Rumor: astra-minor may be a distilled student model of Astra

Ananth @Ananth7eOriginally posted 2026.09.27

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astra-minor could be a distilled version of astra. as the name suggests, i believe astra is the parent model and astra-minor could be the student model. that's how it can get astra level capabilities without astra pricing. right now there's a big gap in openai's lineup. gpt-6 sol at $2/$10. astra at $10/$50. nothing in between. and opus 5.5 is sitting at $4/$20. if astra-minor lands at opus pricing with close to astra performance, that could make codex usage last much longer than it does with astra.