REUTOV /Moscow Region/, January 30. /TASS/. The service life of the UR-100N UTTKh intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) will be extended by several more years, Alexander Leonov, CEO and General Designer of the Reutov-based NPO Mashinostroyeniya (part of Tactical Missiles Corporation, a member of the Union of Russian Machine-Building Enterprises) said on the sidelines of the 22nd session of the Academic Readings on Cosmonautics.

"We’re extending the service life as long as it can be extended. We're extending it to maintain the grouping, and that’s necessary. The Defense Ministry has set this task for us for the coming years," he said, responding to a TASS question.

Leonov noted that "we have to maintain missiles with service lives exceeding 40 years." "But this comes with a large amount of work that we conduct annually. The missiles are completely disassembled and examined, and we must guarantee that they will be, above all, safe and that they will fulfill their mission. Therefore, every year we extend the service life of these missiles by another year," Leonov noted.

The UR-100N UTTKh missiles are used as carriers for the Avangard hypersonic warhead. The Avangard warhead is capable of flying in dense atmosphere at hypersonic speeds of up to Mach 27 (approximately 32,000 km/h), maneuvering along its course and altitude and escaping the ballistic missile defense layer. The Russian president first announced the system in March 2018.