Description
The Bulava missile was developed by Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology under the leadership of chief designer Yury Solomonov. Although it utilizes some engineering solutions used for the recent Topol-M ICBM, the new missile has been developed virtually from scratch. Bulava is both lighter and more sophisticated than the Topol-M. The two missiles are expected to have comparable ranges, and similar CEP and warhead configurations.
The missile has three stages; the first and second stages use solid fuel propellant, while the third stage uses a liquid fuel to allow high maneuverability during warhead separation. The missile can be launched from an inclined position, allowing a submarine to fire them while moving. It has a low flight trajectory, and due to this could be classified as a quasi-ballistic missile. The missile possesses advanced defense capabilities making it resistant to missile-defense systems. Among its abilities are evasive maneuvering, mid-course countermeasures and decoys, and a warhead fully shielded against both physical and electromagnetic pulse damage. The Bulava is designed to be capable of surviving a nuclear blast at a minimum distance of 500 metres (1,600 ft).
The Bulava's advanced technology allows it to carry up to 10 hypersonic, individually guided, maneuverable warheads with a yield of 100–150 kt each.
Borei-class submarines carrying Bulava missiles are expected to be an integral part of the Russian nuclear triad until 2040.
Read more about this topic: RSM-56 Bulava
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The type of fig leaf which each culture employs to cover its social taboos offers a twofold description of its morality. It reveals that certain unacknowledged behavior exists and it suggests the form that such behavior takes.”
—Freda Adler (b. 1934)
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)