On November 3, 2011 at 10:45 MSK (06:45 UTC) the crews of the Yoshkar-Ola division of the Strategic Rocket Forces and the Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Topol/SS-25 missile from the Plesetsk test site. The warhead was reported to have successfully reach its target at the Kura test site in Kamchatka.
Official representative of the Rocket Forces was quoted as saying that the tested missile was manufactured in 1987 and remained in service until July 2007 when it was moved to storage. The launch is expected to confirm extension of service life of Topol missiles to 25 years, as recently announced by the commander of the Rocket Forces. Topol's service life was extended to 23 years after a successful launch in October 2010. It appears that it was extended to 24 years after the launch in September 2011.
UPDATED 11/08/11: Last paragraph corrected to reflect the life extension to 25 years.
Comments
There is an excellent photo gallery of the launch from the MoD website.
http://multimedia.mil.ru/multimedia/photo/gallery.htm?id=4339@cmsPhotoGallery
Pavel, I was wondering if you knew what Missile Division the rocket launch was carried out by?