MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. Research into and development of the new heavy inter-continental ballistic missile RS-28 Sarmat proceeds as expected, the chief of Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, told President Vladimir Putin at a working meeting on Monday.

At last Saturday’s meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu Putin expressed special interest in progress achieved in producing Sarmat and in preparations for putting the missile on combat duty.

A source in Russia’s defense-industrial complex told TASS earlier that Sarmat’s flight tests at the Plesetsk cosmodrome were to begin in the second half of 2019. Several experimental samples are to be launched from Plesetsk and the area of the Uzhur missile division in the Krasnoyarsk Region. The officially declared deadline for completing the tests is 2020. After that one serially produced missile will be test-launched, the source added.