Satellite photos show failed Russian missile test
In satellite imagery released last week, Russia appears to have experienced a setback in testing for its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile at a remote launch site roughly 500 miles north of Moscow.
Satellite images captured Sept. 21 by Maxar Technologies show a crater roughly 200 feet wide at the Yubileynaya silo launch site at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a sprawling and heavily forested missile test site in the country's Arkhangelsk region. The Yubileynaya silo was reportedly converted specifically to conduct Sarmat missile launches.
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The imagery reveals the leveled silo and support facilities and active fires in the forest directly east of the launch area.
A zoomed-in detail of the imagery shows a 200-foot-wide crater where the silo had been located in the middle of the launch site and extensive damage to the area around the launch site. Four fire trucks responding to the small fires nearby can be seen near the launch site. The damage was not evident in imagery of the same area captured on Sept. 7
The fire resulting from the launch failure also registered as a hotspot on the NASA FIRMS tracker on Saturday.
Why is the RS-28 Sarmat significant?
Known familiarly in the West as Satan II, the 115-foot-long RS-28 Sarmat is designed to carry nuclear warheads, independently targetable warheads, or hypersonic glide vehicles and can strike targets thousands of miles away in the U.S. and Europe.
The Sarmat, intended to replace the Soviet-era Voevoda ICBM, was first mentioned along with other weapons by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his annual state of the nation speech in March 2018. The Saturday test is the fourth known failed test of the Sarmat since its first and only successful test flight in 2022.
SOURCES Reuters, Maxar Technologies, Center for Strategic & International Studies Missile Defense Project, Institute for the Study of War