On October 24, 2012 at 22:28 MSK (18:28 UTC), the Strategic Rocket Forces carried out a successful test launch of what was described as a "new intercontinental ballistic missile" from the Kapustin Yar test site The official representative of the Rocket Forces told the press that the missile was launched from a mobile launcher and that the inert missile warhead successfully reached its target at the Sary-Shagan test site in Kazakhstan. The representative also said that the purpose of the launch was "to obtain experimental data that would confirm correctness of the scientific-technical and technological decisions implemented during the development of the ICBM, to check the functioning of the missile and of its systems and components and to determine their technical characteristics, and also a test elements of a new combat payload of the ICBM."
It is not quite clear what this missile is. Most likely it is the same ICBM that was successfully tested in May 2012 and probably the same one that failed in a September 2011 test (both tests were done at Plesetsk). But we don't really know. It would be rather strange, even for Russia, to have two parallel solid-propellant ICBMs in development (and that in addition to the new liquid-fuel "heavy" ICBM). Not completely impossible, though.
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Ofcourse its Avangrad but even after 3 tests and 2 successful ones we know so little about this ICBM.
Are they not binded by New START or some other treaty to disclose some information on new ICBM ?
Don't want to be conspirational, but could this be a test of a new medium range, INF breaching missile? The distance between KY and Sary Shagan is just a short hop. If you disguise an MRBM as a minimum range test of an ICBM maybe you could get away with it. (At least for a while.) Claiming that it is a new type of ICBM could also explain any differences in the IR launch signature.
I don't really believe this is the case. It is probably a new type of ICBM, even though I don't see the need for that. Of course, "new" may be a Topol-M with a new payload.
In the past Russia test launched all silo-based and ground-mobile SS-27 ICBMs ("Topol-M", "Yars", "Avangard") only from the test range in Plesetsk toward the Kura test site on the Kamchatka peninsula. In the last published data exchange under the START I Treaty of 1 July 2009 Russia declared only one SS-25 mobile test launcher in the test range of Kapustin Yar (48° 37´ N 046° 18´ E).
If the reason for the ICBM launch on 24 October 2012 was a test of a new payload (reentry vehicle / penetration aids) it is possible that it was used an old SS-25 ICBM for this purpose. Maybe the payload throw-weight of the SS-25 ICBM was to high for a flight from Plesetsk to Kura. On 1 November 2005 a similar RS-12M and on 22 April 2006 a K65M-R were test launched with modified upper stage versions from Kapustin Yar alongside the Baykonur space launch facility to the Balkhash testing range (46° 23´ N 072° 52´ E) near Sary-Shagan with a distance of about 2,000 kilometers. The Balkhash testing range in Kazakhstan is an ABM testing site and maybe the test launch was conducted in connection with a new payload of the new heavy liquid-propellant ICBM, which will be developed by the Makeyev Design Bureau until 2018.
(see: "Test of anti-missile defense capabilities of ballistic missiles" and "Test of a new re-entry vehicle")
Marino: The evidence is quite strong that it was a test of a new missile and not an SS-25 launch.