Russian SSBN question

Hmm, no worries, your eyes don’t cheat on you. There is certainly something wrong with that name… It’s written Kareliya, is this right? That’s what’s there for sure. I don’t know if the name’s written like that, since I always saw Karelya on the net… But that’s it.

Karelia was my first reaction to, it’s just that I couldn’t make out the characters.

My guess is Karelia and it is a DELTA IV. No idea what it is doing though.

The site says: Karelya… Which I suppose is right. The names of the Delta IV subs I know are:Tula, Verkhotur’e, Novomoskovsk, Ekaterininburg, Bryansk and Karelya. That makes six of the seven units. The other one is called Vladimir, but no one is sure about that. So, there are two chances then. This is the Seventh unit or it is Karelya indeed. (Or it is a Delta III????)

I’m more interested in what the name on the boarding plank says- Kar-?

What is this one doing????

Is she testing the ballast tanks or emergency blow (on the quay :rolleyes: )?

Sorry, you’re right. I thought Delta I had a straight back and DII had the stepped one… OK, it might be Ryazan then, since the ship is taken out of service, they might have reallocated the name to the current DIV. I still don’t know what this picture is doing on the rocket launch site though…

Weird, this picture:
[IMG]Does not show a Delta III, but a Delta II, yet it’s posted there… Also, the Ryazan in the title, can’t mean it’s the Ryazan, because that’s the name of a Delta IV SSBN…
And the Delta II’s are scrapped from the active list some time ago… So, that is certainly an old picture.

It’s a DELTA I actually. Note the stepped turtle back. From the DELTA II~IV that turtle back was a smooth gentle slope. Ryazan could where the photo was taken perhaps?

Weird, this picture:

Does not show a Delta III, but a Delta II, yet it’s posted there… Also, the Ryazan in the title, can’t mean it’s the Ryazan, because that’s the name of a Delta IV SSBN…
And the Delta II’s are scrapped from the active list some time ago… So, that is certainly an old picture.

why would they need to use an SSBN to launch satellites? they have Baikonur Cosmodrome for that, and it’s much cheaper to launch from land…

They are killing two birds with one stone… both getting funding for the RuN while at the same time using up older rockets or rockets that need to be used due to agreements (it is cheaper to launch them than to have them taken to bits and destroyed). Another benefit is that satellites that have certain polar orbits benefit from being launched from further north. The current trend is for very small satellites and this missile is probably launching 4-5 at once despite its size.

Ah, but that’s my point, do they have small land-based rockets capable of leaving the atmosphere and deploying a load?

The fact that they are using the R-29R Volna for the launch would mean the package is small. Would it not be a waste of money to use a large land-based rocket to lift something so small?

a small land-based rocket would have been ideal. but since they have some R-29s left over, yea i suppose why not. perhaps we’ll see Ohios launching satellites with the Tridents removed from the four that were converted to SSGNs? hehe

why would they need to use an SSBN to launch satellites? they have Baikonur Cosmodrome for that, and it’s much cheaper to launch from land…

The fact that they are using the R-29R Volna for the launch would mean the package is small. Would it not be a waste of money to use a large land-based rocket to lift something so small?

Hi Glenn

Only just joined the board, late but better late than never

why would they need to use an SSBN to launch satellites? they have Baikonur Cosmodrome for that, and it’s much cheaper to launch from land…

Thanks Dave, but you are a little late. Read the rest of the thread.

Please read this, this will answer your question

Read this:
At 4:33am local time, July 20, 2000, in the Barents Sea North of Murmansk, the Russian submarine Borisoglebsk launched a Volna rocket that sent the Cosmos 1 solar sail on its first suborbital test flight. Here are some images from the days leading up to the launch, and from the launch itself, to give you a flavor of the atmosphere and excitement surrounding the launch.

http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/Murmansk_images.htm

Regards

Dave C :p

Thanks to Igor for original info.

Yep.

Borisoglebsk = БОРИСОГЛЄБСК in cyrillic right?

Where did you get the pic anyway? ‘Great Russian Arms site’ does not cut it 😉

Ok Trident. http://warfare.ru/?

It has a great collection of sources, including Janes and quite a few Russian ones as well. 🙂

And thanks TJ for the link, answers more questions.