The first tests of the Sarmat ICBM is now said to be postponed until the end of 2016. The report quotes an unnamed source in the industry as saying that the reason for the delay is a problem discovered during engine firing tests. In any event, first tests will not involve actual flight - these are pop-up tests to check the silo cold start sequence.
The ministry of defense initially planned to begin Sarmat tests in 2015. That didn't happen, reportedly because of the transfer of the tests from Baykonur to Plesetsk. Since Plesetsk didn't have a silo that would be immediately ready to accept the new missile, that led to another delay - to the second half of 2016. (It is still not clear, by the way, which silo will be used for Sarmat tests.) But now the delay appears to have something to do with the missile.
The book
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The two Yuzhnaya silos (62.870678° 41.779824°) are for Topol-M type missiles (incl. RS-24).
http://up.picr.de/26488727yw.jpg
The only other surviving silo is Serebryanka (Yubileynaya) (62.889638° 41.759858°).
http://up.picr.de/26488728du.jpg
It served already for SS-13 / SS-24 and Topol-M.
Obviously it is a multi purpose silo with an adapter inlet.
Sarmat should be no bigger than SS-24, so my guess is that they will use this one.
Cheers
Thank you. I added links to the locations. Also, here is a close-up shot of Yubileynaya and a discussion. One thing seems certain - Sarmat will be much smaller than SS-18.
successfully test fire engine
http://www.interfax.ru/russia/522950
"RC-99" engine? must be a pre-production designation, as that code doesn't correspond to the typical engine naming system.
There seems to be a lot of misinformation about this missile in the press. Many open sources mention the use of the 4 engine RD-274 cluster used on the SS-18, which is of course impossible if the RS-28 is the same size as the SS-19. Again, as we have discussed before, the 10 ton payload combined with a south pole trajectory (FOBS, essentially) would require a missile even larger than the SS-18, something in the class of the Proton ICBM variant (UR-500).
Pavel:
This picture
http://up.picr.de/26596668yl.jpg
show a sort of circular plate hanging on a crane.
You can see this at different positions next to the silo.
http://up.picr.de/26596667jz.jpg
http://up.picr.de/26596669bx.jpg
Do you know the purpose? Is it a sort of adapter?
Cheers
Interesting. I don't know what it is.