The first stage of the missile engine Sarmat has been successfully tested. Previously identified technical problems have been solved. This is what we learn from the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau.
The flight tests will not start before the end of the first quarter of next year, considering that the program would have accumulated seven months late. However, the Russian Missile Forces have resumed preparations for the launch of the new intercontinental ballistic missile Sarmat, postponed due to problems with the carrier. The tests, set for last March, had been postponed until the second half of the year.
The huge size of the missile required refurbishing the silos that were completed last April at the Plesetsk space center in northwest Russia. The problems encountered, but not revealed, concerned the prototype.
The intercontinental ballistic missile Sarmat will replace the R-36M2 system voyevoda in the divisions serving in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in eastern Siberia and in the Orenburg region, in the southern Urals. Super-heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles, each Sarmat could carry up to fifteen Mirv / Marv warheads, will be deployed to cover possible targets in Uzhur and in the Dombarovsky area. The flight paths to the potential targets will be those above the North Pole and the South Pole.
The Russians will continue to validate the features in various real tests so as to avoid unpleasant incidents, as happened for the UR-100 missiles: the latter, already put into service, proved unable to hit long-range targets due to the excessive vibration of the hull that destroyed its structure. There leadership of the country he forgot to test the missile at its maximum range, authorizing the serial production of a system unable to hit the long-range target.
The over-hundred-ton super-heavy thermonuclear missile, however, will enter service two years late, but by the end of the 2018. Under development from the 2015 in response to the American system Prompt Global Strike, the liquid propellant rocket is intended to replace the entire deterrent line formed by the SS-18 Satan, the world's largest intercontinental solid-propellant ballistic missile ever built and entered into service in the 1967.
Il Sarmat it has an estimated range of over twelve thousand km. It was designed to reach Mach 20 and storm the targets by releasing ten heavy or fifteen lightheads with independent multiple indentation. Probably, when it comes into service it will be equipped exclusively with Marv magazines, immune to all sorts of existing defensive shields.
The Russians intend to replace by 2025, the 80% of the entire ground-based nuclear arsenal with the Sarmat. The new ICBM will be in service with seven regiments of the Strategic Missile Forces of the Russian Federation.
Both the Sarmat the Satan they are more powerful than gods Minuteman that will remain in service at least until the 2030 with a series of updates.
(photo: TASS)
