Rare Satellite View of 2 Indian Arihant class SSBNs at Vishakhapatnam Shipyard

India’s indigenous nuclear submarine program is variously know as the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) Program and the Arihant class. At the same time India is long term leasing a Russian Improved Akula class SSN, known as INS Chakra II.

Submarine Matters has been following Indian submarine (especially nuclear) developments since INS Arihant’s launch on July 26, 2009. 

Since then India’s developing nuclear submarine program has had mixed fortunes. In early 2014 INS Aridhaman, under construction, suffered a major mishap which killed a civilian worker from Larsen & Toubro and injured two other workers. 

Aridhaman, now called INS Arighat, was later launched on November 19, 2017 and is due to be commissioned in 2020-21. 

In February 2017 INS Arihant, also had a major accident during a test sunk at its moorings, it is believed due to a hatch left open.

Arighat will be succeeded in the dry dock by two slightly larger 8,000? ton SSBNs that have been designated S4 and S4*. India's three full sized 13,000+ ton "S5 class" SSBNs will probably be launched in the mid to late 2020s.

But now INS Arihant and Arighat may be developing smoothly. 

File photo of INS Arihant at its launch ceremony in 2009 (Courtesy Indian Ministry of Defence).

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ThePrint, October 19, 2018 reported, in part:

“India has one nuclear submarine, the INS Arihant, launched in 2009, and is building five more at the Ship Building Centre (SBC) Visakhapatnam [aka "Vizag"] under the nuclear submarine programme that began in 1974. The second [of the Arihant class] was initially named Aridaman but it was changed to Arighat.

The Indian Navy also operates INS Chakra [II], an Akula-class nuclear-powered submarine taken on lease from Russia.

INS Arihant — armed with nuclear tipped B-05 [aka K-15 or Sagarika] missiles with a range of over 750 km — was quietly commissioned in August 2016, pushing India into a select club of five nations with such technology. But within months [Arihant] suffered an accidental breach and ingress of water, raising fears of reactor contamination. It was repaired and made operational in October 2017 after extensive tests showed that the damage was not as bad as initially feared.

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INS Arighat, launched in November 2017, is very similar to Arihant main difference is a slightly more powerful (presumably larger, maybe around 90 MW) reactor.  Maybe undergoing trials end of 2019 or early 2020.

S4 and S4* which will be larger than Arighat and Arihant (one of them could be named Aridhaman) are in an earlier stage of construction with probable launch and trials in the 2020s. Its possible S4 and S4* are being constructed at Ship Building Centre (SBC) Vadodara in Gujarat, western India.

Note that Vishakhapatnam is the city/port containing the main base of India's Eastern Naval Command. It is also the main base of India's nuclear submarine squadron.

SATELLITE VIEW

 A commercial grade (ie. not too detailed) Google 2018 satellite photo depicts some submarine actities at SBC Visakhapatnam - see this link
https://www.google.com.sg/maps/search/SBC+visakhapatnam/@17.7099413,83.26806,276m/data=!3m1!1e3 Alas! Google seems to block satellite-map images appearing on blogs.

Looking at the photo the submarine out in the open (midway, at base of image) (using the Google scale) is more than 100m long (ie. too long to be an SSK). 

Like an Arihant or Arighat, but unlike Chakra II:

-  the sub out in the open has mid-sail diving planes,

-  it does not have Chakra II's bulbous (housing a spooled long towed sonar array) upright cruciform
   stern plane.

Towards the left top corner, in the shed, is a ventilation and/or natural light opening revealing probably Arihant or Arighat. The fact that the shed is open indicates that India is not hiding its Arihant and Arighat.