SECURITY SCAN : Dec 12, 2019

BVRAAM: BEYOND VISUAL RANGE AIR TO AIR MISSILE

•BVRAAM are designed to target at range of more than 30 km.

• India has recently developed its first indigenous BVRAAM called Astra, expected to be inducted soon in IAF with speed of Mach 4.5, the Astra has maximum range of 110 km when fired from an altitude of 15000 meters.

• India also asked France to equip first 4 Rafael Jets with Meteor. Meteor is active radar guided BVRAAM. BVRAAM provide capability to launched aircraft to detect its target at longer distance and then launch the Missile.

•In 50s and 60s, there were beam rider missile.

• The aircraft now (4th and 5th generation aircrafts) are loaded with aerial radars and these radar detect the target.

• When these aircrafts are flying towards target they continuously take updates from the launching aircraft and not only from launching aircraft, it can take the updates from third party sources (it can be a ground radar, airborne radar, and sea based radar.)

Distributary lethality-capability

-If a missile is going for a target but it finds there is more lucrative target which is available to it at that point and time, it can have a secondary kill ability.

•Between 2003 and 2019 almost 29 times tests have been carried out of various Astra’s, now India is approaching towards ‘Astra 2’.

•Solid fuel ducted ramjet- this technology was tested on 16 February 2019 by DRDO.

• Astra 2 will have a range of 160 km and speed of 2.3- 3.3 Mach.

•Meteor is having active radar which takes care of and game, that is terminal game, whereas our active radar which will have a range of 40 km.