Roscosmos Plans to Launch Serial Deliveries of ICBM Sarmat to Russian Forces by Fall

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian state-owned space agency Roscosmos is planning to start serial shipments of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Sarmat to the Russian strategic missile forces this fall, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said on Wednesday.

“This fall, once the Sarmat flight and development tests are completed, we plan to begin supplying serial heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles of this superweapon to the Strategic Missile Forces,” Rogozin said on social media.

Earlier in the day, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it had successfully conducted the first test launch of ICBM Sarmat as part of the state trials from a silo launcher at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The launch tasks were fully completed, with design characteristics confirmed at all stages of the missile's flight, the ministry said. The training warheads arrived in a planned area at the Kura training ground on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the ministry added.

Sarmat is a heavy missile system with an intercontinental liquid-propellant ballistic missile weighing over 200 tonnes. The system is intended to replace the Voevoda missiles (known as Satan) in Russia's strategic missile forces.

Sarmat is capable of hitting targets at long ranges and using various flight trajectories, which enables it to avoid all existing and prospective anti-missile defense systems, according to the ministry. Having the longest range of target engagement, Sarmat is also expected to reinforce the combat capabilities of the Russian strategic nuclear forces.