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Another Bulava test launch planned for this year – defense minister

The source did not say how many Bulava rockets would fly to the Kamchatka Kura testing range. Others said that two rockets would be fired at a small interval

MOSCOW, November 18 (Itar-Tass) —— There will be another test launch of a Bulava sea-based intercontinental ballistic missile this year, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said on Friday.

“We plan another test launch before the end of this year. We are on schedule so far. Hopefully, the weather will be good,” he said. “You must remember severe frosts of last year, which impeded a test launch. If the weather is bad again, the test launch will most probably take place in May 2012.”

Meanwhile, a defense sector representative told Itar-Tass that the last Bulava test launch of the year would be a salvo. The test launch is due from the Yuri Dolgoruky strategic nuclear-powered submarine, the head submarine of Project 955 ‘Borei’, in the Barents Sea in late November – early December.

The source did not say how many Bulava rockets would fly to the Kamchatka Kura testing range. Others said that two rockets would be fired at a small interval.

The Yuri Dolgoruky has done two Bulava test launch, both of them successful. The upcoming salvo launch is an important phase of state tests necessary before the Bulava is put into service.

The biggest salvo launch in the Russian Navy history was that of 16 intercontinental ballistic missiles fired from the K-407 Novomoskovsk submarine in August 1991.