According to information published by Tass on October 4, 2021, the Northern Fleet’s Severodvinsk nuclear-powered submarine has successfully conducted its first test launch of the Tsirkon hypersonic missile in the Barents Sea, Russia’s Defense Ministry told.
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Severodvinsk nuclear-powered submarine firing Tsirkon hypersonic missile for first time (Picture source: Russian Ministry of Defense)
The Tsirkon missile’s launch was conducted from the water surface position.
On September 30, a source in the military-industrial complex told TASS that the first trial launch of the underwater version of the Tsirkon hypersonic missile would be conducted from the Severodvinsk nuclear-powered submarine in October. Depending on the outcome, the second launch from the underwater position at a sea target is being planned for November.
On July 19, it was reported that the Project 22350 lead frigate Admiral Gorshkov had successfully launched the Tsirkon hypersonic missile at a land target at a speed of Mach 7 and at a distance beyond 350 kilometers. According to the military agency, the frigate launched the missile from the waters of the White Sea. The land target was located on the coast of the Barents Sea.
The K-560 Severodvinsk is a Yasen-class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine of the Russian NavyThe Yasen-class nuclear submarines will be armed with land-attack cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, anti-submarine missiles including the P-800 Oniks SLCM, Kalibr family SLCM or 3M51 SLCM. Kalibr-PL has several variants including the 3M54K (terminal-supersonic) and 3M54K1 (subsonic) anti-ship, 91R1 anti-submarine, and the 3M14K land-attack variant.
The submarine will be also able to fire hypersonic 3M22 Zircon cruise missiles. Each submarine can carry 32 Kalibr or 24 Oniks, according to Russian military sources, the submarine will be able to carry 40 Kalibr and 32 Oniks cruise missiles which are stored in eight (ten for 855M) vertical launchers. Additional missiles may be carried in the torpedo room at the expense of torpedoes. and the lead vessel of this class.
