DRDO successfully conducted two tests of the indigenously-developed Astra missile from a ground based launcher. The tests followed DRDO’s earlier captive flight trials of the missile from a Sukhoi-30 MKI.

Astra is a beyond visual range air-to-air missile. Once operational, India will join the club of the select countries such as US, Russia, Israel and France which have such technologies. The missile is “designed for an 80 km range in head-on mode and 20 km range in tail-chase mode.”1

• 1. ‘Astra test-fired successfully’, January 12, 2010 at http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Astra+test-fired+suc...