DRDO conducts five successful trials of air-to-air missile ‘Astra’

Indian Air Force (IAF) conducted the trials against Jet Banshee target aircraft simulating all possible threat scenarios.

The five trials conducted during this period tested missiles in different configurations. During the campaign, three missiles were launched in combat configuration with warhead and manoeuvring targets were neutralized to establish the end game capability of the missile. The trial campaign also included a direct hit of the target by the telemetered missile at maximum range. All the subsystems performed accurately meeting all the mission parameters and objectives, a defence ministry release stated.

Astra BVRAAM has range of more than 100 km with modern guidance and navigation techniques. The missile has midcourse guidance and RF seeker based terminal guidance to achieve target destruction with pin point accuracy.

DRDO and IAF have now successfully completed the user trial phase of the state-of-the-art BVRAAM weapon system. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has played a role in modifying the aircraft for weapon integration. More than 50 public and private industries have contributed in building the Astra weapon system.

The present flight trials have proved the end-to-end performance of the missile system in various combat scenarios, giving greater confidence to users. The five successful trials of Astra will culminate into induction of the missile system into Indian Air Force, which will certainly be a force multiplier considering its accuracy and effectiveness in neutralizing aerial threats.

G Satheesh Reddy, secretary, Department of Defence R&D and chairman, DRDO, congratulated team ‘Astra’ for developing and flight testing such a formidable weapon system. The technologies developed under the programme will be the building blocks for development of future variants of Air-to-Air and Surface-to-Air Missiles.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh also congratulated DRDO and IAF teams for the successful trials.