Satellite Images Show Russian Missile Test Ends In Disaster: Experts

Satellite photos show a Russian missile designed to strike targets in the United States and Europe exploded during a test launch, experts said Monday.

Images recorded Saturday by Maxar Technologies show a crater about 200 feet wide at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome launch silo, located about 500 miles north of Moscow, Reuters reported.

The damage reportedly wasn't visible in pictures shot earlier this month. The images appear to show the fallout of a failed test of Russia's RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile.

Satellite images taken Friday and Saturday from NASA's Fire Information for Resource Management System also show large hotspots near the launch site.

"By all indications, it was a failed test. It's a big hole in the ground," analyst Pavel Podvig, head of the Geneva-based Russian Nuclear Forces project, told Reuters. "There was a serious incident with the missile and the silo."

The Sarmat, also known as Satan II, was reportedly designed to carry 16 independently targetable nuclear warheads or advanced hypersonic glide vehicles up to 11,000 miles, but the project has been plagued by setbacks.

Timothy Wright, a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said the damage at the launch site appeared to have been caused by the "fourth successive test failure of Sarmat."

"One possible cause is that the first stage either failed to ignite properly or suffered from a catastrophic mechanical failure, causing the missile to fall back into or land closely adjacent to the silo and explode," he told Reuters.

The Kremlin referred questions to Russia's Defense Ministry, which didn't respond to a request for comment, Reuters said.

The Sarmat was developed to replace the Soviet-era SS-18 ICBM and at one point Russia said it would be ready by 2018.

In October 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin said work on the missile was almost done and his defense minister at the time, Sergei Shoigu, said it would form "the basis of Russia's ground-based strategic nuclear forces."

Nikolai Sokov, a former Russian and Soviet arms control official, said he expected Moscow to continue developing the Sarmat to keep its inventor, the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau, in competition with the rival Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, according to Reuters.