Russian Nuclear Missile Test Fails, Visible In Norway

[WriteDown]

Source: NYT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia admitted on Thursday another failed test of its much-touted Bulava intercontinental missile, after unusual lights were spotted in Norway across the border from the launch site.

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....


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/12/10/world/international-us-russia-missile-failure.html

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Odd that this was centered in the Norwegian sky. I thought God was just pleased that B one the Nobel Peace prize. :)

The photos of this thing are bizarre.

[kenny blankenship]

1. there's something you don't see everyday

[AlphaCentauri]

2. That doesn't look like a regular missile failure

most likely a vacuum bomb

[The Stranger]

4. What does it do?

Vacuum everything up? (I'm glad it failed, maybe they'll spend their money on something else now.)

[AlphaCentauri]

5. It's like a green bomb that does not pollute the ecosystem

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1155952320070912

[WriteDown]

Thank goodness the Russians actually care about our

environment with their incredibly scary bomb tests.

[AlphaCentauri]

8. sure they do

after Chernobyl they know what it is to contaminate the the land and make it useless. What would they gain in a war if they pollute the resources of the countries they would engage in a war?

[dipsydoodle]

10. Remove competition

seems to be the obvious answer to your question. :shrug:

[sofa king]

9. That used to be called a "fuel-air explosive."

And it was a "terra-ist" weapon back when Poppy Bush (the smarter one) was lying to us about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction just before Oil War One. It pollutes just as much as if you'd spilled a couple tons of gasoline, then ignited it. That's not radiation, but it ain't "green," either.

My best guess is that the spiral "cloud" is actually a projection of the surface of the lens of an enormous spotlight, shone along the projected launch trajectory of the rocket (blue exhaust trail).

[kenny blankenship]

11. More pics AND video

video
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1562587976?bctid=55946023001

I saw another video of it last night, which I'll try to find again.

The spiral cloud is real - it also rotates. When I was a kid I shot a model rocket motor (no rocket body, just the engine) out of a pipe. The rocket motor shot out of the pipe straight but without stabilizing surfaces it immediately wobbled into a crazy spiral. It still went upward, but spiraling on its side. Instead of a thousand-odd feet it went up maybe a hundred. The spiral ejecta seen in the pictures is very likely the same kind of phenomenon. The missile's guidance failed early on- it couldn't correct a wobble which you can see in the bright blue launch plume becomes a flat spiral as the rocket motor reaches an upper layer of the atmosphere. The temperature difference in the stacked layers of the atmosphere probably causes the rocket exhaust to appear to shift from icy blue to white.

[krispos42]

12. I'm surprised the rocket stayed intact under such stress

and didn't break up and explode

[kenny blankenship]

14. I would bet it's a solid rocket motor - like the space shuttle boosters

or an Estes brand model rocket. No moving parts involved in the propulsion end. No doubt the control surfaces ripped off - and there would probably be a visible transition then. If you could view the launch from an axis perpendicular to the trajectory, the wobble would probably go from corkscrew to flat spiral at that point. The rocket body -whatever was left of it as the payload section most likely snapped off- would probably slow up radically as the force of the still burning rocket turns the broad surface of the booster this way and that against the direction it was formerly traveling. It would continue in that initial trajectory but not as before - not accelerating anymore but decelerating. Meanwhile the booster continues to spew exhaust as the rocket spirals - producing the pinwheel effect in the sky which looks to a ground observer as flat as can be.

[krispos42]

20. Ah, that would explain it.

SRB's don't go out until they're done burning, one way or another.

I bet we have undersea salvage units convering on the area, hoping to find some interesting bits and pieces left over. :-)

[eppur_se_muova]

25. Sorta like this?

[Thothmes]

26. We used FAE weapons during the final stages of the

Vietnam war.

[WriteDown]

3. Haha....

It doesn't even look real. If I had seen it live, I would have been thinking "dimensional portal."

[AlphaCentauri]

7. Russians might be testing a spire fractal design bomb

a missile that can drill holes before it explode

[Ter]

21. Looks like a portal to an alternate universe

Cover up?

[dysfunctional press]

6. yeah...pull the other one and it plays jingle bells.

[On the Road]

13. "Bulava" Missle?

I assume the failure was due to the timing mechanism. (g)

[Dover]

15. Russia developed the missile in answer to U.S. missile defense systems...

Development begain in 1999.
In light of the fact that the U.S. has purportedly scrapped plans for installing a missile defense system at Russia's border, it's interesting that Russia is pursuing this and apparently in a very public way. Is it a message or what's going on with that 'agreement'? Or perhaps it's just a 'reminder' to the U.S. as pressures mount around how to deal with Iran.
At any rate, there was foreknowledge of this test which was originally planned for October, then again in November.


Q+A-Russia delays test of troubled Bulava missile
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSGEE5AN0F7


Russia Responds to US Shield With Bulava Missiles
December 02, 2008 11:28 AM

Russia has declared that it will produce a stockpile of new intercontinental ballistic missiles, in an apparent attempt to counter the planned U.S. missile defense shield...cont'd
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/international/2008/December/Russia-Responds-to-US-Shield-With-Bulava-Missiles.html


Some info on the Bulava-Mace Missile -

The Bulava design is based on the Topol M, but is both lighter and more sophisticated. The two missiles are expected to have comparable ranges, and similar CEP and warhead configurations.

The Russian military developed Bulava to possess advanced defense capabilities making it nearly impervious to existing and future missile-defense systems. Among its claimed abilities are evasive maneuvering, mid-course countermeasures and decoys and a warhead fully shielded against both physical and Electromagnetic pulse damage. The Bulava is designed to be capable of surviving a nuclear blast at a minimum distance of 500 meters.<3> Prime minister Putin has claimed that Bulava could penetrate any potential anti-missile defence system.

The Bulava is able to carry up to 6-10 MIRV warheads with a yield of 100-150 kT each.<2> A full-capacity payload requires the forfeiture of all final stage countermeasures and of some shielding...cont'd


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSM-56_Bulava



More Info -

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Bulava_(missile)
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/bulava.htm

[WriteDown]

17. Or maybe its a message that they never really cared

about the defense shield in the first place. Seems like their plans are still going full speed ahead. Scary stuff .

[Dover]

24. Or....maybe it was timed for Obama's Nobel visit to Norway...n/t

[Lurks Often]

27. here's another explanation

The United States and the USSR/Russia have always had a triad approach to the delivery of nuclear weapons, with the three parts of the triad being land based ICBMs, sea based ICBMs (and to a much lesser degree nuclear armed cruise missiles) and land based aircraft with either free fall nuclear bombs or nuclear armed cruise missiles. The Triad approach is used because it would be almost impossible to eliminate all three parts of the triad at the same time, with submarine launched ballistic missiles being the hardest to destroy.

Apparently the ballistic missile submarines that the Russians use to use are reaching the end of their service life. The Russians have a new ballistic submarine coming into service, but it can not use the ballistic missiles from the submarines that are leaving service as the missiles are too big. The Russians have a new missile in development, which is the one in article, but the tests have been mostly unsuccessful, with the failures being attributed to poor quality control of the components.

[Kolesar]

16. I saw video of this on TV this morning--quite a sight...eom

[cory777]

18. or

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1308.htm

[Number9Dream]

19. Doggone it, Joe... it's a sign...

From Izquierdo over at Suburban Guerrilla:

Clearly, this is a divine omen. God has opened a door, and someone blessed will now walk through it.

Just as there was a star in the East 21 centuries ago in the twelfth month, so is this a December star shining brightly in the North, prophesizing that the former governor of the northernmost state, arrayed in the most sumptuous of garments and wandering in the desert in chartered aircraft and busses to bring her new bibles to the faithful, is being born again politically to save the world from the sins of its evil governments and corrupt “gotcha” mainsteream media.

Will the world be ready for this divine gift, or will it crucify this daughter of God, just as it once crucified the son of God 2100 years ago?

Or perhaps it is prophesizing the divinity of the youngest son of this daughter of God, conceived without man and born in less than two months, who she rightly calls a gift from God?

May the Good Lord bless us all, for we are truly blessed to live in such divinely blessed times. You betcha!

[tridim]

22. Missiles have failed before, let's see all the old photographs of similar phenomenon.

Then I'll believe this explaination.

[Algorem]

23. wonder what it really was

russia always tells everyone about their missiles