According to a TASS source, the Topol ICBM that has served its service life is being changed to the Yars ICBM with a splitting head
MOSCOW, August 5. /TASS/. Strategic Missile Forces (Strategic Missile Forces) In 2024, Russia will completely stop operating the RS-12M Topol solid-fuel monoblock intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). This was reported to TASS by a source in the military-industrial complex.
"It is planned that in 2024 the "extreme" ICBM "Topol"will be removed from the Strategic Missile Forces. The Topol ICBM, which has served its service life, is now being changed to the Yars ICBM with a splitting head, " he said.
The Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering ( MIT), the main enterprise of the cooperation for the development and production of solid-fuel ICBMs, did not comment on this information to TASS.
It is planned that some of the decommissioned ICBMs " Topol "will be transferred to civil service in the form of launch vehicles"Start-1". As Yuri Solomonov, the general designer of the MIT, told TASS in November 2020, the decision to resume launches of the Start-1 conversion launch vehicles may be made in the next year. Answering the question whether there are any plans to return to the use of launch vehicles "Start-1", he said: "It is planned to make decisions on this topic in 2020-2021." "Everything will depend on how much the work on the two projects that are currently underway will be in demand. Moreover, we are not talking about a launch vehicle, but about projects that are being proposed for implementation - the creation of two groups of small-sized satellites for which the Start-1 is a convenient carrier, at least for the first phase, " said Solomonov.
"Start-1" is a solid-fuel carrier rocket of a light class, designed on the basis of the Topol ICBM. The launch mass is 47 tons, the mass of the payload launched into low Earth orbit is more than 500 kg. From 1993 to 2006, seven launches of "Launches" were carried out from the Plesetsk and Svobodny cosmodromes (now Vostochny).
According to open sources, MIT continues to develop a series of "wooden" ICBMs, currently conducting development work on the topics "Cedar" and "Aspen".
According to open sources, in 1999, the Strategic Missile Forces were armed with 360 launchers of the Topol complex, which were armed with ten missile divisions.
