New Delhi: Russia is preparing to test its biggest-ever nuclear missile Satan 2 which is powerful enough to destroy the whole of the UK, Texas or France with a single strike.
The RS-28 Sarmat (NATO reporting name: SS-X-30 Satan 2) intercontinental ballistic missile could deliver about a dozen nuclear warheads of 40 megatons – 2,000 times as powerful as the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
The Russian military sees Satan 2 as a response to the U.S. Prompt Global Strike and it is suspected to have a Fractional Orbital Bombardment (FOBS) capability. The Soviet Union started the FOBS program in the 1960s. The development of the FOBS was one of the first steps taken by the Soviet Union to utilize space for the delivery of nuclear warheads.
The Russian Defence Ministry plans to test two RS-28 Sarmat super nukes at the remote Plesetsk Cosmodrome before the end of the year.
According to Viktor Yesin, Gen-Col. (ret.), former head of the Russian strategic rocket troops, the Sarmat is expected to be ready for deployment around 2020.
The Satan 2 missile was displayed during a Victory Day parade in May and test-firings have been delayed several times due to problems with the missile itself and silo.
A source told the Moscow-based Kommersant newspaper that two tests will take place this year, as long as the first one goes according to plan.
The source said: “The main purpose is to check the performance of the rocket’s systems at the time of the exit from the silo, and the activation of Sarmat’s first stage and the subsequent (flight) for about five seconds.”
The 100-ton ICBM will carry up to 15 nuclear warheads and they have an estimated speed of more than Mach 20, or 4.3 miles per second which gives it the capability to speed past every missile defense system in existence.
The missile will be able to evade radar defenses and could travel far enough to strike London or the East and West Coast of the US.
With an estimated range of up to 7,000 miles, Satan 2 is twice as light as Russia’s current ballistic missiles, the Voyevoda.
The RS-28 will replace Russia’s current arsenal of SS-18s, called Satans.