MOSCOW, November 24. /TASS/. Russia’s new S-550 and S-500 surface-to-air missile systems will jointly defend strategically important Russian facilities from missiles and space threats, a source close to the Russian Defense Ministry told TASS.
"The S-550 system will not replace S-500, because it is not more advanced that its predecessor. In fact, it is a slightly lighter version. The new system’s combat goals will differ from those of Prometei," he said.
In his words, S-550 and S-500 Prometei will form the backbone of Russia’s new network of air defenses, protecting strategically important facilities from hypersonic targets.
"S-500 and S-550 systems will become a platform for the new air defense system, by protecting strategically important facilities from hypersonic targets. Combined with the S-350 Vityaz systems and short-range systems, they will be effective against all targets existing today," he said.
In his words, the S-550 system is not an attempt to revive an eponymous Soviet-era project, although some unimplemented concepts of it were used while creating the modern version.
TASS has been unable to officially confirm this information at the time of the publication.
S-550 strategic missile system
A source close to Russia’s Defense Ministry earlier told TASS that the first S-550 strategic missile defense system would enter service with the Russian Army by 2025. He said that the hardware for the S-550 had already been built and related to the strategic ballistic missile defense system. The S-550 would use a mobile launcher with a hypersonic missile and no seaborne version of this weapon was envisaged, the source said.
Head of the Rostec state tech corporation Rostec Sergei Chemezov said at the Dubai Airshow 2021 that the S-550 would feature a longer-range target detection and missile interception capability.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at the ministry’s conference call on November 9 that at defense industry meetings in Sochi in November Russian President Vladimir Putin had put emphasis on the importance of delivering S-350, S-500 and S-550 air and missile defense systems to the Russian troops.
The S-550 short-range missile interception weapon (the project of the mobile point defense missile system) was developed in the Soviet Union in 1981-1988 at the Almaz Central Design Bureau (currently, the Almaz Research and Production Association within the Almaz-Antey Group). The work on this system was terminated simultaneously with several projects of other Soviet design bureaus in the defense sphere as part of Soviet-American agreements. The equipment of the weapon’s fire system prototype was dismantled after 1992. The groundwork created in the process of the work on the project was destroyed after the disintegration of the USSR.