India on Sunday successfully test-fired Astra, the indigenously developed air-to-air missile, with a strike range of 25 to 40km, for the second time in three days, from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, 15 km from Balasore in Orissa.

The 3.8metre high and ten-inch thick prototype of Astra, to form the main interception armour of the indigenously developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), lifted off from a specially erected fixed launcher at 1058 IST in Launch Complex No 2 of the ITR, the sources said.

The first test-launch of the missile had taken place on Friday.

"It is purely a technology demonstration. The aim of the trial is to make the missile and its subsystem hundred per cent error free," said a jubilant DRDO scientist.

Though the missile is designed for air-strike-and-defence-system, the thrust of the current trial was 'to fine tune its control and guidance system', he said.