By Mayeul Aldebert
Published 3 hours ago, updated 2 hours ago
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The propellers of the unarmed Trident missile would not have started, causing it to crash into the sea right next to the submarine. Another failure occurred in 2016.
The Royal Navy is definitely experiencing a number of disappointments. An unarmed Trident II nuclear missile test failed off the coast of Florida, the British daily newspaper The Sun reported on Tuesday evening. The British Ministry of Defense confirmed a “malfunction” during an exercise off the coast of Florida on January 30 and ensured that the nuclear deterrent still remained “effective”.
The 58-ton missile would have been successfully powered by a pressurized gas system from the submarine HMS Vanguard, the leading unit in its class. But in flight, the first stage engines would not have ignited, which would have resulted in the rocket crashing into the sea next to the submarine. “He exited the submarine and fell right next to it,” said a source quoted by The Sun. For “national security” reasons, no further details were released today.
“For national security reasons, we cannot provide further information on this matter, but we are confident that the anomaly was event specific and therefore has no impact on the reliability of Trident missile systems and their inventory in general,” the ministry said in a statement newspaper in a press release. “The UK’s nuclear deterrent remains safe and effective.”
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However, the SNLE (nuclear missile submarine) operating below the surface was not affected. An investigation has been launched to understand the cause of this failure and, above all, to recover from the seabed the debris of the rocket, whose technology is currently specially protected.
20 million euro rocket
The Trident rocket was expected to travel nearly 6,000 kilometers from the coast of Florida to the middle of the Atlantic. This “SLBM” (“submarine-launched ballistic missile”) has a range of about 12,000 kilometers and can carry multiple Holbrook nuclear warheads of 100 kilotons each (in TNT equivalent, compared to 15 kt for the Hiroshima bomb). . It can reach 21,000 km/h and is designed to escape the atmosphere. Missiles of this type were used by the US Navy in the early 1990s before the Royal Navy adopted them.
The manufacturer Lockheed Martin presents them as “the most advanced ballistic missiles in the world” and recalls that the Trident IIs have been successfully tested more than 191 times, with a last test in September by an American submarine in the Pacific. The Royal Navy, for its part, is restricting testing. Each rocket costs almost 20 million euros.
Several disappointments
The Royal Navy therefore still missed a second test, seven years after HMS Vengeance's failed launch of a Trident II missile in 2016. The engines had fired, but the missile had deviated from its trajectory and was heading towards the United States , which led to their automatic destruction.
The British press also revealed a “worrying” glitch in the diving of one of its nuclear submarines late last year. The incident, about which little information is available, was apparently caused by the failure of the main depth gauge during the submarine's dive.
In January 2023, the media also reported the discovery of a “defect” on the Vanguard while it was being serviced. The Defense Ministry then explained that the defect, which was due to “work carried out in the past,” was “quickly reported and remedied.”
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