SEVEROMORSK. March 17 (Interfax-AVN) - The Northern Fleet's nuclear submarine Novomoskovsk on Wednesday carried out its second training launch of an RSM-54 strategic missile in the Barents Sea, a spokesman for the fleet told Interfax.
"The missile was targeted at the Kura target range in Kamchatka and was surveyed by the Russian Space Forces," the spokesman said.
Navy Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Kuroyedov is supervising the ballistic missile launches from aboard the Pyotr Veliky cruiser in the Barents Sea.
At 3:00 p.m. Moscow time (1200 GMT) on Wednesday, the Novomoskovsk carried out the first missile launch. The warhead reached the designated area at Kura at the scheduled time.
An RSM-54 sea-based ballistic missile was to have been launched from the Novomoskovsk on February 17. According to a preliminary opinion, the launch failed because the navigation satellite had blocked the missile. On the same night Kuroyedov said that the launches were to have been simulated, i.e. the missiles were not supposed to leave silos.
The Karelia SSBN of the Northern Fleet launched a ballistic missile on February 18. The missile deviated from the right trajectory and was self-destroyed 98 seconds into flight.
The Novomoskovsk submarine of Project 667BDRM (codename Dolphin, NATO designation Delta IV) belongs to the second generation of nuclear submarines. It was laid down by the Sevmashpredpriyatiye shipyard in Severodvinsk in November 1988 and commissioned by the Russian Navy in February 1992.
The submarine's main weapon is the D-9RM missile system that includes 16 three-stage liquid-propelled missiles whose maximal range is 9,300km. They all can be fired off in a salvo from a submerged depth of up to 55m. The submarine's main power plant consists of two water-cooled VM-4SG reactors developing 90mW each and two steam turbines. The nominal capacity of the power plant amounts to 60,000hp.
The Novomoskovsk has 167m in length, 11.7m in width, and 8.8m in average draught. The maximal submerged depth is 650m, and operational submerged depth is 400m. The maximal submerged speed is 23 knots, and the surface speed is 13 knots. The crew is 130 men. The endurance is 90 days.
The RSM-54 (NATO designation Skiff SSN-23) is an intercontinental liquid-propellant missile of the third generation. Its weight is 40.3t, length is 14.8t, and range is 8,900km. The missile consists of four individually-guided combat sections with a yield of 100 kilotonnes each. It was commissioned in 1986 especially for Project 667 submarines.