new delhi india on sunday finally tested its first indigenous airtoair missile astra from a sukhoi30mki fighter jet marking a significant turning point in the decadelong tortuous developmental saga of the complex beyond visual range bvr weapon the testfiring of the sleek bvr missile over the arabian sea off goa is the first concrete step after several false starts and technical glitches like a defective aerodynamic configuration since the project was first sanctioned in march 2004 at an initial cost of rs 955 crore astra will now have to undergo a battery of fullscale trials covering the entire flight envelope especially against actual manoeuvring targets mimicking enemy aircraft before it can arm iaf fighters like sukhoi30mkis mig29s and the indigenous tejas light combat aircraft drdo however is now confident it will be able to meet the revised project completion date of december 2016 astra is to initially have a 44km range with high singleshot kill probability while its markii version will be able to hit enemy aircraft over 100 km away astras successful launch from the sukhoi30mki is a major step in missileaircraft integration this will be followed by missile launch against an actual target shortly many more trials are planned and will be conducted to clear the launch envelope weapon integration with tejas will also be done in the near future said drdo chief avinash chander india is also slated to begin testing the 290km supersonic brahmos cruise missile from the heavyduty sukhoi30mkis by the end of this year as earlier reported by toi so while astra is designed to take care of enemy aircraft brahmos will give surgical landstrike capability against hostile targets the importance of having an indigenous airtoair bvr missile cannot be overstated with iaf jets currently armed with very expensive russian french and israeli missiles with target lockon capabilities both before and after launch excellent eccm electronic countercounter measures active radar terminal guidance smokeless propulsion and process improved effectiveness in multitarget scenarios drdo says the allweather astra will fit the bill for advanced air combat only a few countries like the us russia france and israel have managed to develop bvr missiles till now equipped with rocketramjet propulsion microcomputers active radar guidanceinertial navigation systems terminal radar frequency seekers and the like such missiles have to destroy highlyagile supersonic fighters packed with countermeasures at long ranges all astra systems except the rf seeker are made in the country the seeker too will be produced in india under a transfer of technology programme once fully operational astra will be much cheaper than contemporary bvr missiles said an official