Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Russia will start full-scale production of its new Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile next year after a successful test launch on Nov. 28, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

The military will conduct one more Bulava test launch by the end of the year, Ivanov told a government meeting in Moscow today, in comments posted on the Web site of state broadcaster Vesti-24. The latest launch “went successfully, all the parameters of the launch went according to plan,” Ivanov said.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said Russia can produce missiles capable of piercing any defenses. This year’s multiple tests of the Bulava, with an estimated maximum range of 8,000 kilometers, have come as the country upgrades its rocket forces to counter a planned U.S. anti-missile shield in eastern Europe.

Russia rejects assertions by the U.S. that its planned anti-missile system is aimed at defending Europe from a nuclear- armed Iran, and sees it as part of a plan to isolate the country that began with NATO’s expansion.

The most recent Bulava was launched from the submarine Dmitry Donskoi off northern Russia and landed on the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia’s Far East, Ivanov said. From next year, one-off production of test missiles will be replaced by “serial production,” he added.

The Russian military was “pleased” by the success of the launch, General Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff, told Putin at the meeting.

The Bulava is Russia’s newest ballistic missile, a rocket with three stages powered by solid fuel and deployed exclusively on submarines, Vesti-24 said. It can carry six to 10 supersonic nuclear warheads, capable of changing speed and course during flight.

Past tests of the Bulava, designed for a new generation of nuclear submarines, have had mixed success, with three failing in 2006 and one in 2005. Russia successfully fired one from a submarine in the White Sea to a target on the Pacific coast on Sept. 18, the military said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sebastian Alison in Moscow at Salison1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 1, 2008 09:21 EST