Sourced : Defence Blog
Official website of Joint Stock Company «Academician V.P.Makeyev State Rocket Centre» has released the first photo of new «Sarmat» heavy intercontinental ballistic missile.
Russia is currently working on a new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile for replacing the most powerful RS-20V Voevoda (according to NATO classification — SS-18 Satan)ballistic complexes.
Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov reportedly said in February that Sarmat will be equipped with several configurations, with the warhead having a mass of 10 tons.
“The prototype will have precisely the same size and mass as the future combat version. Instead of a MIRV warhead the prototype will carry a dummy. The booster will not be turned on. Sarmat will rise several dozen meters above the silo to fall nearby,” the source told TASS.
MIRV, or a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle, is a ballistic missile payload containing several warheads.
The RS-28 Sarmat or SS-X-30 is a future Russian liquid-fueled, MIRV-equipped, super-heavy thermonuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missile in development by the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau from 2009, intended to replace the previous R-36 missile.
Its large payload would allow for up to 10 heavy warheads or 15 lighter ones, and/or a combination of warheads and massive amounts of countermeasures designed to defeat anti-missile systems; it was heralded by the Russian military as a response to the U.S. Prompt Global Strike.