratory produced the HANSA-3(NG) trainer and is developing the SARAS Mk-2, making NAL India's principal civil-aerospace design house.
Announced the same week as the Defence Ministry's transfer of all DRDO conventional missile technologies to industry - both move strategic sub-systems towards domestic manufacture.
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A compact gas turbine engine used on unmanned and lightweight aerospace platforms where low weight and small dimensions are decisive.
The thermodynamic cycle - compression, constant-pressure combustion, expansion - on which gas turbine engines and jet propulsion operate.
The forward force an engine produces, here expressed in kilograms and used to name the NJ-05, NJ-50 and NJ-100.
A prototype built to prove a concept in flight or on the ground; the NJ-5 demonstrator supplied the test data for the NJ-100.
A powered aerial platform designed to pursue and neutralise a hostile unmanned aircraft.