It is planned to complete them before the ice break on the White Sea with the implementation of several launches
KUBINKA /Moscow region/, August 24. /TASS/. Flight tests of the hypersonic missile "Zircon" from the underwater carrier-the nuclear submarine "Severodvinsk" - are scheduled to begin in September of this year. This was reported to TASS by a source in the military-industrial complex.
"The first launch of the Zircon from the Severodvinsk submarine as part of flight design tests (LKI) from the White Sea is scheduled for September," he said on the sidelines of the Army-2021 International Military - Technical Forum. He also added that it is planned to complete them before the ice break on the White Sea with the implementation of several launches.
Earlier, another TASS source reported that the first launch of the Zircon from a submarine " must necessarily be preceded by the launch of a similar missile from a surface carrier - the frigate Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov."
The NPO of Mechanical Engineering (part of the Tactical Missile Weapons Corporation JSC), where the Zircons were developed and produced, did not comment on this information.
It is known that currently flight and design tests of the "Zircon" are actively carried out on board the surface carrier-the frigate "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov". Launches have already been carried out on both surface and ground targets.
Hypersonic "Zircons", along with Kalibr-PL cruise missiles, will form the basis of the strike power of promising submarines of the Yasen-M project 885M, the serial construction of which is carried out by Sevmash (part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation). According to the statements of officials of the Navy and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Yasen-M submarine should ensure the implementation of the concept of non-nuclear strategic deterrence. Earlier, TASS, citing another source, reported that the Voronezh and Vladivostok submarines of the Yasen-M project, laid down on July 20, 2020 at Sevmash, will be the first carriers of fundamentally new Kalibr-M cruise missiles with a flight range of more than 4.5 thousand km. According to him, the new "Kalibry-M" will be able to deliver to the targets either a head unit weighing 500 kg, which is 200 kg more than their predecessors, or a special (nuclear) warhead.