The ASRAAM is stated as MACH 3+ with a boost sustain motor.
The concentration of aluminum in the engine is the main factor in the smoke and stealth of a missile.
Reducing the aluminum content reduces the rocket motor’s ISP, and therefore its power and Delta-V.
As for powders, they haven’t changed significantly for almost 50 years. The addition of aluminum brought a little boost, but the dosage had to be drastically reduced (to around 2%) to reduce smoke and improve the radar discretion of combustion products.
MICA uses a low-aluminium HTPB composite powder to reduce its EM trace ans smoke.
But even with low smoke, you can see it at high altitude. But don’t forget that the missile only burn for 6 seconds so it’s quite hard to see it.
Even if on the video, the ASRAAM look like it got almost no smoke, it could depend on the camera, the luminosity, and other factor we don’t take into acount. So if they were shot side by side maybe we woulnd’t remark the smoke difference too mutch.
Even if the ASRAAM is low smoke , it’s still a missile optimised for long range so it need to have a punchy rocket motor. You need to have some Aluminium (and so smoke) to have a better Delta-V (as explained earlier).
Here on the VL-MICA video, you can still see smoke but it’s a lot less than on the video you showed.
The 750M/S is just a figure MBDA used for a presentation.
Since the VL-MICA ,which is ground launched, has a maximum speed of MACH 3, it means the Delta-V of the MICA is around MACH 3 or 1160M/S.
The MICA can loft like the ASRAAM.
You can see on the video Flamme posted that the ASRAAM go directly up. I don’t think it could obtain 50km range while being a only 88kg missile without lofting.
Depends if you’re talking about the MICA IR or the MICA EM.
The MICA EM has a stated max range of around 80km.
The MICA IR has a stated max range of around 60km.
The difference is due to a less aerodynamic seeker head on the MICA IR.
