Persistent problems encountered by the Bulava missile during its flight test program raise a an interesting question - Is this experience is any different from the "good old" Soviet days? From archival documents we now have a good record of the flight test program of the R-39/SS-N-20 missile (or, rather, of the D-19 missile system), so we can compare the two.

The decision to begin development of the D-19 system was made by the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers on 21 December 1976. Almost three years later, on 21 August 1979 the Military Industrial Commission formed a State Commission that oversaw the flight test program.

The program began with a series of pop-up tests - from a submerged platform and then from a test-bed Project 619 submarine (according to data published earlier, there were 9 and 7 tests respectively).

In January 1980, the missile was first tested from a land-based launcher at the 21 Navy test range (21 GTsNP, Nenoksa test range). There were 18 launches from the test range in 1980-1982 and then one more - in June 1983. Between these, there were 15 launches from the TK-208 submarine of the Project 941 class - today this boat is known as Dmitry Donskoy and is used for tests of the Bulava missile. The missile was accepted for service in May 1983.

(Two more missiles produced for the flight tests - No. 4 and No. 11 - were disassembled as part of the test program. Missile No. 25, which was not fired during the 4-missile salvo on 14 October 1982, was later placed on combat duty.)

As we can see, the beginning of the R-39 flight test program was quite rocky - only three of the first ten flight tests were successful. Bulava, in fact, has a somewhat better record at this point - four of its ten flight tests are believed to be successful (although only one was declared "full success"). On the other hand, these were the Soviet times when the defense industry did not really counted the money, so any flight test program was almost expected to take tens of missiles. Nobody expects today that the Bulava program will have the luxury of expending 37 missiles during tests as the R-39 program did.

On December 25, 2008 the Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Proton-M launcher from the Baykonur launch site. The launch took place at 13:43 MSK (10:43 UTC) from the launch pad No. 81. The launcher equipped with a DM booster stage delivered into orbit three new Glonass-M satellites.

It would take time to sort out the satellites' designations. They are likely to be designated Cosmos-2447, Cosmos-2448, and Cosmos-2449. The international designations they are likely to receive are 2008-067A, 2008-067B, and 2008-067C and NORAD catalog numbers 33466, 33467, and 33468. The satellites are deployed in the first orbital plane, which is the least populated Glonass plane at the moment with only three satellites in it. After the three new satellites join the constellation, the number of operational Glonass satellites will reach 20.

The Strategic Rocket Forces added a regiment of road-mobile Topol-M missiles to its missile division in Teykovo. News reports do not mention the exact number of missiles involved, but it appears that nine missiles were deployed, bringing the number of road-mobile Topol-Ms in Teykovo to 15. The Rocket Forces confirmed the plan to bring the total number of Topol-M missiles to 65 by the end of this year. This means that two silo-based Topol-Ms will be deployed in Tatishchevo in the remaining days of 2008.

The test launch of the Bulava sea-launched ballistic missile, conducted on December 23, 2008, ended in a failure after a malfunction of the third stage of the missile triggered its self-destruct mechanism. The launch was performed about 06:00 MSK (03:00 UTC) from submerged Dmitry Donskoy submarine of the Northern Fleet deployed in the White Sea. This was the tenth flight test of the missile (not counting two pop-up tests) and the sixth reported failure. 

The problem appears to be related to the quality control during the assembly, rather than to problems with missile design - very similar to the problems that plagued the Bulava predecessor, Bark missile, and led to termination of that program. (The failure does not seem to be related in any way to the delay with the launch.)

Today's launch was supposed to complete the formal flight test program of the Bulava missile. Had it been successful, the missile would have gotten an approval of the State Commission that oversees the tests, allowing it to move to the serial production and deployment stage (although, as it was a normal Soviet practice, tests and work on the missile would have continued anyway). Now the Navy is planning to conduct at least five flight tests in 2009 instead of 3-4 that were planned before.

The continuing problems with the Bulava program will probably affect the deployment plans as well. At this point, the Russian Navy is planning to bring the first Project 955 submarine with Bulava missiles, Yuri Dolgoruky, into service in 2009. While this is still possible, it is likely that this date will now slip into at least 2010.

The Russian Navy announced earlier this week that the Dmitry Donskoy submarine will conduct another flight test of the Bulava missile on Sunday, December 21st (the previous was in November). That day is already over in Russia and the Navy is silent on the test. I guess we would have heard something it it were a success, so the test was either postponed or was not successful.

The Bulletin Online

As the United States waits for a new administration to take office in January, expectations are high that arms control talks with Russia will be revitalized shortly thereafter. Parties in both countries--no matter political persuasion--think Washington and Moscow should move quickly to devise a new disarmament agreement that would replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires in December 2009. In my June column, I wrote that the optimism regarding a new treaty might not be warranted--the differences in the U.S. and Russian approaches to the next step of the disarmament process are serious and will be difficult to overcome.

That said, it doesn't mean that these differences can't be reconciled. Below, I try to outline the three major points of disagreement and propose potential solutions to them.

Disagreement #1: Counting rules

The United States would prefer to count only "operationally deployed" warheads, giving Washington significant flexibility to assign some of its strategic nuclear systems to conventional missions and reducing its arsenal by "downloading," i.e., decreasing the number of warheads associated with missiles and bombers. For example, if Washington gets its way, the four U.S. Trident submarines that no longer carry ballistic missiles wouldn't be counted against the treaty ceiling--same for two of the remaining fourteen U.S. submarines that are expected to be in overhaul at any given time. Furthermore, the missiles on those 14 submarines only would be counted with the actual number of nuclear warheads they carry--about five for nuclear missiles and zero for conventional missiles--even though each of them can carry as many as eight warheads. This would allow Washington to reduce its "operationally deployed" warheads without making any significant changes to its force and giving it substantial "upload potential," the capability to quickly increase the number of deliverable warheads by bringing back and deploying reserve warheads. The U.S. military, of course, likes having this kind of flexibility, but Russia looks at it with serious suspicion--especially because Moscow doesn't have a similar capability.

Russia would like to see a limit on the number of delivery systems (land-based and sea-based ballistic missiles and bombers) that can be used to carry nuclear warheads, regardless of the number of warheads these platforms actually carry. This means, among other things, that those delivery systems that have been "downloaded" or converted to a conventional mission would have to be counted in full. For Moscow, this is a way to guarantee that the United States doesn't have upload potential.

Disagreement #2: U.S. conventional capabilities

It's all well and good that the United States reduces its nuclear arsenal, but Russia is concerned that this reduction will come with an increase in the number of U.S. conventional warheads, which, Russia argues, could be as effective as nuclear warheads if the United States would ever launch a first strike against Russian strategic forces. This premise might be debatable, but it doesn't change the fact that Moscow is insisting that any new treaty should include measures to limit conventional capabilities.

Disagreement #3: START's transparency and verification mechanisms

Neither Russia nor the United States say they are happy about these. Overall, both sides believe that the verification system should be much simpler--i.e., some of the current elements, such as continuous portal monitoring at missile production facilities, seem expensive, intrusive, and unnecessary.

Possible solutions

The solution to the counting rules problem could be combining the approaches adopted by the two strategic arms control agreements that are in force today--START and the Moscow Treaty. Russia's position on counting rules is more or less what START requires--all strategic delivery systems are counted as carrying the maximum number of warheads they can carry regardless of how many they actually possess. The U.S. position is much closer to that of the Moscow Treaty, which takes into account only "operationally deployed" warheads--a designation it doesn't define with any precision. Not surprisingly, the United States sees the next treaty as essentially the Moscow Treaty with new numerical limits and some token verification measures. Russia has already indicated that it won't agree to such an agreement.

The Obama administration will probably tweak the U.S. proposal, but I wouldn't count on any breakthroughs: The current U.S. position isn't a Bush administration whim, but a reflection of prevailing U.S. thinking on the topic. That's why most proposals made by independent experts, whether Russian or American, assume that the new agreement would have to accept the U.S. approach and count only "operationally deployed" nuclear warheads. But we shouldn't expect any dramatic changes in the Russian approach either, as it reflects how Moscow's military and political leadership thinks about its relationship with the United States.

Thus, my proposed compromise: Keep both counts. This way, Washington and Moscow could extend START's terms not as a stopgap measure intended to buy time to negotiate a new agreement, but as a way to hold each other accountable to the maximum possible capabilities of their strategic forces. After all, START's counting rules and verification procedures were structured to make sure that the treaty sets the limit that neither country can cross. It does exaggerate the number of warheads that are actually deployed, but this is hardly a problem--as long as we understand that START gives us the upper limit and not the actual number, we should be able to live with that.

At the same time, it would make perfect sense to count "operationally deployed" warheads as well. This is what the Moscow Treaty was supposed to do, but its counting procedures never materialized since Russia and the United States weren't able to agree on them--in part because they saw the "operational warhead" counting rules as a substitute to the START rules, not as a complement to them. That's why if we keep the START rules and procedures in place, agreeing on the definition of "operationally deployed" warheads should be easier.

Specific definitions and verification measures could be negotiated by the Bilateral Implementation Commission, which the Moscow Treaty created. Since these definitions and measures wouldn't substitute those included in START, negotiating them shouldn't be difficult. For example, it would be easy to agree that submarines in overhaul shouldn't be counted as "operationally deployed"--something that's readily verifiable without intrusive measures. (However, these submarines would still be included in the START count unless they're liquidated in compliance with its procedures.) If any side would want to lower its "operationally deployed" count, that side would be welcome to do so as long as it's ready to submit the system it wants to exclude from that count to the agreed verification process. In another example, if the United States wanted to exclude its conventional Trident missiles from the balance, it would have to submit them to inspections. But if Washington decided that the inspections are too intrusive, it would have the option of keeping these systems on the nuclear side of its balance sheet, just as it does today under START.

A double count would be more complex than the current count, but it would reflect reality-- the number of actually deployed nuclear warheads isn't as high as the START counting rules show, which should be reflected in the record. Along those lines, the START rules should be preserved, too, since they reflect another important reality--the maximum number of warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy. Eventually, this is the number that we need to bring to zero, but we could agree for the moment that it will take time to do so.

In practical terms, this means that Russia and the United States should extend START without any changes. And instead of creating something new, the countries should keep START and concentrate on a Moscow Treaty-plus agreement that would complement START by providing additional verification procedures applicable only to those delivery systems and warheads that would be declared as not "operationally deployed." Such an approach would also help address Russia's concern about the conventional capabilities of the U.S. force. While not limiting that capability directly, it would provide a way to continue taking all U.S. strategic systems into account in the overall balance--whether they were converted to conventional missions or not.

Dealing with the complexity of the verification and inspection mechanism doesn't mean throwing away START either. After all, START doesn't require its parties to carry out all of the inspections, it only gives them the right to do so. It would be perfectly appropriate for the Joint Compliance and Implementation Commission, which manages the process, to agree that the parties have no interest in conducting certain inspections (something Russian and U.S. military professionals could decide), without necessarily forfeiting their rights.

A two-tier approach to nuclear weapons reductions would certainly require some changes in long-established arms control policies. But it would seem to give both the United States and Russia common ground for taking the next step in reducing their nuclear forces in a mutually agreed, legally binding, and verified way.

Bellona reports that the Zvezdochka plant in Severodvinsk began liquidation of the K-496 Borisoglebsk submarine of the Project 667BDR/Delta III class. This means that at the moment there are no submarines of this class with the Northern Fleet - the K-44 Ryazan was transferred to the Pacific earlier this year.

This also means that the number of START-accountable Project 667BDRM submarines is now five, reducing the number of SLBMs to 70 and the number of warheads that they can carry to 578.

On December 2, 2008 at 08:00 MSK (05:00 UTC) the Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Molniya-M rocket from the launch pad No. 2 of the launch complex No. 16 of the Plesetsk launch site. The launcher delivered into orbit a new early-warning satellite of the 73D6 type, which will work as part of the first-generation US-KS early-warning system (also known as Oko).

The satellite received a designation Cosmos-2446. Its international designation is 2008-062A, NORAD number - 33447. The satellite was deployed on a highly-elliptical orbit with inclination of 62.8 degrees and orbital period of about 702 minutes. Apogee of the initial orbit is about 39,000 km, perigee – about 600 km.

The satellite will join two other satellites of the US-KS/Oko constellation - Cosmos-2422 and Cosmos-2430. The new satellite is deployed in an orbital plane that is located between the orbital planes of these two satellites, which means that it will complement the constellation rather than replace one of the currently operational satellites.

In addition to the US-KS early-warning satellites Russia operates two satellites of the US-KMO system - Cosmos-2379 and Cosmos-2440, which are deployed on the geostationary orbit.

The Space Forces are planning to launch a new US-KS/Oko early warning satellite at about 08:00 MSK (05:00 UTC) on December 2nd from the Plesetsk launch site. The satellite will be delivered into a highly-elliptical orbit by a Molniya-M launcher.

UPDATE 12/02/08: The launch took place as planned. The satellite appears to be safely in the orbit.

The Strategic Rocket Forces extended the service life of the UR-100NUTTH/SS-19 missiles to 33 years. The decision was apparently based on the results of the successful test of the missile in October 2008. Previously, the service life of UR-100NUTTH was set to 31 years.

Commenting on the decision, the Rocket Forces representative said that this extension would allow the missiles of the Kozelsk division to stay in service "until it receives missiles of new generation." This probably means that the earlier decision not to disband the division in Kozelsk was not related to the plans to deploy "Ukrainian" missiles there. Rather, it is likely that the current UR-100NUUTH missiles will stay there until 2012-2017, when they will be replaced by new missiles, either by Topol-M or by a UR-100NUTTH follow-on.