Monday, September 22, 2008

Latest Bulava Test "Partially Successful"

Via the not official Navy site navy.ru, Kommersant reports that the latest Bulava test conducted a few days ago was "partially successful".

[...]
"The active part of the trajectory went without a hitch and ended up in the correct area, the front section separated fine but the warhead bus wasn't able to effect warhead separation", a source told the paper.


He explained that the warheads of the missile wouldn't have worked in combat conditions because of the peculiarities of the device in the Bulava. The paper was not able to obtain comment about this from the Navy spokesman Igor' Dygalo.

Recall that the latest Bulava test took place 18 September, launched from the Dmitriy Donskoy while submerged. Immidiately after the test a representitive of the Ministry of Defence announced that the launch was successful. In his words, the missile successfully destroyed the target at the Kura test range on Kamchatka.

[...]


I was curious about the radio silence concerning the Bulava launch from TV Zvezda. Usually after a successful launch, they'll at least have a 30 second snippet.

When talking about the Bulava, its always a good idea to put an "alleged" before any claim of success.

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