Astra Series Air to Air Missiles

[Gautam]

Hello everyone, i'm new here. I love Indian missile in how they managed to develop them starting from scratch and making good missiles.
I especially love the Astra in how the missile is always upgraded and will be competitive with the metor with the MK3.
I'm trying to understand how does the second pulse on the MK2 works. Is it like this image with something physical separating the two pulse?
(Image taken from twitter)

https://twitter.com/x/status/1978127305571533265

I could be wrong, but here is what I understand.

The part labelled "PPSD" contains the ignitor of the 1st pulse & a cap that separates the 2 pulses. The 1st pulse is the bigger of the 2. This will provide the kinetic energy needed to catch up to the target. The missile will coast for a while until the missile seeker catches up to the target. Then the 2nd pulse will be ignited, the ignitor is marked as "PRSM". The burning gasses from this pulse will blast open the cap that physically separates the two pulses.

The cap is like a one-way valve. Pressure from the 2nd pulse can open it, but pressure from the 1st pulse in the opposite direction won't budge it. Don't know how this cap is designed, made, what material is used etc.

The Astra Mk1/2 are good missiles, but it still has some way to go. I would like to see the big cruciform wings reduced in size or at least be foldable. This configuration is okay for external carry, but not good for internal carry in a IWB. The Mk3 will also have the same problem. There it is the ducted intakes, not the fins, that will cause this problem.

 

[Gautam]

Technocraft Industries is an Indian company that recently developed a Joule-Thompson cooler. This is guarded technology under ITAR & are used to cool IR seekers in missiles. The cooler was developed under TDF sanction in 2020 & has recently passed DRDO certification tests.




There was some talk of making an IR guided variant of the Astra Mk1. This could be a piece of that puzzle.

They are also involved in the making of a LR-SAM. They say in their website it is an Indo-Israeli project, so Barak-8ER? Doesn't an ER version of the Barak-8 exist already? Are we making a new ER version for ourselves? But the image used is that of the Kusha M1 interceptors. Strange.