Vertical Launch Short Range Surface To Air Missile:
Vertical Launch Short Range Surface to Air Missile (VL-SRSAM) was successfully flight-tested by Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Indian Navy from an Indian Naval Ship at Integrated Test Range (ITR), Chandipur off the coast of Odisha.
- VL-SRSAM has been designed and developed jointly by three facilities of the Defence Research and Development Organisation for deployment of Indian Naval warships.
- The missile has the capability of neutralizing various aerial threats at close ranges including sea-skimming targets.
- Sea skimming is a technique many anti-ship missiles and some fighter or strike aircraft use to avoid radar and infrared detection.
- The missile has been designed to strike high-speed airborne targets at the range of 40 to 50 km and at an altitude of around 15 km.
- Its design is based on Astra missile which is a Beyond Visual Range Air to Air missile.
- Astra (“weapon”) is India’s first air-to-air all weather beyond-visual-range active radar homing air-to-air missile, developed by the Defence Research and Development Organization.
- A Beyond-Visual-Range missile (BVR) is an air-to-air missile that is capable of engaging at ranges of 20 nautical miles or beyond.
- Features:
- Cruciform wings: They are four small wings arranged like a cross on four sides and give the projective a stable aerodynamic posture.
- Thrust Vectoring: It is the ability to change the direction of the thrust from its engine, control the angular velocity and the attitude of the missile.Thrust is the force which moves an aircraft through the air.
- Canisterised system: The inside environment is controlled, thus making its transport and storage easier and improving the shelf life of weapons.
