Moscow. January 23. INTERFAX - Roscosmos is working on the possibility of launching light space rockets from railway platforms, the head of the state corporation Dmitry Rogozin said.
"Light and ultralight rockets can be launched from railway platforms. The task to work in this direction has been set for engineers and architects of the V.P. Barmin Research Institute of Launch Complexes and our other organizations. Interesting proposals are already being made," Rogozin said in an interview with the industry magazine of the Russian Space State Corporation.
Previously, railway complexes with military-grade ballistic missiles were developed in several countries. So, in the USA in the 1980s there was a Peacekeeper Rail Garrison project, work on which was curtailed in the 1990s.
In the USSR, the Combat Railway missile system "Molodets" was put into service. As part of the Strategic Missile Forces of the Soviet Union, three divisions were formed, which were stationed in the Kostroma region, Perm and Krasnoyarsk Territories - a total of 12 "nuclear trains", in each of them - three missiles. Each of them carried 10 combat units. BZHRK were disposed of in the period from 2003 to 2005 without extending their life. One of the reasons for this is that the developer of the RT-23 UTTH CB Yuzhnoye is located in Ukraine. The START-3 Treaty does not prohibit the creation of new missile systems.
In 20014, the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Sergei Karakaev, informed journalists about the beginning of the development of a project for a new railway missile system called Barguzin. The work was carried out by the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering.
In May 2016, the general designer of MIT, Yuri Solomonov, reported that the missile launch tests for the complex were planned to be carried out in the fourth quarter of 2016. In September of the same year, the military reported that Russia was implementing a project to create a BZHRK, if the military-political situation required it.
In December 2017, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that the development of the Barguzin BZHRK had been discontinued.
"The topic is closed, at least for the near future. Development work on "Barguzin" has been carried out. The experiment with the throw launch was successful. If urgently needed, our rocket train will quickly get on the rails. In the meantime, let's forget about him," the newspaper reported, referring to an informed representative of the military-industrial complex.
In 2019, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov told reporters that Russia is unlikely to resume the development of the Barguzin in response to the US withdrawal from the treaty on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles.
