Sarmat Missile : Russia
Russian President recently said that, Russia’s new generation of Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads, would soon be deployed for combat duty.
- The RS-28 Sarmat is Russia’s new generation intercontinental ballistic missiles.
- It is named after the Sarmatian people of the fourth and fifth century BC. It has also been referred to in the West as the “Satan II”.
- It is capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads.
- It is designed and built by the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau, Russia.
- It has a range of about 18,000 kilometres.
- It can travel at a maximum speed of 25,500kph.
- Launch weight: 208,100 kg
- It can carry a 10-ton payload and can load a wide variety of warhead options.
- It can reportedly load up to 10 large warheads, 16 smaller ones, a combination of warheads and countermeasures, or hypersonic boost-glide vehicles
- While the RS-28 Sarmat can be launched much like a regular ICBM, it is thought to be also capable of what is called fractional orbital bombardment.
- A fractional orbital bombardment means firing an ICBM into a low orbit of the Earth much lower than a conventional firing potentially in the opposite direction to the target.
