Aerostat: a long-range ABM system with possible counterspace capabilities

[B. Hendrickx]

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4262/1

Russia has been working for several years on a long-range anti-ballistic missile system named Aerostat. The fact that it is being developed by the country’s sole manufacturer of solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles suggests that it may very well have a range allowing it to double as a counterspace system. The oddly named ABM system (“aerostat” is a general term for unpowered balloons and airships) has never been mentioned in the Russian press or openly discussed by Russian military analysts, but its existence and basic design features can be determined through open-source intelligence.

I already discussed this project in the Nudol thread early last year:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=38943.0
(see Reply #8)

Based on the evidence then available, I referred to it as "Nudol phase 2". It was possible to determine at the time that the project had been assigned to the Almaz-Antey Air and Space Defense Corporation in July 2013, with the main subcontractor being the MIT Corporation, Russia's sole manufacturer of solid-fuel ICBMs. Procurement documents also made it clear that the  missile being developed under the project would use the same type of homing sensors as Nudol's 14A042 rocket.

It's now been possible to collect some more information on this project, although many questions remain. The missile is called 106T6 (or possibly 103T6), suggesting it is supposed to become the long-range component of Moscow's upgraded A-235 anti-missile defense system. There is some reason to believe that it is also intended to be used as a direct-ascent ASAT weapon, complementing Nudol and the S-500 system.

Indications are that Aerostat is running significantly behind schedule. The original July 2013 contract between the Ministry of Defense and Almaz-Antey was recently annulled, but the two parties signed a new contract for the project in April 2018 and it is probably still alive. 

[Blackstar]

Excellent research as always. Good job.

[gosnold]

Amazing find!

There's too many ASAT projects in Russia. Between S-500, Nudol, the Mig-31-launched one, the coorbital ones and this one you uncovered, you would think they would rationalize it.

In the past the Moscow ABM system had long-range interceptor with nuclear warheads IIRC, but they retired them because the warhead effective radius was smaller than the decoy cloud. The shorter-range interceptors were kept because in the final phase the atmosphere slows down the decoys enough that you can tell them apart from the real MIRVs.

Maybe the plan to do mid-course interception with a heavy multiple kill vehicle like the US was planning to develop? That would explain the heavy booster.

[B. Hendrickx]

There's too many ASAT projects in Russia. Between S-500, Nudol, the Mig-31-launched one, the coorbital ones and this one you uncovered, you would think they would rationalize it.

The index of the Aerostat missile (106T6 or possibly 103T6) suggests that it is primarily intended as the long-range component of the A-235 anti-ballistic missile defense system (same nomenclature as the missiles of the A-135 system (53T6 and 51T6)). Its range should also give it an inherent ASAT capability, but whether they really intend to use it in that capacity is, of course, another matter. 

Maybe the plan to do mid-course interception with a heavy multiple kill vehicle like the US was planning to develop? That would explain the heavy booster.

As I pointed out in the article, there is evidence to suggest that the kinetic kill vehicle is based on the "kick stages" flown on the Start launch vehicles. The MIT Corporation is now planning to revive the Start project using decommissioned Topol ICBMs and has published a number of patents related to those plans. In one of those, it is proposed to outfit the rocket with two or more kick stages to deliver satellites to different orbits (see the first attachment). They would have independent guidance and control systems and satellite navigation equipment. The patent mentions the possibility of installing two or three kick stages on a single launch vehicle, although a top view suggests there may be room for four (see the second attachment). It is not inconceivable that the Aerostat missile can be similarly configured to carry multiple kill vehicles (as is well known, "civilian" proposals often have their roots in military plans).

The patent is here (only in Russian with an English abstract):
https://patents.s3.yandex.net/RU2698838C1_20190830.pdf

Still, that would give them only a limited ability to intercept MIRVs. It is also possible that a single "kick stage" can act as a carrier vehicle for a much larger number of miniature kill vehicles which are dispensed and then guided to their targets. That was the idea behind the proposed US Multiple Kill Vehicle:
https://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/mkv.htm

[B. Hendrickx]

Another possible indication that Aerostat will have a counterspace capability comes from a paper presented in 2015 by specialists of the Mozhaiskiy Military Space Academy. The paper deals with "a software complex to simulate the use of space forces and assets". Aerostat is listed as one of the projects in which the results of the research were applied. The others are:

- Razdan-N: another name for VNIIEM's EMKA optical reconnaissance satellites
- Araks-R: a military radar reconnaissance satellite being developed by NPO Lavochkin
- KS SKKP: a space-based space surveillance system
- EKS: the space-based missile early warning system
- Shelest-KV: some kind of counterspace research program involving MAK Vympel
- Ukazhchik-KV: a project to develop a new test range for anti-missile tests near Severo-Yeniseiskiy (see the Aerostat article on "The Space Review")
- Yedinstvo-M: unknown

The paper is available for registered users of elibrary.ru:
https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=24992971

[B. Hendrickx]

A court document published last October throws some doubt on the current status of Aerostat.
 
https://kad.arbitr.ru/Card/49ec25e9-f01a-431e-9324-daee9f5eb5a3

It is a follow-up document to one published in July 2021 that I wrote about in the article on “The Space Review”. This had already mentioned the annulment of the original Aerostat contract signed between the Ministry of Defense and Almaz-Antei (the prime contractor) in July 2013. The new document talks about a decision that the Ministry of Defense made sometime before late November 2017 to terminate Aerostat. The ministry did, however, authorize Almaz-Antei to press ahead with a “live experiment” in the framework of Aerostat that eventually took place on December 26, 2017. As can be determined from other sources, this was a test launch of a Topol ICBM from the Kapustin Yar range near Volgograd. It seems to have provided data in support of Aerostat.

According to the original plans, the “live experiment” would be followed by tests of an “experimental version of product 106T6” in late 2020. “Product 106T6” most likely is the designator for an ICBM-based anti-missile system that the MIT Corporation developed as part of Aerostat. On April 26, 2018 the Ministry of Defense sent a letter to Almaz-Antei, informing it that it was no longer necessary to reach an agreement on “instructions to protect the experimental version of Product 106T6 against foreign technical reconnaissance” because of “the termination of Aerostat”.

All this would suggest that Aerostat was canceled in 2017/2018, but this is contradicted by documentation published on Russia's government procurement website zakupki.gov.ru. This shows that a new contract for Aerostat was concluded between the Ministry of Defense and Almaz-Antei on April 26, 2018 (exactly the same day that the ministry sent the aforementioned letter to Almaz-Antei). Subsequent contracts on Aerostat do carry the label “NIR” (“scientific research work”), which could indicate that Aerostat was downgraded to a research project.  The paper trail for Aerostat on zakupki.gov.ru seems to end sometime in mid-2019, but this is not necessarily indicative of its cancelation. This may very well be the result of new legislation that imposed restrictions on the publication of sensitive material on the website.  In short, the current status of Aerostat is unclear.

Meanwhile, Aerostat also appears in a report of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property published after an inspection of Almaz-Antei in December 2019.

https://prokuratura.top/index.php?erpid=001900997076

This refers to three patents related to Aerostat, but only one of them (published in 2018) is available online:

https://patents.s3.yandex.net/RU2657319C1_20180613.pdf

The patent holders can be identified as working for the MIT Corporation, the manufacturer of the 106T6 missile. The patent investigates various heatshielding and erosion-resistant materials used inside “high-pressure pipelines” to protect them from combustion products with temperatures ranging from 1,000 ° to 2,500°C. It is hard to say to which part of the missile this relates.


Incidentally, another report of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property, published after an inspection of OKB Novator in April 2021, mentions something called “103T6/Novator”.

https://prokuratura.top/index.php?erpid=002104897908

This is what I wrote about this in the Nudol thread.

This probably is a new anti-missile project of OKB Novator. The only other place where 103T6 appears is the 2020 annual report of PAO Radiofizika, which probably develops radar systems in support of this project. Possibly, this is supposed to become the medium-range component of the upgraded A-235 ABM system to defend the Moscow region against missile attacks.

What likely will become the system’s short-range component, Novator’s 53T6M, has been undergoing test flights for about a decade. The long-range component is probably supposed to become the MIT Corporation’s Aerostat/106T6 missile (which possibly has an added ASAT capability). Nudol has long been rumored to be part of A-235 as well  (Wikipedia even claims that Nudol is just another name for the entire A-235 system). However, it is becoming ever more clear that Nudol is a dedicated anti-satellite system that has no relation whatsoever to A-235.       

[B. Hendrickx]

Documentation has appeared on the environmental impact of test flights from Plesetsk and Kapustin Yar of a hitherto unknown missile system called Bureya (named after a Russian river). I’m posting this here because there might be a link with the Aerostat project. The documentation can be downloaded here:
Plesetsk:
https://ovos.ecom.su/handle/123456789/821
Kapustin Yar:
https://ovos.ecom.su/handle/123456789/886

As I explained in an article for “The Space Review” in 2021, Aerostat is a project that envisaged the development of a long-range anti-missile system that could well have counterspace capabilities as well.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4262/1

The missile itself was identified in one document as 106T6 and was to be developed by the MIT Corporation, which specializes in solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles such as Topol-M and Yars. There is evidence that it has the same electro-optical homing system as the Nudol anti-satellite system. The prime contractor for Aerostat was the Almaz-Antei Concern, with the MIT Corporation serving as Almaz-Antei’s main subcontractor. The project got underway with a contract awarded by the Ministry of Defense to Almaz-Antei in July 2013 and a test flight related to Aerostat was performed with a Topol missile from Kapustin Yar in December 2017. In April 2018, Almaz-Antei received a new contract for Aerostat, which by then had been downgraded to a research project (“NIR” in Russian). This was a possible sign that the original plans had turned out to be too ambitious.  The current status of the project is unknown.

Elements of Bureya

What can be learned from the documentation on Bureya is that it is a three-stage solid-fuel missile built by the MIT Corporation. It is to be launched from a 16x16 transporter-erector-launcher  (TEL) known as MZKT-7922, the same one used to launch the Topol-M and Yars ICBMs (see attachment 1). Also part of the complex is a mobile mission control center based on the 8x8 MZKT-7930, another element used by Topol-M and Yars.  Bureya is referred to as an “MMK”, an abbreviation that is not explained (one “M” likely stands for “mobile” and the “K” for “complex”). Nothing is revealed about the specific purpose of Bureya. Only vague goals are given such as “ensuring state security”. 

The exact start date of the Bureya project cannot be determined from the documentation. It refers to a contract signed between the MoD and the MIT Corporation on April 15, 2022, but also mentions technical specifications for the missile approved on December 15, 2021. Field work related to the environmental impact study was conducted in the Kapustin Yar area in 2020, indicating the roots of the project go back even further.

From the information given in the documents, there seems to be no basic difference between the first three stages of Bureya and those of Topol-M and Yars. What appears to distinguish Bureya from Topol-M and Yars is the presence of what roughly translates as a “kick stage”, which is mounted on top of the third stage. This comes in two versions which differ in size, mass and propellant composition, each meeting specific mission objectives. It is designed to deliver the payload to its final destination and also carries the missile’s flight control system. For some reason, the information on the kick stage was edited out of the Plesetsk documentation. 

Bureya's trajectories

Bureya will follow the same type of trajectory as other missiles launched on test flights from Plesetsk and Kapustin Yar. The Plesetsk launches will end with the impact of the third stage at the Kura test range on the Kamchatka peninsula and the Kapustin Yar launches will end with third-stage impact at the Sary Shagan test range in Kazakhstan (see the map in attachment 2, where the impact zones of the stages are indicated with circles). The test flight program is to last one to two years and will see at least two flights from Kapustin Yar. The number of launches from Plesetsk is not given.  Neither is there any information on expected launch dates.

Bureya will be used to test “various payloads” on suborbital trajectories, which can differ significantly from each other depending on the mission objective.  The payloads (identified as “Product G”) can be either mock-ups or “telemetry measurement systems”. One graph shows the missile reaching a maximum altitude of just over 3000 km and traveling a distance of 5580 km (which is the distance from Plesetsk to Kura) (see attachment 3).

The documents also discuss the missile’s flight through the space environment. One aspect of that is the danger of colliding with space debris. For the first and second stage, which burn out at altitudes between 200 and 250 km (depending on the trajectory), the risk is considered to be negligible. For the third stage, which passes through regions with the highest concentrations of space debris, the risk is only slightly higher.

The documents also focus on the impact that the missile itself will have on the space environment. This is limited to combustion products and three to six pieces of debris that separate from the rocket during the active phase of flight. One document says the effect will be the same “for all insertion orbits” and another that it will be the same “for all orbit inclinations” used by Bureya. It is also said that because of the low flight rate, the effects on the space environment will be insignificant and “comparable to the decay rate of space debris as a result of aerodynamic drag and the subsequent burning up in the upper layers of the atmosphere”.   

The wording used here is somewhat confusing and could be interpreted as meaning that the debris reaches orbital velocity (if on a suborbital trajectory, it would re-enter in a matter of minutes and not contribute to the space debris population at all). In other words, while the third stage is suborbital (it impacts in the earlier mentioned test ranges), the “kick stage” may actually be able to reach orbital velocity (although it is not given as space debris itself). 

The kick stage

The term used for the kick stage (dovodochnaya stupen’) is quite uncommon and is mostly seen in technical literature of the MIT Corporation, more specifically to refer to the upper stage of the Start(-1) launch vehicle, a converted Topol ICBM that was used for a number of space launches from Svobodnyy and Plesetsk between 1993 and 2006.  It is not a term that is generally used for a “post-boost stage” or “bus”, the part of an ICBM that guides the warhead(s) to its/their final destination. 

The MIT Corporation has been trying to re-introduce the Start rocket on the commercial market under the name Start-1M. This would be built on the basis of decommissioned Topol and/or Topol-M missiles. A scale model of Start-1M was put on display at an exhibition in Moscow in April this year (see attachment 4). It differs from the earlier Start rockets, which came in two configurations. A version simply named Start had five stages plus a kick stage and a version named Start-1 had four stages plus a kick stage (so strictly speaking they were six-stage and five-stage rockets). They shared the first three stages of the Topol missile. Start-1M seems to have the same basic three stages as its predecessors, but apart from those only has the kick stage (so it is basically a four-stage rocket). The chart accompanying the model calls this an “apogee stage”, which can deliver a 440 kg payload to a 550 km Sun-synchronous orbit (the injection accuracy being about 5 km). Nothing has been revealed about the apogee stage, but there could well be a link with the two kick stages developed for Bureya.   

As explained in the Space Review article, there are indications that the MIT Corporation has been working on a new kick stage with a guidance and control system developed by the Pilyugin Center. This helps control the thrust of the stage to increase its injection accuracy (it is referred to in Russian as an engine with “deeply regulated thrust”). More evidence for this comes from a PhD dissertation on the Start rocket published in 2021, which mentions work on such engines done in recent years by the Pilyugin Center in collaboration with the Moscow Aviation Institute.   
https://mai.ru/upload/iblock/353/2ptr4iqwb3hrhnvf1l1u5yj09sxq6q0s/Aminova_Dissertacia.pdf

Link with Aerostat?

So what is Bureya? It is definitely not one of the Yars upgrades that has been mentioned in recent Russian literature, more specifically P180, P181 and P182 (the latter also known as Osina-RV). These are all given in the documentation as systems similar to Bureya. It is possible, though, that it is yet another Yars upgrade that has not been earlier identified.

Another possibility is that Bureya is another name for the 106T6 missile developed under Aerostat.  It may bear a close resemblance to the Start-1M rocket, which has the same configuration (three stages + a kick stage). In this case, the kick stage would be needed to home in on ICBMs and/or satellites (although for that it would need to have a higher accuracy than the one given for Start-1M).

After having been downgraded to a research project in 2018, Aerostat may have again been upgraded to a development project (OKR in Russian) at a later stage and under a different name (Bureya). One problem with that interpretation is that there is no sign in the documentation of Almaz-Antei, the organization that was placed in overall charge of Aerostat. As mentioned earlier, the MoD signed a direct contract with the MIT Corporation for Bureya in 2022, which is not what would be expected if it serves as a subcontractor to Almaz-Antei. Until further information becomes available, the jury remains out on the exact purpose of Bureya.

Sarmat

For those interested, there is similar documentation on the environmental impact of test launches of the Sarmat liquid-fuel ICBM from Plesetsk:
https://www.mirniy.ru/info/ads/23232-uvedomlenie-o-provedenii-obschestvennyh-obsuzhdeniy.html

Sarmat is not mentioned by name and referred to solely as “Complex 128”. The documents describe three new trajectories for Sarmat, one from Plesetsk to the Pacific Ocean and two from Plesetsk to a new test range near Severo-Yeniseiskiy in Siberia (see attachment 5). One of the trajectories to Severo-Yeniseiskiy looks very strange and seems to involve some type of dogleg maneuver.

I mentioned the new test range in Siberia in the Aerostat article because it will also be used for testing anti-missile systems and anti-missile countermeasures. A map of the test range (called "Object 2142') was published on Russia's government procurement website in 2020 (see attachment 6). There are no signs, though, that it will be used for the Bureya tests. In the long run, the new site may totally replace Sary-Shagan, which is on Kazakh territory. Sarmat is expected to begin test flights using these new trajectories in 2024.