India: DRDO successfully flight tests Astra air-to-air missile from Su-30 MKI

September 2019 news defense aviation aerospace air force industry
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Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully flight-tested the Astra Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile (BVRAAM) from Su-30 MKI platform off the coast of Chandipur, Odisha. The trials were held from September 16-19, 2019. The trials were conducted by Indian Air Force (IAF) against Jet Banshee target aircraft simulating all possible threat scenarios.

India DRDO successfully flight tests Astra air to air missile from Su 30 MKI Astra BVRAAM in earlier flight test (Picture source: Indian MoD)

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 maneuvering 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.

Astra BVRAAM has range of more than 100 kilometers 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.

The effort for building a state-of-the-art BVRAAM by DRDO, together with IAF has completed the user trial phase of the weapon system successfully. 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.

Dr G Satheesh Reddy, Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman, DRDO congratulated team Astra for developing and flight testing such a formidable class of 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.

Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh congratulated DRDO and IAF teams for the successful trials.