Modern rocket "Zircon": specifications and features. Hypersonic era: the Zircon missile will make the enemy's missile defense system meaningless The new Zircon hypersonic missile

The topic of "military" hypersound has been on the front pages of the world's leading publications for several decades now. Moreover, this issue is raised not only by specialized media, but also by tabloids dedicated to international relations economics, finance...

The reason for such close attention is the likely change of the "planetary hegemon", because a country that can put on stream the production of hypersonic aircraft (GZLA) before potential opponents will gain real freedom in foreign policy. New offensive weapons will be out of reach for modern systems protection, which means that the usual rhetoric of “historical parity” in the rivalry between the West and the East will also remain in the past.

According to experts, Moscow and Washington once again became participants in an unannounced duel: no one doubts the fact that the hypersonic missiles of Russia and the United States will have diametrically opposed goals - the only mystery is who will “take aim” at whom ...

Weapons labeled "Top Secret"

Today, “absolute weapons” are spoken about literally on every corner. Newspapers, magazines, television programs - everywhere they trumpet about the imminent approach of the "terrifying prospect." And at the same time the flow is for real useful information so meager that sometimes it seems that hypersonic cruise missiles are nothing more than a figment of the imagination of science fiction writers.

Why is this happening? Yes, because, having given publicity to the results of individual developments, the military is in no hurry to reveal all the cards, because at stake is the future of the country, its ability to adequately respond to global threats and the challenges of potential adversaries. In addition, many projects have the status of state secrets, and this not only complicates professional activity journalists, but also "inclines to silence" those who could tell something about shifts and breakthroughs in this direction. Nevertheless, bit by bit the data suggests that the Russian rocket troops are on the verge of a qualitative rebirth, which is another year or two - and secret systems will take up combat duty ...

The emphasis on hypersound is not accidental - a target moving at a speed of three to four kilometers per second ceases to be vulnerable to the vast majority of missile defense systems. Now only intercontinental ballistic missiles can boast of such performance indicators. However, their "cruising acceleration" is realized exclusively in airless space (at great heights). As you know, a material body in space is deprived of aerodynamic maneuvering, that is, invulnerability.

A hypersonic cruise missile (Russia has yet to conduct a series of tests before the modernized Koala model, which is how the domestic X-90 is called in the NATO armies, will become a serious deterrent in relations with the "presumptuous hegemon") - this is an ultra-precise weapon with a kill radius several tens of thousands of kilometers. In fact, such a combat unit is the embodiment of the military's dream, because, in addition to speed and "selectivity", it will have absolute invulnerability.

Not so long ago, the revelations of Boris Obnosov, the head of TRO, leaked to the press. The director of the corporation said that in 2013, one “dream” was already tested at the Akhtubinsk training ground, capable of reaching a speed of 5 thousand km / h. And although the rocket was able to hold out in the air for only a few tens of seconds, the designer unequivocally hinted that the final success was close, and that the American product - the notorious X-51A - in many respects technical parameters significantly inferior to the Russian one.

Hypersonic Cruise Missiles: The Cold War That Never Ended

The role that the United States assigns to "hypersound" is, of course, colossal. According to intelligence, the practical implementation of the idea is part of an overall strategy aimed at "forcing" Moscow into geopolitical capitulation. In other words, the Pentagon has once again embarked on building a dialogue from a position of strength.

Until 2025, the moment when, according to official doctrine, Russia's new hypersonic missiles will have to "become operational", Washington will definitely try to "eliminate the Russian threat." Moreover, he has plenty of political and economic opportunities to influence domestic processes. However, the possibility of a direct confrontation cannot be ruled out. It is no coincidence that the number of CRBDs (long-range cruise missiles) in the US Army is brought to 7 thousand units - an unprecedented figure since the active phase of the Cold War.

Hidden Threats, or What's Behind NASA's Space Programs?

NASA's peaceful space exploration program isn't really that friendly. Among other things, it implies that by 2020 the agency should have at its disposal a hypersonic carrier (supposedly for launching tonnage cargo into orbit). The tests conducted last summer - we are talking about the launch of the X-43A from the Kodiak test site, Alaska - showed that the true intentions of the "astronauts" are completely different (before the launch, the task was set: to hit a target located on a Pacific atoll at a speed not less than 6.5 thousand km/s). In fact, there was a "demonstration performance" with the participation of a combat prototype. The result of "peaceful" research will most likely be a hypersonic missile with a kinetic warhead.

Similar projects are being implemented by the US Army and Navy. In the US Air Force, in parallel, work is underway to study the potential of the Falcon HTV-2: during the last “California experiment”, the device exceeded all expectations and reached a speed of Mach 20 (about 23,000 km / h). However, there is no need to talk about a successful start - the sample lost control and collapsed, never reaching its destination. The reasons for the loss of communication with the missile remain unclear.

What will be the response of Russia?

It must be understood that "military" hypersound for Russia is not a new topic. The first attempts to create "something maneuverable and super-fast" were made in the USSR back in the 70s of the last century (meaning an experimental model with a split charge and a flight range of up to 3000 km; later it "entered the series" and was called "Cold" ), and their results formed the basis of the technology for the production of "elusive" warheads. Topol-M, Bulava, Liner - for these modifications of intercontinental ballistic missiles it is common to change the heading and flight altitude on the final leg of the journey. And it's not a secret. But as for the presence of "aerospace planes" - everything here is shrouded in a veil of mystery.

The Americans, for example, are betting on the Falcon and X-51A. As expected, a new class aircraft will be able to constantly “hang” in orbit, and if necessary, launch deadly missiles that can hit a target in a matter of minutes. There is almost no information about Russian analogues. However, the calm demonstrated by the country's leadership indicates that the Kremlin still has a couple of trump cards up its sleeve.

Yu-71 as a tool to limit the effectiveness of overseas missile defense

Until February current year there was no reliable information about Object 4202. Nowhere did any information about the Yu-71 warhead (Yu-71) come up. But after the launch of the prototype from the Dombarovsky training ground, near Orenburg, all the dots over the “i” were finally dotted. Judging by the official report, by 2025 the local regiment of the Strategic Missile Forces will receive more than 20 special installations, each of which will be able to work with "invulnerable charges." Behind this wording lies what has been talked about for so long - Russia's latest hypersonic missiles.

Some analysts claim that the February tests did not go quite smoothly - they say, the “modernized” UR-100N (UTTKh) was the carrier, and it did not cope with the task. However, the achieved acceleration rate - about 5.2 Mach - is already a huge breakthrough. It remains to “tighten the nuts” and “tighten the bolts”.

Data coming from open sources indicate that the designers of NPO Mashinostroeniya (Reutov) are behind the implementation of the 4202 project, and they have been working in this direction since 2009. That is, with the observance of the regime of secrecy in the military department, things are going well.

Independent experts believe that Russia's new hypersonic cruise missile is a kind of "hybrid" capable of operating both independently and as part of an intercontinental ballistic launch system. Probably, we are talking about several modifications that will be compatible with both light Topols and heavier Sarmats (the debut of the latter is expected at the turn of 2019-2020).

The 25-140 km corridor is not the only topical area for research. Moscow is mastering the technology at an accelerated pace, which allows launching objects on unthinkable trajectories at ultra-low altitudes with an acceleration of Mach 3-4. Being aerodynamic targets for missile defense systems, such cruise missiles will be able to get ahead of interceptor charges and hit targets regardless of the saturation of the defensive shield.

Is the Pentagon ready for a meeting with Zircon?

Russian hypersonic missiles are a "closed" topic. What ends up in print is usually "deliberate drain". Therefore, there is no exact information about Zircon even now - three years after the official "bride-in" was supposed to take place. But if we take into account the fact that last summer military officials approved a program for the development of hypersonic technologies immediately for 6 years in advance, then the conclusion suggests itself: the phantom rocket performed adequately during the next exercise, its appearance in the Armed Forces is a settled issue.

It is suggested that the Zircon will become an operational element at a distance of 300 to 400 km. But how it will be in reality is still unknown. And this uncertainty greatly worries the Pentagon - they are used to believing that hypersonic missiles of Russia and the United States, in their own performance characteristics very similar. The birth of the "eastern Phoenix", which has outstanding abilities, is a serious cause for concern for NATO generals.

Again, the mechanism for delivering Zircon to the target is unclear. And the Americans today are forced to puzzle over exactly what changes they should make to their "long-suffering" missile defense system in order to minimize the potential damage from the "sending".

Hypersonic missile and long-range aircraft: an explosive mixture

The head of the "TRO" admits that the first hypersonic missiles of Russia will still be based not on ground stations with MBN, but in the air - on the sides of long-range and medium aviation. The reason for such changes may be the need to give combat elements initial speed(Practical tests have shown that during a “stationary launch”, a ramjet engine is not activated until the moment the loaded warhead is launched, and this negatively affects the acceleration dynamics).

With an additional “push” from the aircraft, a Russian hypersonic cruise missile can easily cross the Mach 6 threshold. According to Obnosov, in the future (not earlier than 2030), “profile launch vehicles” will appear in service - manned vehicles that accelerate to Mach 4-8.

American X-51A Waverider and domestic "Mosquito": no one is safe from failures

Overseas "partners" perceive Russia's hypersonic missiles as a nightmare. Therefore, huge sums are allocated annually from the US federal budget for the development of air force. One such semi-secret project is known as code name X-51A Waverider.

The first and, in fact, the only "open" tests of the carrier took place in 2010. Then the X-51 booster stage launched the rocket along a steep trajectory to a height of 19.8 km, and the supersonic engine that turned on provoked the acceleration of the prototype to Mach 4.8. But after the prototype managed to rise another 1500 meters above the ground and accelerate to Mach 5 (more than 5.5 thousand km / h), interruptions in telemetry began. Since the signal from the object was unstable, it came to forced liquidation. By the way, according to a similar scenario, a month before the events described, the FHTV-2, an aircraft designed by the Boeing concern, was tested. It turns out that the cause of the Falcon crash was the same disconnection (the route ran over a non-navigable area Pacific Ocean, so they did not blow up the prototype).

It must be said that Russia also possesses hypersonic missiles not thanks to a "happy accident" - this event was preceded by dozens of unsuccessful launches and delayed launches. What is the "epopee" with the introduction of the anti-ship "Mosquito" (P-270) into operation? But there it was “only” about the speed in 4 Max!

Close acquaintance with the "Koala": Russian hypersonic missile "Kh-90"

The history of the creation of the X-90 goes back to the now distant 1971. The case concerned a medium-class strategic carrier applicable at low altitudes. However, the leadership of the USSR reacted to the initiative of the designers of NPO Raduga very cool, and until 1976 the project was not remembered. In the 80s prototypes already accelerated to Mach 4; at the same time, the idea of ​​\u200b\u200b"bifurcation" of the warhead was brought to life (each charge could be aimed at a separate target, provided that the distance to it from the point of "decay" did not exceed 100 km). In 1992, for obvious reasons, all developments were “mothballed”.

Five years later, the Russian hypersonic missile with the X-90 index was transformed into an "experimental aircraft operating at superspeeds." In NATO, the project was immediately dubbed the AS-19 Koala. It is worth noting that Moscow officially insists that the Koala and X-90s built in the 1970s have nothing in common, although experts, all as one, say otherwise.

The speed of the 1997 hypersonic missile declared by the designers is Mach 5, the radius of action is 3500 km. After detaching from the TU-160M ​​(at an altitude of 7-20 km), the wing mechanism is activated. This is followed by the launch of a solid fuel booster, which outputs combat unit to the supersonic line, and only then the main engine is turned on.

Modern Poplars and Stilettos are a new step in the evolution of the X-90. Large-scale military exercises in 2004 confirmed that 5000 m / s is far from the limit for a hypersonic warhead.

Moscow and Delhi: the birth of BrahMos-2

Of course, testing Russia's hypersonic missile was expensive. And it's not even about money, of which a lot has been spent on military needs over the past twenty years. Political and sometimes economic pressure from the West forced the Kremlin to "active defense", to search for new strategic partners...

Not so long ago, the tests of BrahMos were completed. The joint Russian-Indian project was marked by the birth of the "winged beast", which can move at a speed of 650 m/s. But no one is going to stop there. The next stage of cooperation is "BrahMos-2" with indicators of 6.5-7 Mach. If it is possible to realize what was planned, then Moscow and Delhi will be able to share the laurels of the winner, because one can only dream of a weapon with similar characteristics.

Interestingly: high-ranking official The Pentagon, in an interview, answering a journalist's question about whether there are hypersonic missiles in the Russian Federation, chose to remain silent. Although some 15 years ago, foreign experts categorically stated that the Kremlin's expectations in this area were in vain, and that Mach 7 was an unattainable limit (according to unofficial data, the scramjet, created by domestic designers, successfully "passed the test" back in 1998).

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation indirectly confirmed the existence of work on the creation of hypersonic strike weapons: a message appeared on the website of the military department that, as part of the armament program for 2018-2025, it is planned to “complete the development and supply to the troops of fundamentally new types of hypersonic weapons, intelligent robotic systems, weapons for new physical principles, as well as a number of traditional samples of the next generation of military and military equipment. ”This became a kind of commentary on the Saturday report of the TASS agency that during the tests of the newest Russian rocket Zircon, a speed of eight Machs - nine thousand kilometers per hour was reached. Neither TASS, let alone the Ministry of Defense, began to clarify the details of the tests. There are more than enough explanations for the closeness of the Zircon program. Hypersound is one of the main fetishes of the ongoing competition between Russia and the United States in the field of creating advanced military technologies. The Mach number, or M, determines the ratio of the local flow velocity to the speed of sound - 331 m/sec. Exceeding the speed of sound by six, eight, ten times is one of the global tasks for the development of modern aircraft and rocket manufacturing. From a military point of view, hypersonic aircraft are an extremely effective strike tool. Hypersonic flight is indistinguishable for modern means radar. The creation of means of intercepting such missiles does not exist and is not even expected. In the United States, the implementation of the Prompt Global Strike program (Prompt Global Strike(PGS)), which will allow the US military to deliver pinpoint strikes on any region of the world within 60 minutes from the moment the decision is made. For us, this is an opportunity to fend off this threat with a weapon that can reach any target in the oceans or in America with the same speed. In August 2014, the Americans launched the X-43A hypersonic missile from the Kodiak training ground in Alaska. Gaining speed of about 6.5 thousand km / h, after seven seconds of operation, the device burned out in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, Washington called this flight a success: the car demonstrated the ability to gain the required acceleration. In December 2015, the NPO Mashinostroeniya, followed by the Ministry of Defense, also reported “on testing a certain missile” at a test site near Arkhangelsk.
Which one, the managers of the joint Russian-Indian venture BrahMos Aerospace Limited have already said. Taking as a basis the Russian supersonic missile P-800 "Onyx" / "Yakhont", the company created its Indian analogue "BrahMos". The representative of the company, Pravin Patak, said that the hypersonic BrahMos-2 has been created and is being tested in India. It is easy to assume that if there is an Indian, then there is a Russian version of such a missile. This can be judged from even earlier information in the corporate newspaper of NPO Mashinostroeniya Tribuna VPK, which reported that back in 2011, in one of the directorates, a group of chief designers was created on the topic 3M22 - an interspecific missile system with a hypersonic anti-ship operational missile "Zirkon ".
So what is Zircon? This can be judged from the information of the same BrahMos Aerospace Limited. At one of the international exhibitions, they showed the BrahMos-2 model: a flattened spatulate nose, chopped forms of the hull itself. The rocket is two-staged: the first is a powder booster, the second is a liquid-propellant jet engine. Honorary General Director and Honorary General Designer of JSC VPK NPO Mashinostroeniya, Professor of Bauman Moscow State Technical University Herbert Efremov, in his interview with Izvestia, explained that "chopped forms" and "shovel-shaped nose" products are necessary to ensure the normal rate of fuel burning in the engine. During hypersonic flight, it is impossible to ensure this process without reducing the speed of the air entering the combustion chamber to the supersonic threshold. Therefore, as the designer noted, only liquid-propellant jet engines can provide long-term hypersonic flight. The TASS report and the comments of the Ministry of Defense say nothing about the test parameters, during which eight Machs were achieved. Did this flight take seconds or minutes, how far did the car fly, was this flight controlled or not? The veil of secrecy remains over Zircon. Although it is already known that a number of Russian ships received universal launchers of the "revolving type" 3S-14. They are designed to accommodate and launch anti-ship cruise missiles 3M-55 "Onyx" and long-range 3M-54 "Caliber". "Zircon" is replacing them, from which it can be concluded that in 2018 new rocket will receive several types of Russian surface and submarine ships and coastal missile systems at once.
These can be heavy nuclear cruisers of the 1144th project of the Orlan type. The head cruiser of this project, Admiral Nakhimov, is already being upgraded at the Severodvinsk Zvezdochka enterprise. According to Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov, a decision has been made to modernize four of the eight Project 949 nuclear submarines in the Navy for the deployment of Onyxes and Calibers.
The work will be carried out at the Zvezda plant in the Far East, located in Bolshoi Kamen Bay. The launchers of supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles "Granit" (according to NATO classification SS-N-19 Shipwreck - "Shipwreck") located on the sides of the submarines will be replaced with new launchers. This will allow not only to increase the ship's ammunition from 24 to 72 missiles, but also to place new weapons on it. By analogy with surface and submarine cruisers, the Zircon will also be used by Bastion coastal missile systems with Onyx missiles. There is no doubt that the Russian-Indian BrahMos Aerospace Limited will integrate the new missile into the armament of the Su-30MKI fighter. Testing of the vehicle with the BrahMos missile began last year.