The third successive test of the missile Bulava
15.01.2007 14:29

The head of the Russian Space Agency Anatoly Perminov officially confirmed that the last test of the missile was held not as it had been planned, thus making it possible for the journalists to use the words “another failure”. The missile burst over Ohotskoe Sea within a reasonably short distance before the destination. According to him technical malfunction occurred in the 3rd stage engine and this is why the missile could not reach the trajectory, whereby it should have flown up to the test filed Kura in Kamchatka peninsular. As Mr. Perminov has informed, the first and second stages of Bulava "have worked perfectly", but there were "certain drawbacks" in the third stage. The missile started from the test submarine "Dmitry Donskoj", which was in a surface position in the White sea.

Two special commissions are investigating the matter: one - the reasons of the failure, another – the ways of information leakage about it in the media press.

The comments of the head of the federal space agency Anatoly Perminov took place in the situation when the Ministry of Defence and the Moscow Institute of Heating Engineering (MIT), the designer of the missile, prefer to keep the silence.

However, the head of Roscosmos considers, that "nothing terrible took place", as it was only the fifth test of Bulava and with each start of the rocket its characteristic improve. Besides, to commission a rocket complex, according to Mr. Perminov, 12-14 start-up tests are required on average.

It means, that with the existing rate of start-ups (two-three in a year) three more years are needed for commissioning. Besides, the head of Roscosmos Mr. Perminov asked the designers of Bulava to pay special attention to perfecting ground infrastructure of the complex, which will require additional time. Meanwhile, according to the current state arms program the first project 955 "Borei" "Yuri Dolgoruky" should get Bulava as early as this year.

The state interdepartmental commission started investigation of the tests. Today we can speak about certain regularity: in two start-ups from underwater position (on September, 7th and on October, 25th, 2006) the rocket fell in the first minutes of the flight, whereas in two start-ups from surface position (on September, 27th 2005 and on December, 24th, 2006) its third stage blew up. The report on the results of the work the commission should be ready by February, 2007, but this report will be confidential.

News source: ShipbuildingRu
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