On the morning of Thursday, August 8, something exploded at the Nenoksa Naval Base in Russia, not far from the city of Severodvinsk. This article is a good summary of what we knew by Friday. Since then, the Russian government has said that a radioactive source was involved in the explosion, along with liquid rocket fuel. Reports have gone back and forth on whether radiation detectors in Severodvinsk detected anything. Five more people have been reported dead. Sarov/VNIIEF, one of the Russian nuclear weapons laboratories, has released a statement, which some folks are rushing to translate.
Update: Sarah Bidgood has translated the video. Here’s the start of her thread. No news about what was being done.
For my non-Russian speakers, this video is an official announcement from the leadership of RFNC-VNIIEF regarding the Aug. 8 event at the MOD test site in the Arkhangel’sk oblast’. As we know, 5 people died. 3 have been hospitalized with moderately severe injuries. (1/10) https://t.co/Z71TLFiKyk
— Sarah Bidgood (@sbidgood) August 11, 2019
Here are some things that we know. Jeffrey Lewis and the OSINT group at MIIS are doing a good job with the small amount of information we have. I mostly agree with them, although I tend to be slightly more conservative in my confidence in the interpretations. They are publishing mainly on Jeffrey’s Twitter feed. Here’s a recent thread.
First, Russia appears to have recently moved SSC-X-9 testing to Nenoksa. In the past year, Russia built a launch area that closely resembles the one removed from Novaya Zemlya with a shelter on rails. (Also, blue shipping containers!) pic.twitter.com/yMCDVFt51t
— Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) August 10, 2019
Third, ROSATOM, the Russian state atomic energy corporation, has now admitted that five of its employees were killed while providing "engineering and technical support of isotopic power sources in a liquid propulsion system."https://t.co/XWJGTwASom
— Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) August 10, 2019
Almost exactly a year ago, when Burevestnik was announced, I wrote up what the United States had done with nuclear rocket and cruise missile engines. I saw the Rover program up close and personal and knew a number of people involved in it. One of the conference rooms I used had an unloaded Rover fuel element to be used as a pointer. Fun.
On Twitter, I’ve been a bit of a naysayer. I’m not disagreeing that Russia is testing what they believe will become their Burevestnik. I’m saying I think they’ll never have an operating system.
I think that what has happened is that someone sold a program to Putin. The visuals are cool, and the idea of a cruise missile that can just keep cruising obviously appealed to him. “Nuclear-powered” sounds good. The promoter of the program may even believe in it.
Programs have been sold this way in the United States. We are still working on the missile defense that Edward Teller bamboozled Ronald Reagan into. I recall a Labor Day weekend in which the proof test for laser isotope separation was to be completed. It wasn’t. People get overenthusiastic about their ideas or just are selling something they think would be fun to work on or to make their status higher.
But there are basic and fundamental engineering considerations that suggest that a nuclear-powered cruise missile with a very small power source, will be very difficult or impossible to build.
All flying machines trade off between power and weight. Nuclear reactors have another couple of tradeoffs, between size and critical mass and between ways to do heat transfer. With the announcement that a radioactive source was involved in Thursday’s explosion, speculation has swung to the many isotopic thermoelectric power sources. But they are not powerful enough for propulsion.
Burevestnik is supposed to be a ramjet, which means that it takes in air, heats it, and rapidly expands it out the back for propulsion. That was how the Tory reactor of Project Pluto worked. The Rover reactor, which was designed to operate outside the atmosphere, used hydrogen as a propellant gas. More details about both in my earlier post.
The reactor heats the propellant gas. That requires a fair bit of area between the heat source (reactor) and the gas. Tory and Rover accomplished this by having fuel elements with holes through them, aligned so that the gas could come in one end and go out the other. The gas went through the reactor.
The reactor could be small and transfer heat to the gas via a heat exchanger, possibly two heat exchangers. Jeffrey Lewis sent me a patent from 1979 (actually 1965, but declassified in 1979) that describes such a system. I doubt that this system was ever built, although there are some tantalizing details that suggest that some parts of building it were looked into. However, not much is said about the heat exchangers, nor the fluid that would be used in them. Since the patent is for a fast reactor, it is tempting to believe that the primary heat exchange fluid would be sodium.
When you are concerned about weight, as a cruise missile designer must be, the places to look in these designs would be the moderator and reflector for the reactor. Highly (above 90%) enriched uranium is the only possible fuel; plutonium is too hard to handle, and lesser enrichments add too much weight. The moderators in the Tory and Rover reactors also served as structural elements.
The air gaps in a Tory-type reactor require more fissile material than a solid reactor would for criticality. A reactor with external heat exchangers requires less fissile material, but the heat exchangers are additional weight.
Some of the smaller reactors now being developed for space applications have been suggested, like the KiloPower reactor. But, like the isotopic thermoelectric sources, these small reactors are for electrical power generation. They must be bigger, and therefore heavier, to provide the power necessary for propulsion.
The Tory and Rover reactors, in their containers with subsidiary equipment, were around ten feet long and 3-4 feet in diameter. The 1979 patent doesn’t give dimensions, but they would likely be similar. That’s small for a reactor, but larger than photos of the Burevestnik suggest. Here’s one for comparison.
Both liquid propellant and a radioactive source are mentioned in Russian government press releases. It is not clear how these come together for cruise missile propulsion. A nuclear reactor could not get a cruise missile off the ground, and a chemical engine would be needed for starting (more weight), but solid fuel was previously mentioned for Burevestnik. This is where we might go back to the possibility of a sodium coolant.
What if the Russians found a big breakthrough? I’ve been thinking about this for a year or more, and I can’t come up with anything that makes sense. I don’t see a way around the constraints – heat transfer requirements, critical mass – and nobody has suggested one.
Unless it’s red mercury. Or cold fusion.
Spanky
Or maybe they were messing around without knowing what they were doing. The results sort of suggest that.
Although I’m not convinced the radioactive part is necessarily part of the drive system, tbh. But again, it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Spanky
Hey! Maybe the best way to find out is to take all of those yahoos that want to storm Area 51 on 9/20 and have them storm Nenoksa.
susanna
Thanks, Cheryl.
Out of curiosity, when radioactive material is involved are there any procedures in place that the responsible country follows regarding effects other nations or areas might experience? Or is everyone expected to find out themselves from (for us) questionable sources, within and outside the temporary government in charge?
And where is a reliable resource for reading followup info after such an event?
MattF
‘Engineering’ problems– i.e., issues having to do with costs, tradeoffs, complexity, scaling, and the like… sometimes turn out to be unsolvable. Institutions find that hard to deal with– they think ‘we’ve hired engineers, so what else is there to do?’ But sometimes projects, no matter how promising, just won’t work.
One can compile a list of examples of ‘won’t work’ projects, and it sure looks like ‘nuclear-fueled cruise missiles’ belongs on that list. I’d suggest various other candidates for the list, such as ‘ABM system’, ‘fusion reactor’, and maybe ‘hypersonic missile’. But we shall see…
NotMax
Deusexmachinium?
;)
Another Scott
BBC Russia (Google Translation):
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
RepubAnon
Perhaps a multi-stage weapon with a solid or liquid-fueled booster to propel the cruise missile to ramjet speeds?
NotMax
Limited layman’s understanding is that, while the type and density may vary dependent on the radioactive material, shielding which normally would be a part of design for static ground-based use is pretty much not there in order to reduce weight when it comes to powered flight using radioactive materials as a propulsion system element, possibly so much so that (again, varies dependent on the actual material used) upon landing the craft itself has become a radioactive danger to health.
Missiles, of course, aren’t intended to touch down (and take off again), but just sayin’ for purposes of general knowledge.
stinger
Thank you, Cheryl.
artem1s
so now we know what was in Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase.
Frankensteinbeck
That certainly makes sense to me. You don’t have to be an idiot to fall for this stuff, Putin has a gigantic ego, and Hell, he probably doesn’t mind throwing that money away if nothing comes of it. What’s he going to do, use it to increase Russian standards of living? Yeah, right.
@Another Scott:
In Putin’s Russia? Not much. I’m waffling over whether it’s better than silence.
Cheryl Rofer
@susanna: I’m not sure there’s any formal requirement in place. There may be some recommendations or conventions with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A responsible country would advise others. I’ve seen situations with lost or stolen radioactive sources where the notification is rapid and cooperative.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) has networks around the globe of seismic, radionuclide, and other sensors. They are likely to report their findings on radionuclides this week.
If the IAEA is called in, they will eventually issue a report. But they can be very slow, like years slow. The results from the CTBTO are reliable.
Nations are unlikely to be fully forthcoming on weapons tests, and that’s what this is. Many non-governmental organizations now do their own analysis, called open-source intelligence. Jeffrey Lewis and his group at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies are very good at that and are working on this situation. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are the first ones out with a translation of the video. There are a number of other groups as well, with varying interests and reliability. I monitor most of them.
Fair Economist
I read a long time ago that the nuclear cruise missle designs would release lots of radiation while in flight, making them unsuitable for almost any purpose. Is this kind of thing a problem with these proposed Russian designs?
Also, I agree a hyper-extended duration ramjet seems pretty dumb.
Bill Arnold
So you’re still convinced that it is not a Americium-242 reactor (of breakthrough design) as was wildly speculated about last year? If it is, then perhaps they are a little embarrassed by the name of the isotope.
(I recognize/respect that you’re writing under classification(?) constraints, but that means we read between the lines. :-)
Martin
@Spanky: The Russians know what they’re doing.
Could also have been a test of their TEM engine. Since the 60s both the US and USSR were exploring nuclear upper stage engines. These are low thrust, but high efficiency engines, so they need minimal fuel (and therefore minimal weight). Typically liquid hydrogen is used for the fuel as the design is to use a solid nuclear core to energize the hydrogen and emit it at extremely high velocity (thrust is just conservation of momentum – so mass*velocity – the higher the velocity, the less mass you need to eject and therefore carry with you). Nuclear engine development was generally stopped after treaties to limit nuclear materials in space.
But if you want to do larger scale interplanetary travel, you need more efficient engines than chemical, so some development has been ongoing. Russia started their TEM engine work just in the last few years, based off of their RD-410 work from the 60s and 70s.
I’m just not sure of the point of a nuclear powered cruise missile given the existence of ballistic submarines and other air launch platforms. If you thought you’d get by with the ‘it’s just a conventional warhead and not a nuclear attack’, I don’t think the pollution from the destroyed nuclear engine (effectively a dirty bomb) would cause that response. I mean, as a gee whiz government funded engineering exercise, ok, yeah, I get that. It looks great on your powerpoints, but I don’t see the strategic benefit of it over a W80 tomahawk, a sub launched cruise missile, an air launched cruise missile, or a Trident.
But a solid core nuclear rocket does have a role that is unmet by any alternatives.
Martin
@RepubAnon: That wouldn’t be nuclear. Nuclear engines are low thrust. They’re great in the vacuum of space when you want to run the engine for hours on end, but pretty terrible for getting off the ground or pushing against the atmosphere. And they tend to be heavier than conventional chemical engines so they are more attractive when the savings in fuel is enough to make up for the added weight, which can happen with rockets where you carry your own oxidizer, but is really hard to get to for jets which get their oxidizer from the air they fly through.
The window in which a nuclear powered engine makes sense in atmosphere is so narrow that I can’t think of a situation where it would make sense to do, other than to say that you did it (not that the US isn’t victim to that as well – see financial dumpster fire which is the SLS).
germy
https://clarissasblog.com/2019/08/10/the-russian-fukushima/
Martin
@Bill Arnold: From what I’ve read of Americium-242, the breakthrough is in its ability to directly produce electricity. So, as a RTG or even a power source as an intermediate between an RTG and a conventional nuclear reactor, it would indeed be revolutionary, but I don’t see any design that would allow for meaningful thrust generation.
Cheryl Rofer
@Fair Economist: We don’t know what the Russian design is, so it’s hard to say. In both the Tory and Rover engines, the hot gas passing through them eroded the fuel elements. That’s how radioactive material would have been released.
Cheryl Rofer
@Bill Arnold: Nothing I’m saying here has anything to do with classification. An americium reactor would be subject to the same engineering limitations as any other.
Cheryl Rofer
@germy: No. If that were true, we would be getting reports from around Europe.
There are a number of panicky people (or disinformation agents) pushing the idea that the explosion was a massive contamination event. Just no.
germy
@Cheryl Rofer: Somehow, I am not surprised that Clarissa is wrong again.
Ruckus
@Martin:
I think a look at our own military would tell you the answer here.
First priority is to always be looking for the next great thing that will make your military more powerful and rapid responding than the next guys. They also have to project where they see issues happening in the next 5, 10, 25, 50 yrs. And they like new toys. So we have planes for example that cost massively more than what they replace and don’t actually do any more or work any better, but they are shinny, new and supposedly have massively improved operational details. But look at the navy for example. Ships like DDGs used to have a realistic life of 25 yrs, now they are trying to stretch that to 50 yrs because they can’t afford all the new toys. They also stretch the operators because they can’t afford/get enough people and train them. This is not all that new a problem, it’s just that once you bounce up against reasonable technological and human limits, you have to either limit the concepts to what is reasonable or spend a lot more money, time and people to make it work. Take the nuclear cruse missile. If it worked then you eliminate a lot of the bits and pieces and people of what it takes to be an effective large player, at war, offense or defense, today.
Anonymous At Work
Two questions:
1. Wouldn’t a nuclear cruise missile also have issues with payload even if they could solve the issues you mention?
2. Wouldn’t using nuclear materials in a cruise missile negate a lot of the use for a long-range precision weapon if the area around the target gets irradiated? There are less precise options in such cases, I’d imagine.
Ruckus
@Martin:
This is what I was talking about our military system. Technology must be up to date, cutting edge even, just to stay ahead of the curve. And a lot of the technology actually narrows down what can be done with a piece of equipment, and magnifies what it takes to maintain and operate in the real world.
Bill Arnold
@Martin:
No, an actual reactor. The Smallest Thermal Nuclear Reactor. (ResearchGate or sci-hub will get a pdf if one doesn’t have access.) But with something other than water as a moderator. (That’s the joke.) According to my notes, that isotope has a high thermal cross section and also more prompt neutrons per fission (3.26, vs 2.88 for Pu-239 and 2.43 for U-235). The nutsiest speculation I saw, Cheryl linked last year in her post – here (Russian popular mechanichs) (google translate does OK, though it translates the Russian word for moderator to “retarder”).
Cheryl Rofer
@Anonymous At Work:
That depends totally on the tradeoff achieved between power and weight. Will be specific to the design.
Again, it depends. And I think you mean contaminated rather than irradiated.
It depends on what the materials are and what one wants in precision. If the nuclear-powered cruise missile carries a nuclear weapon, which Putin has suggested, whatever is in the engine is trivial.
Cheap Jim
Yes, I’ve often said the same to myself.
Cermet
@Martin: Don’t know what physics you think have changed after reading what-ever you did on that subject but currently, none have – Americium-242 can’t directly produce electricity in any fashion worth doing; so, russia has achieved no such break-through with that material since thermodynamics and nuclear physics haven’t changed.
As for a nuclear powered cruise missile, america had done that back in the 60’s and discovered it was a radioactive disaster and that, isn’t likely any different if the russians try to follow through no matter what they try – reactor temps are just too high and materials will always melt because – thermodynamics holds – to produce enough thrust to be high hyper-sonic requires huge temps.. Also, a ram jet requires hyper-sonic speed before it can operate so a chemical rocket is necessary (booster – not a big deal since that can fall away); but once flying add on its monstrous heat signature and it would stand out like a flashlight in a dark room . So ‘seeing’ and then shooting down such a rocket would not pose any significant problems – so why build it at all?
J R in WV
@germy:
“The White Sea has been massively contaminated.”
Am thinking that USSR / Russian Federation has had several nuclear powered submarines sink in the White Sea, not to mention a shit-ton of up to huge [Tsar Bomba] nuclear explosions on islands in the White Sea, so probably already a lot of opportunities for massive contamination.
Also thinking that this event is small beans, or perhaps small bowl of beet soup, compared to whole reactor of nuclear sub dissolving away all hot in high-pressure salt water on bottom of the White Sea.
Am not nuclear chemist… just auto-didact from reading about these things… Worth every Krugerrand you paid for this advice!
Bill Arnold
@Ruckus:
It’s Russia! Land of things like this: Russian ALL TERRAIN military vehicle drives on snow swamp mud water and land better than 4WD
And one possible target audience is POTUS iDJT – nuclear powered cruise missile gap! Also might be helpful against the alien(s) [on the?] Moon, part of Mars! (I am easily amused by such things. :-)
MobiusKlein
@germy: Not just wrong, but reference free rumor passing.
Ruckus
@Cermet:
Reread Martin’s comment. He’s not saying that it is useable, just possible, which seems to agree with you.
Ruckus
@Bill Arnold:
Link no good, you fix.
Marc
Perhaps “isotopic power sources” refers to an engine technology based on radioactive decay, not fission. This breakthrough could be a relatively lightweight air-breathing ramjet using a radioisotope heat source. Assuming it’s feasible at all, I can see a host of issues, but compared to a reactor, it could be light, require a lot less shielding, and likely spew relatively small amounts of radioactive material (unless one crashes).
Cheryl Rofer
I continue to be amazed at how many people comment without reading the top post.
Bill Arnold
No, read the top post. Re Am242, here’s a researchgate link to what I linked above, that might work for people. Cheryl says HEU is the only thing that makes sense, and I trust her as the expert, but this (or some other crazy such thing) is an outlier possibility.
The Smallest Thermal Nuclear Reactor (2005)
The Russians are trying to send the impression that that they have designed a practical version of a missile using something like that (maybe entirely different. Follow Cheryl’s links.). If so, then one joke could be that they actually got it working and weren’t faking it. I don’t understand Russian humor. :-)
Ken
@Cheryl Rofer: Well, you must admit that “the Russians might be trying this technology but they aren’t going to get it to work” is nowhere near as exciting as “the entire Arctic Ocean is a radioactive pit of magma!!”
Cheryl Rofer
@Bill Arnold: That probably works out, but I can’t imagine using a water-based reactor in a missile. Also, I’d like to know how much power it generates. I’ll bet not enough.
@Ken: This is true.
Another Scott
@Bill Arnold: Thanks for the link.
They conclude:
(Emphasis added)
It’s a nice paper, but doesn’t necessarily apply to what Russia is doing. (Of course.)
I don’t know if others have seen this, but nuclear fusion has been demonstrated on a tabletop:
Trouble is, it’s not self-sustaining and doesn’t break even.
Back of the envelope calculations and proof of the physics is very, very far from making a practical reactor that solves the problem of interest.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@Cheryl Rofer:
The water is a problem, yes. :-) I’d assume some other moderator and a larger reactor, and a super-secret mystery design, and as said, perhaps a bit of fraud or self-delusion or other deception. If they ever do a flight test that verifiably cruises a lot further than a conventional cruise missile, then we’ll have new missile gap.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
The main reason I brought it up is that the Russians are claiming a “isotopic power source”, and Am 242 fits that bill (as does anything, technically, but work with me here), and also has an embarrassing name (Americium)
I suppose blends or aggregates of fissionables are possible too, literal nightmare fuel.