Russia To Retire The Topol Strategic Intercontinental Ballistic Missile In 2024

Illustration of the Topol intercontinental ballistic missile. (Wikimedia Commons/Участник:Digr)

JAKARTA - Shocking news came from Russia, along with the news that the country's authorities were planning to retire the strategic intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), known as Topol.

Quoted from TASS Thursday, August 5, a source in the defense sector said one of the most feared intercontinental ballistic missiles belonging to the Soviet Union and then Russia will be grounded in 2024.

"It is planned to remove the newest Topol intercontinental ballistic missile from service in the strategic missile force by 2024. The non-functional Topol missile is replaced by the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile with a MIRVed warhead (containing up to 10 warheads)", the source explained.

The Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, the institute responsible for the development and production of Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles, chose not to give any comment on this information.

The source continued, several Topol ICBMs that are no longer in operation will be used for civilian purposes as Start-1 carrier rockets. The chief designer of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology Yuri Solomonov told TASS in November 2020 that the decision to proceed with the launch of the Start-1 carrier rocket converted from the Topol intercontinental ballistic missile could be taken within a year.

"A decision on this matter is planned to be made in 2020-2021", the source said, adding that everything would depend on the two programs to create two groups of small-sized satellites, of which the Start-1 rocket will be the launch vehicle.

Illustration of the firing of the Topol intercontinental ballistic missile. (Wikimedia Commons/mil.ru/ministry of defense of Russia)

Start-1 is a lightweight solid-propellant carrier rocket based on the Topol ICBM. With a takeoff weight of 47 tons, it can send a payload of more than 500 kg into low Earth orbit. In the period 1993-2006, Russia carried out seven launches of the Start rocket from the Plesetsk and Svobodny (now Vostochny) spaceports.

According to open sources, there were 360 Topol launch systems in ten divisions of Russia's strategic missile forces in 1999.

Having the full name RT-2PM Topol, this intercontinental ballistic missile, named by NATO countries as the SS-25 Sickle, entered service in 1985. Operated by Russia Strategic Missile Troops, Topol is under the Main Missle and Artillery Directorate of The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (GRAU).

As a successor, Russia already had the RT-2PM2 Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile or what NATO called the SS-27 Sickle B which had entered Russian military service since 1997.