The R-36 (Russian: Р-36) is a family of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and space launch vehicles designed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The original R-36 was produced under the Soviet industry designation 8K67 and was given the NATO reporting name SS-9 Scarp. The later version, the R-36M was produced under the GRAU indices designations 15A14 and 15A18 and was given the NATO reporting name SS-18 Satan. This missile was viewed by certain U.S. analysts as giving the Soviet Union first strike advantage over the U.S., particularly because of its very heavy throw weight and extremely large number of re-entry vehicles. Some versions of the R-36M were deployed with 10 warheads and up to 40 penetration aids and the missile's high throw-weight made it theoretically capable of carrying more warheads or penetration aids. Contemporary U.S. missiles, such as the Minuteman III, carried up to three warheads at most. The R-36 (SS-9) is a two-stage rocket powered by a liquid bipropellant, with UDMH as fuel and nitrogen tetroxide as an oxidizer. It carries one of three types of re-entry vehicles (RVs) developed especially for this missile: The Mod 1 and Mod 2 carried single nuclear warheads of 18 and 25 megatons (mt) of TNT yield respectively. The Mod 4 carried three re-entry vehicles (MRV). An additional version, the Mod 3, was proposed (it was to be a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS), a missile that travels through space in a low-earth orbit), but was not adopted due to the Outer Space Treaty. The R-36P missile was developed to carry the Mod 4 warhead, while the R-36O (the letter O) was to be for the Mod 3 FOBS. R-36 and R-36P missiles were hot launched from their silos. The R-36M (SS-18) is similar to the R-36 in design, but has the capacity to mount a MIRV payload of 10 warheads, each with a 550--750 kt yield, or a single warhead of up to 20 mt. Throw-weight of the missile is 8,800 kg. This makes the Soviet R-36 the world's heaviest ICBM; for comparison, the heaviest US ICBM (the retired LGM-118 Peacekeeper, that carried 10 warheads of 300 kt each) had less than a half of this at 4,000 kg. The R-36M has two stages. The first is a 460,000 kgf (4.5 MN) thrust motor with four combustion chambers and nozzles. The second stage is a single-chamber 77,000 kgf (755 kN) thrust motor. Russia Listeni/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation[7] (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈrat͡sɨjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia.[8] It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both with Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the world's ninth most populous nation with 143 million people as of 2012.[9] Extending across the entirety of northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans nine time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин, IPA: [vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪr vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪt͡ɕ ˈputʲɪn] ( listen) born 7 October 1952) is the fourth and current President of Russia, incumbent since 7 May 2012. He previously served as the second President from 2000 to 2008, and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. During that last stint (2008 to 2012) he was also the Chairman of the United Russia political party. For sixteen years Putin served as an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991. He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election and was re-elected in 2004. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term in 2008. Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election and appointed Putin as Prime Minister, beginning a period of so-called "tandemocracy".[1] In September 2011, following a change in the law extending the presidential term from four years to six,[2] Putin announced that he would seek a third, non-consecutive

• published: 15 Nov 2013
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