would impact Spain in just 10 minutes

would impact Spain in just 10 minutes

In 2018, Vladimir Putin announced the development of half a dozen of what he described as ‘superweapons’ and that today are a reality in different degrees. One of them was the intercontinental ballistic missile -ICBM, for its acronym in English- RS-28 Sarmatwhich, if we look at the data provided by Russia, would be the fastest missile to reach a target that exists.

However, Sarmat is in the lead not by much. Others ICBM They’re just a little behind, a difference that, when you’ve got one of these warhead-laden monsters flying toward your city, matters little. Thus, while the Sarmat reaches Mach 21 (approximately 25,900 km/h), the R-36M2 Voevodawhich it replaces in the Russian arsenal, reaches Mach 20 (24,700 km/h), like the Minute Man III of the United States and the DF-41 from China. These missiles differ more from each other in their range, the American one being 13,000 kilometers, the Chinese one being between 12,000 and 15,000, and the Russian ones remaining R-36M2 Voevoda and RS-28 Sarmat at 16,000 and 18,000, respectively. They all have the capacity MIRV; that is, carrying multiple nuclear warheads.

According to Russia, the RS-28 Sarmat is the missile of its class largest ever built. Weight 208 tonshas a length of 35.5 metersa diameter of 3 and can load 10 large or 15 smaller nuclear warheads. It does not yet have a NATO designation, but like its predecessor, the R-36M2 Voevoda, it is SS-18 Satanhe is often informally referred to in the media as Satan II.

RS-28 Sarmat will ‘soon’ enter service, Putin says again

In 2022the invasion of UkraineVladimir Putin said, after announcing a successful test of the missile, that the Russian Army expected have the RS-28 Sarmat added to their arsenal before the end of the year. ‘It will guarantee Russia’s security from external threats and make think twice of those who threaten our country with unbridled and aggressive rhetoric,’ he said. In 2023, Yuri Borisovgeneral director of Roscosmosthe Russian space agency, stated that it had entered service.

However, these statements were proven of a propaganda nature over time. The Russian dictator himself referred to the intercontinental missile last week in a talk with Russian soldiers wounded in the Ukrainian war, recorded by Russian television. After telling them that the nuclear torpedo Poseidon -another of the superweapons announced in 2018 – had passed a test in which it had used its nuclear propulsion for the first time, stated that ‘the power of Poseidon significantly exceeds even that of our promising Sarmat intercontinental missile. There is nothing like Sarmat in the world. We don’t have it in service yet, but it will be soon‘.

Russian propaganda with the RS-28 Sarmat

In this propaganda line we must frame other information about the RS-28 Sarmat which had a lot of echo in the summer of 2022. Then, a political debate program on Russian television showed in an infographic the time it would take to reach different European capitals if it were fired from its launch base in Kaliningrad. This would be 106 seconds (1’46″) for Berlin, 200 seconds (3’20″) up to Paris and 202 (3’22″) to reach London. Just as he said in that program Alexey Zhuravlyovpresident of the Rodina Nationalist Party, the question that must be asked is not how many minutes it takes to reach its goal, but how many seconds.

However, these claims were exaggerated. The times were calculated as if the RS-28 Sarmat followed a linear trajectory and at maximum speed from its launch. Although the infographic shown on Russian television did not include cities in Spain, under that approach an RS-28 Sarmat would take 286 seconds (4’46″) to impact Barcelona, 340 seconds (5’40″) to do it in Madrid and 409 seconds (6’49″) to reach the US military base in Rattanin Cadizwhich would probably be the first military objective in Spain in the event of a hypothetical conflict. But the reality of ICBM flight is different.

The trajectory of an intercontinental ballistic missile requires longer times

The 3 minutes that Russian TV sold are far below what is physically reasonable for a heavy ballistic missile like the Sarmat, because they ignore the acceleration phase, which is progressive, the real geometry of the trajectory and use a constant speed from launch.

A ballistic missile follows a parabolic pathuse the engine in the initial phase to gain speed and a height that can reach 1,200 kilometers in the case of intercontinental ones, well above the International Space Station -orbits at about 400 km- and what is known as suborbital space flight. After reaching the apogee – maximum height – it falls pushed by its inertia and gravityfollowing a ballistic trajectory and being able to perform guidance maneuvers.

The ICBM reaches its maximum speed at the end of the boost phasein which it uses its engines that it does not turn on again in the rest of the trajectory. During the middle phasethe longest, reaches the apogee and loses speed, which it recovers during the terminal phasebut without equaling that of the first phase, given that, after re-entry, atmospheric friction slows down and heats the missile.

Taking all of these factors into account, a more realistic estimate of the time it would take for RS-28 Sarmat arriving in Spain is located in the 10-11 minutes for Barcelona, ​​between 11 and 12 for Madrid and 12-13 for Cadiz. This is more than double what could be inferred from the information on Russian television, but it is not enough to be reassuring.