The launch took place from a submerged position in the White Sea and, as a naval spokesman said, "the warhead arrived at the test site Kura in Kamchatka as scheduled." "Although telemetric data is still being processed, it can be said that the launch and flight proceeded without a hitch," and the missile successfully hit its intended target, he added.
The jury is still out on whether this is true or not. Tests of the Bulava, a missile designed to be installed on the new Borei-class Project 955 nuclear-powered undersea cruiser Yury Dolgoruky and her sister ships Alexander Nevsky and Vladimir Monomakh currently under construction at Sevmash in Severodvinsk, the Arkhangelsk Region, are conducted amid tight secrecy. Information, whether good or bad, comes in drips and drabs, sometimes long after launches are made and from unnamed and classified sources.
Russia's navy pins great hopes on the Bulava, which has been plagued by problems for 15 years now. The missile is also the focus of intrigue, with some designers wishing it good luck and others good riddance.
The job of developing the new intercontinental missile system for a nuclear submarine of the Borei class, laid out at Sevmash in 1996, was given to the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering, known for its ground-launched solid-propellant missile systems RT-2PM Topol (NATO name SS-25 Sickle) and silo- and land-based RT-2PMU Topol-M (SS-27). These systems are expected to form the core of Russia's strategic deterrence now and in the future. The Bulava, in turn, is to be the centerpiece of Russia's naval strategic deterrence. The fact remains, however, that the missile systems now adopted by the navy and the nuclear submarines carrying them will retire in the next 10 to 15 years, and will have to be replaced with more effective and increased high-precision weapons. All Russia's hopes now lie with Borei-class submarines, Project 955 and its missile Bulava.
The main problem was that the Institute had never made missiles for the navy. They were designed and produced at the Makeyev Design Bureau in Miass, which was initially tasked with developing a new strategic missile system called Bark for Yury Dolgoruky and all Project 955 vessels. The missile, however, proved ineffective. A series of three tests ended in failure.
Military experts are at odds over the causes. Some blame defects in manufacturing technology, others the design's imperfections. Still others intimate that behind it all was the man who commanded the armed forces at the time. Being a missileman himself, he warmed to the Moscow Institute rather than to the naval design bureau. So when mishaps followed (they are inevitable in tests of such sophisticated weapons as strategic missiles), he decided in favor of his pet Institute, since it promised to make the Bulava as unified with the new Topol-M as possible, thus saving the sizeable amount of money required for the development of a sea-launched missile.
Such claims are hard to prove. Each has a hard-nosed lobby, who, like fans of Spartak or CSKA football, will tell you that their team is the best despite its low championship score.
The facts, however, remain. In 1998, Russia's Security Council and the country's president decided that the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering and its general designer Yury Solomonov should develop the missile system for a series of Borei-class submarines, with assistance from Makeyev bureau experts, a fact never mentioned by Institute critics.
But the development specification remained the same. The missile was to be launched from under the water, cover a distance of 8,000 kilometers and carry a total of 10 independently targetable warheads capable of outwitting any missile defense system. It also had to be lightweight for its class, approximately 30 to 40 tons. The answer to the quest was provided by the Bulava-30, or the Bulava-M, as it is now called.
True, it flunked half of its eight tests. On the one hand, that is easy to explain. No missile, either in Russia or outside it, is ever a first-time success. Tests are tests, they are conducted to check novel ideas and then learn from mistakes. Computer-aided design, widely used now in all technical development, is unable to predict the behavior of a product in a natural environment, especially one such as sea water. Sea water is 800 times more dense than air and has always been a challenge to a missile launched from a running submarine. The rare television footage of Bulava tests shows that the missile, to overcome the pressure of passing waves, emerges from under the water at an angle and only later assumes a ballistic path leading to a target.
On the other hand, with skilled workers at a premium, second-tier vendors sometimes supply flawed parts and components to the parent manufacturer - the Votkinsk Engineering Plant - which assembles Bulavas. Even the tightest incoming inspection lets through some defective components. And that is also a reality of our time.
Still, from test to test the Bulava is gaining in intelligence and increasingly flies where it is told to fly. Its latest launch, on September 18, proves it. It may well be that the experts will spot some defects. We will learn about them later, despite a cocoon of secrecy that surrounds the new weapon's development. While there are "resentful" people and while telemetric data is read off the monitoring devices not only by our technicians, but also by their overseas partners and rivals, so to say, some secrets will leak out.
Yet let us hope that the Bulava-M and the first Borei-class submarine Yury Dolgoruky, after a 12-year spell at Sevmash, will ultimately be commissioned, as promised, early in 2009. And will be followed by other legendary figures in Russian history - Alexander Nevsky and Vladimir Monomakh. The total estimated number of these submarines is six to eight. The first, Dolgoruky, has 12 missile silos; the others, 16 each.
If these plans see the light of day, the Russian naval nuclear forces will become a reliable deterrent against any potential aggressor in the second decade of the 21st century.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
