On December 21, 2005 the Dmitry Donskoy submarine of the Northern Fleet performed a successful launch of the Bulava ballistic missile. The missile was launched from a submerged moving submarine deployed in the White Sea at 08:19 MSK (05:19 UTC). The warheads successfully reached their designated targets at the Kura range in Kamchatka. This was the second flight test of the Bulava missile and the first test from a submerged submarine. Previous test was conducted on September 27, 2005.
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How many more Bulava test-launches will be executed? There are claims that the tests period should end in 2006.
It the Topol-M test history is of any guide, then I would guess there will be two or three more launches before they will start loading missiles on a submarine. The tests, however, will continue "in parallel". We will see.
Dear Pavel, there are a lot of rumors about the Bulava, i.e.:
- that will have 10 warheads, that will have only 4.
- That Borey transport 12 Bulavas, that Borey will in the future (vessels 4 to 6) transport 16
- That it will be a land-based version of this SLBM.
May be you could clarify some issues about this missile like payload, numbers per submarine and so on.
These are good questions and I wish I knew the answers. All these things seem to be theoretically possible. We'll just have to wait for more information.