ASTRA THE INDIGENOUSLY DEVELOPED BEYOND VISUAL RANGE AIR-TO-AIR MISSILE SUCCESSFULLY TEST FIRED FROM SU-30MKI
DRDO PRESS NOTE(UNEDITED)


Dr. V.G. Sekaran, Director General (MSS) who chaired the Flight Readiness Review Committee along with Shri. S Som, Director, DRDL, Shri. P Venugopalan, former Director, DRDL among others, said “This is one of the proud moments for DRDO and the entire country.” Dr. K Tamilmani, Director General (Aeronautics) who has overlooked the entire flight safety in the program said that quality of integration and performance is of high standards and there was no doubt in the success of the launch. He further added that this is the beginning of the phase for demonstration of launch over a wide air-launch envelope. The Project Director Dr. S. Venugopal said that “the Air Launch of ASTRA was perfect in all respect and is a culmination of years of effort by a very dedicated and competent team of the Missile Complex, Hyderabad, CEMILAC and Indian Air Force. HAL carried out the modification in Su-30 along with IAF specialists, and many Indian industries have an important and enabling role in the production of reliable avionics, propulsion system, materials, airframe and software passing stringent airworthiness requirements for the missile.” The missiles have undergone rigorous testing on Su30 in the captive mode for avionics integration and Seeker evaluation in 2013. The project has thus reached the final stage of testing and evaluation, and the Mk-II variant with higher range capability is also planned to be tested by the end of 2014