MURMANSK, September 13. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s newest nuclear submarine Severodvinsk has finished combat trials in the White Sea and headed to its permanent base in the northern Murmansk region, a spokesman for the Northern Fleet said on Saturday.

Missile firing exercises were an important part of the trials. The crew also carried out a number of other combat tasks, which proved the submarine and its weapons highly effective, Vadim Serga told ITAR-TASS.

The Yasen-class submarine Severodvinsk (Project 885) joined the Navy in July and began the sea trials in deep sees shortly after that. The trials in the White Sea continued for several months, during which it made several voyages.

Since the Dagdizel plant in Dagestan, southern Russia, has not yet finished building the new heat-seeking self-guided torpedo Fizik, the Severodvinsk, just like the Yuri Dolgoruky and Alexander Nevsky, both accepted by the Navy last year, are armed with a USET-80 multipurpose electric-propelled torpedo. “As soon as the Fizik torpedo completes the tests, it will be put into service and installed aboard the Severodvinsk and other Russian submarines,” a Defence Ministry source told ITAR-TASS earlier.

The torpedo is expected to be finished by 2017.

In November 2013, the Sevmash defence shipyard said that the submarine had completed the contractor’s sea trials commenced in 2011 and begun state trials preceding the transfer to the Navy.

By that time, the submarine had made 14 sea voyages lasting more than 222 days, sailed tens of thousands of nautical miles, and performed over a hundred of dives and emersions. The contractor’s trials confirmed the craft’s excellent performance characteristics. “The Severodvinsk is the most advanced and the quietest domestic submarine,” Sevmash specialists say.

Sevmash is building seven new Yasen-class multirole nuclear submarines, which are to be handed over to the Navy by 2020.

In 2012, the Severodvinsk fired the newest supersonic cruise missile five times. The submerged submarine fired the newest supersonic cruise missile at a surface target from the White Sea in five successive successful launches of a new cruise supersonic missile conducted as part of the Kalibr rocket system tests.

The fourth generation nuclear-powered submarine Severodvinsk started mooring trials at the Sevmash shipyard in 2010.

The Project 885 submarine was designed by the Malakhit design bureau in St. Petersburg. The Sevmash shipyard launched the project in 1993. The protracted period of construction was caused by economic difficulties, and also by the need to design a new architecture of the hull and armaments.

Russia intends to produce six more vessels of this type. In July 2009, Sevmash started building a second Project 885 submarine named Kazan.

The Severodvinsk is the first in the Graney class (Yasen in Russian classification) of nuclear powered attack submarines. A source in the Russian Defence Ministry told Itar-Tass earlier that at least six submarines of the Graney class would be built within the next eight years. Construction of the second submarine in the series, the Kazan, started in July 2009. A similar submarine called Novosibirsk was laid down in the summer of 2013. The construction of the fourth craft of the same class named Krasnoyrsk will begin on July 19.

Severodvinsk is the 131st nuclear submarine built by Sevmash for the Navy. In all, eight Yasen-class submarines are to be built by 2020.

Vessels of the Yasen class will be the most silent submarines in the world. They will have a maximum speed of 16 knots surfaced and 31 knots submerged. They will be 119 metres long, 13.5 metres wide and 9.4 metres high.

According to Russia’s Naval Doctrine, submarines of this class will become the main multirole nuclear vehicles in the Navy.