Two Sarmat ICBM Test Failures, 2023-2024

[StraumliBlight]

Endemic corruption and nepotism, made worse by sanctions related to the war with Ukraine ? Also russian rocket industry unable to train a young generation of rocket scientists.
Such issues have plagued the civilian rocket industry for at least 20 years (Phobos-Grunt, cough). No surprise the rot extend to military rocketry.

Arresting their top hypersonic scientists for treason doesn't help.

Russian scientists Alexander Shipliouk, Anatoly Maslov, and Valery Zvegintsev have more in common than just their roles as leading physicists in hypersonic missile development, one of their country’s technological strengths.

In recent months, all three men have been accused of high treason and detained by Russian authorities.

On September 3, a Moscow court sentenced Shipliouk, the former director of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) in Siberia, to 15 years in a high-security prison. The closed-door trial found him guilty of sharing “classified information” at a scientific conference in China in 2017. Shipliouk claims that the data he presented was already in the public domain.

His colleague at ITAM, 78-year-old Maslov, who specialises in hypersonic flight, used the same argument after being sentenced to 14 years in prison in May. He too was charged with treason for passing on sensitive information during trips overseas.

Meanwhile, Zvegintsev, another hypersonic expert from the same institute, was arrested last spring and remains in pre-trial detention. Russian authorities only confirmed his arrest after a group of Russian scientists publicly expressed concern for their colleagues in an open letter published last May.

[Blackstar]

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/09/satellite-images-suggest-test-of-russian-super-weapon-failed-spectacularly/

[edkyle99]

I've seen claims in some places that four out of five Sarmat launches have failed, but only see actual reports of launches on April 20, 2022 (success), February 18, 2023 (failed during second stage of flight), and, likely, this silo-destroying failure around September 20, 2024. 

 - Ed Kyle

[Blackstar]

Well this is interesting. The Russians actually produced an environmental impact statement on what would happen if they blew one up in the silo. I may post some more later, but you can look yourself.


https://twitter.com/M51_4ever/status/1838506557878702274

[catdlr]

Well this is interesting. The Russians actually produced an environmental impact statement on what would happen if they blew one up in the silo. I may post some more later, but you can look yourself.


https://x.com/M51_4ever/status/1838506557878702274

As always, Blackstar was a great catch.  Some of the twitter comments are interesting.

[B. Hendrickx]

Well this is interesting. The Russians actually produced an environmental impact statement on what would happen if they blew one up in the silo. I may post some more later, but you can look yourself.


https://x.com/M51_4ever/status/1838506557878702274

This is from the environmental impact assessment report that I mentioned in Reply 12.

https://www.mirniy.ru/info/ads/23232-uvedomlenie-o-provedenii-obschestvennyh-obsuzhdeniy.html

For those willing to read this in Russian: download "kniga-3-tom-1-ovos.pdf" and go to p. 219-224.   

[eeergo]

Possibly similar occurrence of an R-56M2 (Voevoda/Satan, the ICBM version of the now discontinued space launcher Dnepr) ignition failure in 1986 in Baikonur, being propelled upward nominally by the silo piston but falling right back down with its engines off. Crater looks qualitatively similar.

[Asteroza]

Is it fueled while in the silo, rather than fueled at the factory or base depot before installation into the silo?

[Steven Pietrobon]

Is it fueled while in the silo, rather than fuelled at the factory or base depot before installation into the silo?

For liquid fuelled rockets, it makes no sense to fuel it at the factory, as that increases the danger during transport, especially with toxic propellants that could leak while horizontal.

[JetProp]

Is it fueled while in the silo, rather than fueled at the factory or base depot before installation into the silo?

It is using traditional scheme with mobile tankers and special purpose vehicles.
The example is taken from the book "Encyclopedia XXI Century. Volume 4 Armament and military equipment RVSN".

[JetProp]

Is it fueled while in the silo, rather than fueled at the factory or base depot before installation into the silo?

Special purpose vehicles around silo.

[JetProp]

For liquid fuelled rockets, it makes no sense to fuel it at the factory, as that increases the danger during transport, especially with toxic propellants that could leak while horizontal.

Sea-launched ballistic missiles of SKB-385/State rocket center named Makeev, started from 4K10 and to 3M37U2.1 Liner, is propelled on Chemical factory near Krasnoyarsk. After refueling, the filler necks are welded. Then this missiles transported to arms depot or to submarine missile base.

[JetProp]

For liquid fuelled rockets, it makes no sense to fuel it at the factory, as that increases the danger during transport, especially with toxic propellants that could leak while horizontal.

Some products are refueled at the factory. Like, say, guided warheads. Or those containing hydrazine. Because it requires refueling by a very precise method, which is unattainable in military conditions. And hydrazine cannot be refueled under military conditions. That's why a number of missile products are refueled at the factory.
* After refueling, the product is kept for 2 weeks and the absence of pressure rise is checked, which indicates cleanliness of internal cavities.