{"id":20263,"date":"2025-09-15T11:36:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T06:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=20263"},"modified":"2025-09-16T11:19:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T05:49:45","slug":"zircon-missile-upsc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/zircon-missile-upsc\/","title":{"rendered":"Zircon Missile"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Zircon Missile Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Russia recently said that it had fired a Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic cruise missile at a target in the Barents Sea.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Zircon Missile<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 3M22 Zircon (Tsirkon), <\/span><b>NATO code-named SS-N-33,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a <\/span><b>scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missile developed by Russia.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Initially designed to target naval assets,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the missile has <\/span><b>evolved to include land-attack capabilities<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, making it an important tool for precision strike missions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It entered service in 2022, with initial deployments on Project 22350 Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Zircon Missile <\/b><b>Features<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has an estimated length of 9 meters (30 feet) and a diameter of 60 cm (24 inches), with an estimated weight of between 3,000 and 4,000 kg (3\u20134 tons).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The missile is powered by a <\/span><b>two-stage propulsion system.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>first stage <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">consists of a <\/span><b>booster engine powered by solid fuel,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which accelerates the missile to supersonic speeds.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>After reaching a certain speed<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the<\/span><b> scramjet engine in the second stage <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ignites, <\/span><b>utilizing liquid fuel <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to <\/span><b>accelerate the missile to hypersonic speeds.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Its <\/span><b>speed\u2014reaching up to Mach 9\u2014<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">makes it extremely difficult to intercept.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>operational range<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Zircon is reported to be around<\/span><b> 400\u2013450 km (250\u2013280 miles) at low altitudes<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, while it can extend up to <\/span><b>1,000 km (620 miles) in a semi-ballistic trajectory.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warhead<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s, providing it with a versatile role in modern warfare.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The missile uses a <\/span><b>combination of inertial navigation, radar homing, and plasma stealth<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to navigate towards its target.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the key features of the Zircon is its <\/span><b>ability to generate a plasma cloud during hypersonic flight,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which <\/span><b>absorbs radio waves <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and makes the missile more <\/span><b>difficult to detect by radar<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This phenomenon is known as <\/span><b>plasma stealth.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/russia-flexes-military-muscle-with-hypersonic-missiles-and-bombers-during-drills\/article70049501.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">TH<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 3M22 Zircon, or SS-N-33, is a scramjet-powered maneuvering anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile developed in Russia. Read more about Zircon Missile, Features, Speed, Capacity, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":63613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,22,23,2702],"class_list":{"0":"post-20263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"tag-zircon-missile","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}