The respected Vlast weekly magazine quoted several sources in the Russian navy as saying that throughout the fire on 29 December the submarine was carrying 16 R-29 intercontinental ballistic missiles, each armed with four nuclear warheads.
"Russia, for a day, was on the brink of the biggest catastrophe since the time of Chernobyl," Vlast reported. The 1986 disaster in modern-day Ukraine is regarded as the world's worst nuclear accident. back
R-29 Vysota[1] is a family of Russian submarine-launched ballistic missiles, designed by State Rocket Center Makayev. Development of the R-29 SLBMs started in the 1963 and was first launched in 1969[citation needed]. It uses the storable Liquid rocket propellants N2O4/UDMH. Over time different versions have developed listed below. The R-29 is in use with Russian Navy on Delta I, Delta II, Delta III and Delta IV class submarine.
The R-29 can be equipped with nuclear warheads, The R-29 is a two-stage missile storable liquid-propellant, without an interstage section, carrying a single warhead.
The missile had an aluminium magnesium alloy body with integrated fuel tanks. The first stage sustainer and the second stage propulsion system are located inside the fuel tanks, thus reducing the external dimensions of the missile.
The conical blunt shaped re-entry vehicle was also located in the second stage fuel tank, oriented opposite to the flight direction.
The guidance section is located in the conical area of the compartment where the warhead is usually placed.
The propulsion systems of both stages consists of a single-chamber main rocket engine, and dual-chamber control engines with moveable chambers.
The R-29 was the first Soviet SLBM to use a digital computer and an azimuthal stellar monitoring system for improved high accuracy and in-flight course correction.
With a launching weight of 33.3 tons the R-29 missile was capable of delivering a 1,100 kg reentry vehicle to a maximum range of 7800 km, three times greater than the R-27 missile. Thus its patrolling zones were substantially enlarged. According to Western estimates in the 1970s, the SS-N-8 was capable of delivering a 1400-lb reentry vehicle with a 0.6-1.5 MT warhead a distance of 4200 nm with a CEP of approximately 0.5 nm.
The R-29 was equipped with ballistic missile defense countermeasures. Decoys were carried in a cylindrical container in the fuel tank of the second stage, and released during nose cone separation.
