Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

construction of the first submarine in the new class
was put on hold until new designs could be drawn
to accommodate a radically different missile. The
Typhoon-class SSBN converted for Bark was converted
once again to serve as a testing pad for the new missile.
This decision, made in the late 1990s, was widely
attributed to parochial fights, and in particular to the
close relationship between the Director of MITT Yuri
Solomonov and the then-Defense Minister Igor Sergeev,
previously the Commander of the SRF.
MITT planned to make the new SLBM, codenamed
Bulava, an example of a new approach to
development of missiles—relatively fast, relatively
cheap, with fewer test flights, and large-scale use of
computer simulation. The new missile was supposed
to become a major departure from Soviet traditions of
SLBM design and be much lighter and smaller than
Soviet solid-fuel SLBMs. The plan failed utterly—to
date, seven out of 12 test flights have failed, and those
by rather relaxed official criteria; the majority of nongovernmental
experts classify only one or two tests as
successful.
By the end of 2009 the government and the Ministry
of Defense lost patience. Solomonov had to resign
from the position of the head of MITT and a special
commission was established to investigate the cause
of failures concluded that the missile’s design was
faulty. 55 Resumption of tests was initially scheduled
for early summer 2010, but then was postponed until
late fall. 56 Solomonov, however, continues to insist
that failures were caused by substandard components
supplied by the industry, which no longer can maintain
high quality. 57
In the meantime, the new SSBN program continued
in spite of delays with the missile. The first
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