Thread by @Etienne_Marcuz

1/🚀Shooting across the Globe without harming the seals - How #Russia is planning its longest ICBM test ever🚀

Thanks once again to the amazing @La_souris_DA , we now know that Moscow intend to launch a #SARMAT heavy ICBM up to the Southern Pacific, almost a 15 000 km range👇

2/ While most Russian (and before Soviet) intercontinental missile (SLBM & ICBM) tests are targeting areas in or close to Russia, some of them have been launched in the past far in the Pacific in order to test missiles at (or close to) their max. range.

washingtonpost.com/archive/politi…

3/ One of the longest range achieved so far (not counting R-36O FOBS) was in 2008, when a R-29RM SINEVA SLBM was launched from Barents sea toward the equatorial region of the Pacific, flying 11 547 km.

russianforces.org/blog/2008/10/s…

4/ Recently, there have been some clues that Russia intends to resume extended ranges tests, as instrumentation/control ship Marshal Krylov dedicated to such test was modernized.

https://twitter.com/M51_4ever/status/1722560631511912520

5/ A Russian company recently issued the draft of an environmental study for flight test of complexe "128" from Plesetsk. Digging into it, it quickly became obvious that this complexe is 15A28 SARMAT heavy ICBM launched from recently modernized Yubileynaya silo.

6/ The document gives 3 trajectories, labelled n°5, 6.1 and 6.2, and gives stages drop zones for each trajectory. Below are the zones for traj. n°5👇

Last drop zone is for stage 3 + "Upper Tier Platform", 14 970 km away from Plesetsk and 270 km off the coast of Tonga Islands.

7/ The "Upper Tier Platform" (UTP) is probably dedicated to carrying reentry vehicles (warheads) on two levels, a feature already used on R-36M2/SS-18 missile.

We are still trying to figure out traj. n°6.1 and 6.2, so hopefully more on that later.

thedrive.com/the-war-zone/r…

8/ We decided to emulate a trajectory that would fit with traj n°5 zones. As SARMAT exact characteristics are secret, we used its predecessor R-36M2/SS-18 heavy ICBM as a model.

⚠️Keep in mind this is an approximation, with many unknown crucial parameters such as payload mass⚠️

9/ The trajectory fits quite well, except for the third stage and UTP that "miss" the zone by ~80km. This is probably due to the approx. mentioned above.

The total flight time is ~3250 sec (54min) for ~14 900 km distance, with an apogee above 2000 km.

10/ We still don't know when this SARMAT extended range test will happen, but things are sorting out.

Huge thanks to:
- @La_souris_DA for finding this fascinating doc
- @russianforces for helping me with historical data
- My colleague P. for his outstanding work on the traj.

If you want to add something or think I made a mistake, feel free to comment or contact me via DM.

@ArmsControlWonk @KomissarWhipla
@krakek1 @wslafoy @masao_dahlgren @DuitsmanMS @MatejRisko @walberque @mattkorda @dtc94133 @LetMePickThat @Marco_Langbroek @nukestrat