The upgrade includes a wide range of works, with the hulls, the outboard systems, the endurance systems, as well as the reactor system and other mechansms, a press release from the yard informs. The remaining part of the upgrade will be completed while the vessel vessel is afloat. It will handed over to the Navy in November this year.
The Delta-IV (project 667BDRM) has been the backbone first in the Soviet and later in the Russian submarine fleet since they were introduced in the mid 1980s. A total of seven Delta-IV subs were built by the Sevmash yard in Severodvinsk in the period 1985-1992. Six vessels of the class today remain in the fleet, among them the “Yekaterinburg”, which caught fire in a dry dock outside Murmansk on 29 December 2011.
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According to General Director Vladimir Nikitin, Zvezdochka is ready to upgrade all the six Delta-IV subs. Next in the line is the “Yekaterinburg”, he confirms.
The upgrade will prolong the service life of the vessels with ten years from 25 to 35 years.
