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 Illustration of S 73 Arihant by Covert Shores |
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"Union defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman cracked the auspicious coconut on the fin of the submarine in the drydock". The drydock was then flooded and the submarine floated out. It will be at least another three years before the navy commissions the Arighat, according to the Indian media.
The Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) program calling for the construction of the first Indian nuclear submarines has been implemented since 1974 and is implemented with active Russian technical assistance. The boat is designed under the program with the lead role of the Indian State Organization for Defense Research and Development (DRDO) with the participation of the Indian Navy and the Indian Department of Nuclear Energy (DAE) with the Atomic Research Center in Mumbai (Bhabha Atomic Research Center - BARC). Larsen & Toubro (L & T, a supplier of steel), Walchandnagar Industries (the supplier of the reactor part and the main turbo unit) and Tata Power (the creator of the power plant and boat control systems) are involved as the largest contractors. The construction of ships under this program is carried out by SBC specially created for this purpose in Vishakhapatnam. A shore-based prototype of an 83-megawatt S-1 Indian nuclear reactor was developed on a highly enriched uranium fuel (40%), DAE was built in Kalpakkam and put into operation in September 2006. |
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 The first picture of S 73 Arihant at the SBC shipyard. Picture via Covert Shores |
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Construction of the first Indian nuclear submarine S 73 Arihant started in 1998. The hull was launched on July 26, 2009. The nuclear reactor aboard was switched on in August 2013, and the boat entered the builde trials on December 15, 2014. In August 2016, the Arihant SSBN was delivered to the Indian Navy, although it continues to be in the testing phase.
Construction of the second SSBN of the class, Arighat, started in 2009 and its keel was officially laid at SBC in July 2011. Indian sources estimate the volume of Indian content in the construction of ATV submarine is about 60%, which implies that the remaining 40% is from Russia. As explained by our colleagues at Covert Shores, Arihant-class submarines are "pocket boomers" with a hull about 30% longer than the Kilo-class SSK with a reported length of 110m. e Main armament likely consists in four K-15 Sagarika SLBMs developed in India under the leadership of DRDO with a range of 700-750 km and equipped with a nuclear warhead. The first practical launch of the K-15 rocket from the Arihant boat was on March 31, 2016. In 2006, the Government of India approved a plan to develop the next-generation Indian nuclear missile submarine under the project name S5. It is reported that in fact, full-scale work on this program was started in 2015 with plans to begin construction of the main ship on SBC in 2021 and build at least three units in the series. A large-scale reconstruction of the SBC shipyard is planned for their construction. According to a number of reports, S5 boats should have a surface displacement of about 13,500 tons, a 150-190 MW nuclear reactor currently under development in BARC. These future SSBNs are set to be equipped with 12 long-range ballistic missiles: DRDO is currently working on a promising Indian K-4 ballistic missile with a range of up to 3000-3500 km (the fourth test is scheduled for December 2017). K4 has been under R&D for a long time. |
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India Launched its Second Arihant-class SSBN Ballistic Missile Submarine Arighat
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