Article Posted on : - Sep 15, 2008

NEW DELHI (BNS): India has successfully conducted two flight tests of Astra beyond visual range (BVR) air-to-air missile on September 14, from the Interim Test Range in Balasore, on Bay of Bengal, as part of the second phase of missile development flight trials.

Astra is designed for a range of over 80 km in head-on mode and 20 km in tail-chase mode. A state-of-the-art beyond visual range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM), it can engage highly manoeuvring targets. The programme is headed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

The missiles were launched from a ground launcher. The main objective of these flight tests were to test mid-course guidance of missiles towards manoeuvring target aircraft using secured data link.

Simulated aircraft flight parameters were used for these flight tests. All missile systems comprising of launcher, propulsion, airframe, mission computer, navigation system, autopilot , flight control system, data link and telemetry system have worked satisfactorily and as per design, the DRDO said in a statement.

Led by Venugopalan, director, DRDL, Hyderabad, the team included Dr Gollakota, project director (Astra), SP Dash, director, ITR, Balasore project team and representatives of participating Industry.