TASS Russian news agency
“The test launch of the missile was performed as part of the trials of new weapons. According to live monitoring and recording data, the Tsirkon hypersonic antiship missile successfully hit the sea target at a distance of 450 km [280 mi]. During the flight, the missile’s speed was more than Mach 8,”
Russian MoD
The area in the Barents Sea was cordoned off by Northern Fleet forces, including the Project 1164 missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov and the Project 22350 frigate Admiral Kasatonov.
According to video footage available on the Russian Defense Ministry’s official channel on YouTube, the Tsirkon test launch was conducted at night.
Earlier, the frigate Admiral Gorshkov test-fired a Tsirkon hypersonic missile in October 2020. The missile covered a distance of 450 km. The maximum altitude of its trajectory was 28 km (17 mi). The flight lasted 4.5 minutes. The missile reached the hypersonic speed of over Mach 8.
According to open sources, Russia is developing a hypersonic missile of the complex under Tsirkon codename.
On February 24, 2011, then-Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin said that the state armament program for 2011-2020 envisaged “the development of the seaborne Tsirkon-S complex with a hypersonic missile.” In February 2016, a source in the shipbuilding industry told TASS that the prospective Russian hypersonic missile was undergoing flight development tests. The trials were planned to be completed by 2020.
