On June 28, 2007, the Dmitry Donskoy submarine of the Northern Fleet conducted a successful launch of a Bulava ballistic missile. At the time of the launch the submarine was in a submerged position in the White Sea. According to the Navy spokesman, the missile warhead successfully reached the Kura test site at Kamchatka.
This was the first successful test of the missile after three failures in a row. The previous attempt to launch the missile took place in December 2006.
The book
Comments
I have a question. So how does one of these tests look like. I expect that a missle is launched from uderwater, somewhere in the barents sea, and a missle flies all over russia and MIRV's in space, and next the 10 dummy warheads each drop on their targets? Or how does it happen?
Yes, this is about right. In this test it was White Sea, not Barents, and only one warhead was reported.
Good news. It seems Russia will have at last, it's own 'Trident-I', i.e. 30-tonn class SLBM with a 1-tonn payload and 7000-km range...
The first economy-effective solid-fueled missile in Russian Navy, not a 100-tonn monster like 'Bark'...
Let's hope that this 'Russian Trident I' will not be the end of the story, and, after 30-tonn class 'Bulava', we will have sometimes a 60-tonn class SLBM, let's call it 'Russian Trident II'.
I wonder, will they do a salvo launch of *all* the missiles from say, Yury Dolgoruky when the sub is ready, or will they just launch say, two (one after the other) to demonstrate that capability? Or not bother at all?
Tests are expensive. I've seen a video of them salvoing two D-5s from an Ohio and I've heard they did four SS-N-20s from a Typhoon back in the 80s or 90s but that's about it.
I am pretty sure it was done in 1995 (?). A Russian sub fired all its SLBMs while surfaced as part of arms reduction treaty compliance.
16 launched by a Delta in 1991:
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/rockets_slbm.html
Bulava Testing Clip:
http://www.my-files.ru/Smotr.wmv
It's a video of an old "pop-up" test. In all "real" flight tests the missile was launched from a submerged submarine.
I know of one complete Salvo Launch, which was from K-407 in 1991 (Delta IV, 16 missiles).
The last American double launch of Trident II was from USS Tennessee in April, I think they have such a test every year.
Martin
It would be interesting to know if the next test will include MIRV or will be carried out with just one warhead, to “gain confidence”.
Yes, there was a complete or near-complete (19 missiles) salvo in 1995 (or 1996) from a Typhoon class submarine. From White Sea.
It was in the frame of strategic arm reduction treaty.
That is an interesting question. Has a Trident submarine ever actually test fired all 24 missiles in salvo? If so, I don’t remember such an event reported.
Just curious.
Frank Shuler
USA
Pavel, do you not find it unusual that this time around it was announced in advance that Dmitri Donskoi had left for the Bulava test?
Here is the link (http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.124041.html)
I agree, it is somewhat unusual. But not unprecedented.