Russian Military Orders Five High-Res Spy Satellites

Russia’s Lavochkin aerospace company has won a defense ministry tender on the development of a series of five high-resolution optical-electronic surveillance satellites worth almost 70 billion rubles ($2.2 bln), the Izvestia newspaper said.

The company’s General Director Viktor Khartov said in an interview with Izvestia, published on Wednesday, that Lavochkin will design and build the satellite while the electronic payload will be initially acquired abroad.“The share of domestically-produced electronic equipment in the payload will gradually increase so that by the end of the project we would be able to build these satellites on our own,” Khartov said.

European EADS consortium, Thales Alenia Space and Israel Aerospace Industries are being considered as potential suppliers of the electronic equipment for the satellites.
Khartov said the draft design of the new satellite will be finished by the end of 2013. The orbital grouping will initially consist of two satellites with further addition of three to form a complete system.According to the defense ministry’s requirements, the system must be able to produce imagery with sub-meter resolution, which allows, for instance, discerning license plates on cars or even general features of human appearance.
Russia has not been developing equipment of this type since the Soviet era, the Izvestia said.

Russian Tank T-90S at IDEX, Abu Dhabi

Russian fifth-generation Sukhoi-T-50 fighter aircraft completes first long range flight

Russia's prototype fifth-generation Sukhoi T-50 fighter jet has carried out its first long-range flight during the transfer from a manufacturing plant in Russia’s Far East to an assigned airfield near Moscow, deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Thursday, January 17, 2013.

“It is a serious breakthrough! The plane flew 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles), making two landings, in Abakan and Chelyabinsk, on the way to the Russian capital,” Rogozin, who oversees the Russian defense industry, wrote in his Twitter blog.

The plane joined three other T-50 prototype models at the Zhukovsky airfield prior to state flight tests, which are scheduled to start in March 2013. The fifth prototype aircraft is being built at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur factory in Siberia.

The T-50, also known as project PAK-FA, first flew in January 2010 and was presented to the public at the Moscow Air Show in 2011.

The Russian Defense Ministry is planning to finish the state flight tests of eight prototypes by 2015, so that they could go into standard production in 2016.

The T-50, which will be the core of Russia's future fighter fleet, is a fifth-generation multirole fighter aircraft featuring elements of ‘stealth’ technology, super-maneuverability, super-cruise capability (supersonic flight without use of afterburner), and an advanced avionics suite including an X-band active phased-array radar

Russian air force puts secret X-38 air-to-surface missile into service

 click on image to enlarge

The Russian Air Force has put the advanced X-38 air-to-surface missile into service. Although the short-range missile was developed for the T-50 fifth generation fighter jet, the existing bombers and fighter jets, including Su-34 and MiG-29 CMT will be equipped with these missiles.

The missile was tested in great secrecy in 2012, and was commissioned in late December. The delivery of missiles will be started shortly. The new missile will be equipped with independently guided warheads. This solves various tasks and increases the striking power of T-50 multipurpose fighter jets. The missiles will be placed inside the jet that is being developed using stealth technology, says editor-in-chief of the “Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie” magazine Victor Litovkin.

“A fighter jet may have special characteristics, including non-visibility to radar and other detecting equipment, but it is just an aircraft. But when it is equipped with high-precision guided missiles, this is a high-precision aviation complex. That can be considered a fifth generation fighter jet. The fact, that the missile on board the jet increases its low visibility,” Victor Litovkin said.

The missile will not reflect on the radar screen. It has another advanced feature. It can orient itself during the flight using the GLONASS space navigation system. The recent armed conflicts, including in Afghanistan and the Middle East have shown that it is difficult to discover targets from air even with the guidance from the ground because advanced camouflaging systems have been developed. These missiles will be guided to the target by a GLONASS satellite, says Victor Litovkin.

“The missile’s accuracy increases owing to the GLONASS satellite that sees the target and missile and combines these two points. When taking into account the fact that this is a supersonic missile, a complicated task is solved, a missile that is flying at a high speed is guided to a target. In short, this is a great achievement of Russian missile designers,” Victor Litovkin added.

The X-38 missile is capable of hitting manoeuvering armoured vehicles and hideouts at a distance from 3 to 40 kilometers. These missiles will upgrade the combat capacity of the Russian Air Force.

Russian Air Force Gets First Six Su-35S Fighter Jets

SU-35S

MOSCOW, December 28 – The Sukhoi aircraft maker delivered on Friday the first six Su-35S fighter jets to the Russian Air Force, the company said.
The acceptance documents were signed by Defense Ministry officials at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur aircraft manufacturing plant in Russia’s Far East.

The Sukhoi holding has fulfilled its obligations on the delivery of this type of aircraft under the 2012 state defense order,” the company said in a statement.
“The fighter jets will fly to their designated home base in the near future,” the statement said.
The Su-35, powered by two 117S engines with thrust vectoring, combines high maneuverability and the capability to effectively engage several air targets simultaneously using both guided and unguided missiles and weapon systems.
The aircraft has been touted as "4++ generation using fifth-generation technology."
The Russian Defense Ministry is planning to buy about 90 Su-35s, which will gradually become the core of Russia’s fighter jet fleet.

AK-47's inventor Kalashnikov hospitalised

Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of AK-47 assault rifle, has been hospitalised, his assistant Nikolai Shklyaev said Tuesday.

Shklyaev said the 93-year-old Kalashnikov complained to him about his health before being taken to hospital last week.
"He was in intensive care last Thursday," he said, adding that he had no information about the present condition of the legendary inventor.
"He told me 'nothing hurts, but I feel exhausted.' That's all I know," he said.
Kalashnikov's son Viktor, however, said that his father has been hospitalised for a planned health check.
"His [health condition] is normal, he was hospitalized for planned procedures, he is not in intensive care."
A hospital source who asked not to be named said, however, that Kalashnikov has been sent to intensive care upon his arrival at hospital.

New Russian S-400 Air-Defense System Shoots at Targets and Crosses Rugged Terrain

Indo-Russian - BrahMos set to become a “Super Rocket”

The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile is all set to become a “super rocket” soon, which would beef up India’s tactical defence capability significantly. However, the test launches of the air variant of the BrahMos II hyper-sonic missile, which were supposed to be completed by 2012, are experiencing delays. The realistic date for completion of these tests is now believed to be 2015.
 Sources in the Indian strategic establishment said India has upgraded its BrahMos missiles by “wedding” these with Russia’s advanced satellite navigation systems. The “marriage” of the BrahMos’s navigation systems with Russia's Kh-555 and Kh-101 strategic long-range cruise missiles has made BrahMos a “super rocket”. The word “rocket” here is used in context of a weapon, not a space rocket.

The new avatar of BrahMos will have to undergo tests and field trials before it becomes operational with the Indian defence services. However, this would not take unduly long.
The improved version of BrahMos will be endowed with a sub-strategic capability and would increase its tactical range too. The new version would also be capable of carrying nuclear warheads and can be launched from sea, land and air, like the old version. Its range of hitting targets would now be over 180-300 miles (300-500 km).


The new air-launched version of BrahMos will be carried by Sukhoi Su-30 MKI fighter aircraft. The Indian Air Force is set to be a far more potent force by 2020 when it is scheduled to deploy 200 advanced Sukhoi fighters, equipped with the new version of BrahMos “super rockets.” This will be a lethal combination and will make the Sukhois strategic bombers.

Another important feature of the upgraded BrahMos missile is that it has added GPS-GLONASS technology to it. This is of vital strategic importance as GLONASS, Russia’s navigation service provider, gives India access to military signals, while the American GPS does not.
BrahMos missile is jointly developed by India and Russia and is named after two major rivers – Brahmaputra of India and Muscova of Russia. The missile is capable of flying at a very high speed at tree-top levels which adds to its tactical utility.

BrahMos is a two-stage missile with a solid propellant booster engine as its first stage which brings it to supersonic speed and then gets separated. BrahMos is the first supersonic cruise missile known to be in service and is deployed on INS Rajput since 2005. The missile has 'fire and forget' principle, adopting varieties of flights on its way to the target. Its destructive power is enhanced due to large kinetic energy on impact. Its cruising altitude could be up to 15 km (9.3 miles) and terminal altitude is as low as 10 meters.
Compared to existing state-of-the-art subsonic cruise missiles, BrahMos has three times more velocity, 2.5 to 3 times more flight range, 3 to 4 times more seeker range and 9 times more kinetic energy. The missile has identical configuration for land, sea and sub-sea platforms and uses a Transport Launch Canister (TLC) for transportation, storage and launch. The missile is universal for multiple platforms and can pin point accuracy with high lethal power aided by large kinetic energy on impact. It has shorter flight times leading to lower target dispersion and quicker engagement.
 So far India has deployed BrahMos missile in the western sector only against Pakistan. However, since the missile is fitted on a mobile launcher it can be transported anywhere in the country and deployed within a short time. The Indian Army is planning to deploy it against China as well in near future. India started a massive war preparedness drill in Arunachal Pradesh in the north-eastern sector codenamed “Pralaya” on February 29, 2012.
BrahMos is a stealth supersonic cruise missile that can be launched from submarines, ships, aircraft or land. It is about three-and-a-half times faster than the USA's subsonic Harpoon cruise missile and three times faster than USA's subsonic Tomahawk missile. India has also planned an air-launched variant which is expected to come out in 2012 and will make India the only country with supersonic missiles in all the defence forces. However, the 2012 deadline is unlikely to be met.
A hypersonic version of the missile, which is also presently under development with speed of Mach 7 to boost aerial fast strike capability, is expected to be ready by 2016. BrahMos has the capability of attacking surface targets by flying as low as 10 meters.

The air launch version and the submarine launch version of the missile system are in progress. The Indian Army has so far placed orders for the BrahMos missile to be deployed by three regiments of the Army and two of them have already been inducted operationally. A hypersonic version of the missile, which is also presently under development with speed of Mach 7 to boost aerial fast strike capability, is expected to be ready by 2016.

The army and navy versions of the BrahMos missile weigh three tons or more. The missile is also available for exports whosoever is interested in it as long as they are ready to shell out about $2-3 million apiece. The cost depends on the version. The BrahMos has been developed as a joint venture between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) of India and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM) of Russia under BrahMos Aerospace. The missile is named after two rivers, the Brahmaputra of India and the Moskva of Russia.

Russia to Start Testing New Helicopter Gunship Engine

GORKI - Russia’s leading aircraft engine maker OAO Klimov will soon start testing an advanced engine for attack helicopters, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Monday.

The VK-2500 is produced under a special federal program to develop the country’s defense sector and allied industries, he said, adding that it is built using exclusively Russian-manufactured components.

“We are completely moving away from imported components,” Rogozin said.

Some 50 new engines are to be made next year for Ka-52 Alligator and Mi-28 Havoc helicopter gunships and, starting from 2015, a total of 400 are to be produced each year.

“We will be able to equip 200 helicopters with new engines [each year],” Rogozin added.