The new system will be an important element in the development of Russian hypersonic weaponsBehind the training and test launch, which took place on the night of April 11-12 this year from the Kapustin Yar test site, there is a lot of experimental design work to create a new experimental missile system that will replace the Topol-E.
Military expert Dmitry Korneev is sure of this. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the main task of the launch was to check promising combat equipment. The April launch was one of the most closed in recent years. The Ministry of Defense limited itself to general phrases and did not even name the type of product that was tested. Izvestia tried to figure out what kind of mysterious missile was launched from Russia to Kazakhstan and what kind of "promising combat equipment" we are talking about.
Nuclear Missile route
The creation of warheads for ballistic missiles is a complex and multi—stage process. The block must be designed, a nuclear charge, automation must be developed for it, and strength must be ensured under the influence of accelerations and temperatures. Finally, the block must be made and tested. And the tests of secret equipment must pass unnoticed by prying eyes. And the main training ground of strategic forces — the sighting field — is the Kura training ground in Kamchatka. It is viewed and monitored by planes and ships of the United States. It is impossible to test such sensitive equipment as new and promising combat units there.
Therefore, the Sary-Shagan landfill in Kazakhstan was created in the USSR to test such products. At this facility there are appropriate sighting areas, equipment for recording flight parameters, etc. And the main advantage of Sary-Shagan is the distance from the borders, beyond which surveillance means of a possible enemy can be deployed.
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| Test launch of a new missile of the Russian missile defense system (ABM) at the Sary-Shagan test site, April 26, 2021. |
| Source: Snapshot from video/Press service of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation/TASS |
The Kapustin Yar — Sary-Shagan highway is called by rocket scientists an "internal highway" — in the sense that it is located in the interior of the country. The only problem is that intercontinental missiles without improvements cannot fly at such a short range. From the Kapustin Yar test site to Sary-Shagan, a little more than 2 thousand km. While ICBMs fly tens of thousands of kilometers.
Therefore, special test rockets are used to fire on the "inner track". Their design allows you to fly a short distance. But at the same time, their combat units enter the atmosphere at the same angle and with the same flight parameters as those of conventional intercontinental missiles flying at the range inherent in their design.
The mystery of the rocket
Since Soviet times, the K65M-R "space" rocket has been used to test promising combat equipment. So it was called because Emka was created on the basis of the 11K65M Kosmos-3M space launch vehicle. Several generations of combat units for Soviet and Russian combat missiles were tested on this product.
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| Combat training launch of the Topol-M ballistic missile from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region. Freeze frame from a video provided by the Ministry of Defense. |
| Source: © Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation |
But by the early 2000s, it became clear that the Strategic Missile Forces had a large stock of Topol ICBMs at their disposal, which were being removed from combat duty and replaced with more advanced Topol-M missiles. On the basis of Topol, an experimental Topol-E rocket was created, which made it possible to reduce the range of the payload and at the same time provide the same conditions for entering the atmosphere that the tested combat units would fall into in real life. Thus, the disposal of the decommissioned "Poplars" was carried out. Obsolete missiles were simply disassembled and disposed of. But the more recent ones were used as carriers during test launches.
In 2018-2019, the last launches of experimental "Poplars" took place. By this time, the warranty period of the solid-fuel engines of these missiles has completely expired, their further use has become impossible. But the programs for the creation and modernization of the country's nuclear missile shield have not gone away, and work on a new experimental rocket has begun at the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering.
In 2012, the last mobile ICBMs "Topol-M" were deployed. The process has been going on since 1997-1998 (if we count together with mine-based options). Then simple arithmetic — the warranty period of storage of modern "Poplars-M" is no less than 25 years, and therefore, it begins to expire in 2022-2023 for the very first missiles placed in the mines. And then, until 2037, we have "Poplars-M", which can be used for experimental launches, at the same time carrying out measures to replace them in service with new missile systems.
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| Strategic missile system with mobile intercontinental ballistic missile PGRK "Yars". |
| Source: © RIA Novosti / Press Service of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation |
Currently, the Strategic Missile Forces are armed with 60 such ICBMs in the mine version and 18 ICBMs in the version of the mobile ground missile system (PGRK). The Topol-M was replaced by a more advanced Yars rocket, which also replaced all the old Poplars in two versions and on the basis of which new Yars-M and Osina missile systems are being created. It is believed that it is the "Aspens" that will begin to replace the old mine "Poplars-M" in the coming years. At the same time, the effectiveness and capabilities of the general missile group of the Strategic Missile Forces will be significantly increased, and the "M" removed from combat duty will not be lost.
Apparently, behind the training and test launch, which took place on the night of April 11-12 this year, there is a lot of experimental design work on the creation of a new experimental missile system that will replace the Topol-E. Probably, the new experimental rocket can be called "Topol-ME". Although it is possible that the Ministry of Defense will later assign another name to this product.
"Anchar" and further
It is important to note that the combat "Topol-M" is unified with other missiles developed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering — "Bulava" and "Yarsami". And it's no secret that for several years MIT has been conducting its own work on the creation of a hypersonic guided combat unit "Anchar". Judging by the timing of creation, the project should already reach the final stage of testing, which may be followed by a full-fledged launch to an intercontinental range, for example, by an Aspen or Yars missile from Plesetsk at the Kura test site in Kamchatka. After that, the deployment of new ICBMs in protected mine launchers will probably begin instead of "Poplars-M".
In addition to such breakthrough projects, of course, MIT can also work on the modernization of conventional warheads for Bulava missiles and various variants of Yars. It is likely that experimental launches along the internal route will also be used by rocket scientists of the Makeev State Missile Center, who are creating a heavy Sarmat ICBM. "Topol-ME" will certainly be able to bring literally any payload to the desired trajectory. I think that in the coming years we will see more than one such launch.
Dmitry Kornev
