India's STAR Supersonic Target Missile: Ground Testing, But No Flight Yet

The STAR Supersonic Target Missile has been in development for years, but despite numerous design refinements and component fabrication, it's yet to conduct a publicly confirmed flight test. The programme has repeatedly slipped its own timeline, with early wind tunnel testing and design changes pointing toward demonstration trials by 2023-24, a target that came and went without a confirmed test.

The STAR missile is designed to simulate the flight profile of modern anti-ship cruise missiles and fast attack aircraft, providing a cost-effective training platform for naval crews and air defence operators. The system uses a liquid fuel ramjet engine boosted to ignition speed by a solid rocket first stage, a propulsion approach shared with the BrahMos family.

Ramjet-powered programmes like STAR tend to slip due to the inherent difficulty of validating the engine on the ground, requiring extensive wind tunnel and ground testing before a single flight article can be risked. The STAR missile's design changes following wind tunnel testing, reported as far back as 2022, point to exactly this kind of iterative refinement process, where each adjustment to the airframe or intake geometry can cascade into further validation work before flight clearance is granted.

But what's behind STAR's prolonged pre-flight phase? One reason is the expanding mission scope of the programme. DRDO has more recently signalled interest in evolving STAR technology toward combat-oriented applications such as anti-AWACS and anti-radiation missions, alongside a parallel air-launched variant intended for platforms like the Tejas. Expanding a programme's operational requirements mid-development typically forces designers back through additional validation cycles, particularly around seeker miniaturisation and performance in contested electromagnetic environments, both of which have been flagged as open engineering challenges for the STAR platform.

With DRDO's own commentary pointing to Phase-III integration and validation work continuing through 2025 and into 2026, and separate industry analysis suggesting STAR could move into limited production and user trials only by late 2026 or early 2027, the programme's actual maiden flight remains the milestone to watch. Until DRDO or the Ministry of Defence confirms a successful first test from a range such as Chandipur or Abdul Kalam Island, STAR's status should be read as a system that is mature on paper and in ground testing but has not yet cleared the one step that would validate all of that work in the air.

The STAR missile's prolonged development phase is not unusual set against the track record of India's other liquid fuel ramjet programmes. The BrahMos-NG project, which shares the same propulsion lineage, has itself seen its flight trials pushed back by roughly a year after the customer introduced more demanding requirements late in the design cycle, according to BrahMos Aerospace's joint Russian management.

Only a successful first test from a range such as Chandipur or Abdul Kalam Island will validate all of STAR's ground work in the air, and pave the way for the STAR missile to become a key component of India's military training and combat operations.