A tale of two missiles

摘要

India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which has covered a substantial ground in designing and developing a variety of missiles for use of the three wings of services is now working towards the realisation of short range air-to-air Astra missile and the long range, surface to surface subsonic terrain hugging Nirbhay missile. While Astra is now through the qualification trials, the maiden test flight of Nirbhay, meaning fearless in the Indian classical language French origin Mirage-2000 and the home grown Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas. The maximum range of Astra which means weapon in Sanskrit is 80-km in head on chase mode and 20-km in tail chase mode.