Posted on 12/11/2009 3:04:22 PM PST by starczar66
The submarine-based Bulava (Mace) missile has been billed as Russia's newest technological breakthrough to support its nuclear deterrent, but the repeated test failures are an embarrassment for the Kremlin.
The missile failed in its 13th test on Wednesday morning, Russia's leading economic dailies Vedomosti and Kommersant reported on Thursday, quoting sources in the military-industrial complex.
Hours later, the Defense Ministry admitted the failure, saying the launch had been made by the Dmitry Donskoi nuclear submarine from a submerged position in the White Sea.
"It has been established ... that the missile's first two stages worked as normal, but there was a technical malfunction at the next, third, stage of the trajectory," a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
Norwegian experts reported sighting of phenomena in the atmosphere near the White Sea, where earlier Bulava rockets were fired, the Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers reported.
Russia's REN-TV showed footage of a spiral of white light, which it said was taken on Wednesday in Norway. The footage also showed a bright white light with a long blue tail on the horizon.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
They are modernizing... they are testing. Zero is negotiating.
Putin had this SLBM launched at the same time as the “Nobel Peace” prize thingy dingy’s were being awarded. I think there is a message there. “Houston we have a problem”.
But they’ve invented one heck of a great light show. Too bad they have no independence to celbrate. Take that Chinese!
‘celibrate’.
‘celebrate’ Oh, I give up!
Gee, what a letdown; I thought it might be a star proclamating the anointing of “The One” who so happened to be in the proximity at the time...
I'm still calling Scully and Mulder... :-)
Does this mean that all the former Soviet nuclear warheads are obsolete? If so, then Russia is a paper tiger.
I hate those sneaky Russian B#stads
I’m not buying this story.
I thought zero just hit the reset button.
My BS meter is pegged. Whatever that was, there was nothing ‘balistic’ about it.
A balistic missile is essentially a very advanced version of a roman candle sitting on top of a rocket. When they fail, you get an explosion, not a light show.
It didn’t look anything like a missile launch to me either. If those spirals were rocket exhaust then where are the pics of it diffusing and being swept along by wind currents into a fuzzy looking cloud of smoke?
Failed rocket launches are ugly, asymmetrical messes. The vapor trails are this jagged, almost sickly sort of tracing in the sky. I remember the Challenger explosion and the trails left by the SRBs, and that to me was more gruesome than the thought of those astronauts burning up.
Nothing is more evil looking than when large structures fail. There’s this ruthlessness of sorts.
Yeah, this story is pure horse hockey.
I have seen a lot of other pics and videos of failed and successful launches and they are, as you say, not pretty geometrical patterns. They don't produce nice pure lights like the white and blue seen in the pics of the Norwegian phenomena.
Uhh... it depends on the nature of the failure. You're assuming that the fuel would detonate all at once. It's equally likely that once being boosted up to that altitude, the third stage engine(s) lit off and immediately gimbaled hard over and locked there. There's a video of one of our Trident missile test launches where that exact thing occurred - but right after it cleared the surface of the ocean. Instead of roman candle, think "pinwheel".
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