S-500 air defense system to be ready for delivery to forces in 2020 - deputy defense minister
MOSCOW. Feb 3 (Interfax) - Trials of Russia's new air defense missile system S-500 Prometei have concluded, and there is certainty that it will be ready for delivery to forces in 2020, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko said.
"The new air defense missile system S-500 Prometei was tested in the air defense and missile defense forces in 2019, and new missiles, which have no analogues in the world, were test-fired. We are sure that the new system will be ready for delivery to the forces in 2020," Krivoruchko said in an article published by Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies (KRET)'s journal Radioelektronnye Tekhnologii.
The main task of the new system is to down warheads of intermediate-range ballistic missiles with unassisted interception on a range of up to 3,500 kilometers, as well as intercontinental ballistic missiles in the final stage of their trajectory, or in certain cases, at the trajectory's medium stage, he said.
Deputy Commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces' Air Defense Missile Forces Yury Muravkin said in 2019, that the S-500 was tasked with the job of preventing attacks launched from space.
Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview with Interfax on June 25, 2019, that the S-500 was ready for serial production and its main characteristics had been confirmed during trials.
As reported earlier, Almaz-Antey has been designing the S-500 as a next-generation air defense missile system based on the principle of solving the tasks of destruction of ballistic and aerodynamic targets separately.
The new system will down the warheads of intermediate-range ballistic missiles at a range of up to 3,500 kilometers, as well as intercontinental ballistic missiles in the final stage of their trajectory, or in certain cases, at the trajectory's medium stage.
It will also down hypersonic cruise missiles traveling at speeds of Mach 5 or faster, as well as planes, drones, satellites in low orbits, and space-launched attack weapons.
The S-500 is to be the foundation of the national air and missile defense network, the command of the First Air and Missile Defense Army protecting Moscow and the Central Industrial District said in an interview with the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda in January 2017.