9M730 Burevestnik (SSC-X-9 Skyfall) cruise nuclear-powered missile

[antigravite]

Re: 9M730 Burevestnik (SSC-X-9 Skyfall) cruise niclear-powered missile

Staff Writers for Launchspace, "Russia's New Hypersonic Nuclear Weapon", 29 January 2019
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russias_New_Hypersonic_Nuclear_Weapon_999.html

… was a catchy misleading news "article" confusing the Buresvestnik (supersonic) with Avangard (hypersonic)

A.

Article clearly depicts Avangard, Poseidon and Burevestnik as different weapon systems, neither I see mention of Burevestnik there as 'supersonic'.
So I don't know why do you call article 'misleading'.

You are right, again. My mistake… And the second in a row… Doing too many things those days… So, I took time to pause and look at he whole thing again.

For whichever reason, I focused on Buresvestnik and associated it with the "hypersonic" keyword in the article heading —and created the new topic that was moved here. But yes, it sounded a bit weird and as, noticed by Sferin, Buresvestnik did not quite look right for a hypersonic device. So... back at it again, I switched bak to "supersonic", wishfully thinking it were supersonic while recalling the unbuilt supersonic "Pluto" / "SLAM" nuclear propulsion missile projects. The actual plain truth it that it wasn't right either and looked like a subsonic cruise vehicle, which I really think it is.

Now you've got the whole process. Yes, I did not pay that much attention and I apologize for it. I should have waited a little instead of jumping i on the subject (I did not find the "Burevestnik" keyword on the forum, which is why I created the new topic, quite erroneously).

Thx to Flateric for kindly moving my posts here.

A.

 

[antigravite]

Re: 9M730 Burevestnik (SSC-X-9 Skyfall) cruise niclear-powered missile

Burevestnik is not supersonic. Has zero ties to Kalibr.

Thx, my mistake.
A.

 

[bipa]

Re: 9M730 Burevestnik (SSC-X-9 Skyfall) cruise niclear-powered missile

That doesn't look like the front end of a supersonic missile. (My impression is that it's more of a super long range Kalibr.)

To me that looks like the front-end of a Kh-101 upside down.
So maybe not Kalibr but a ground-launched variant of Kh-101 with alternate propulsion?

 

[flateric]

To me that looks like the front-end of a Kh-101 upside down.

Not at all.

 

[sferrin]

Just to be clear, I wasn't saying it was a variant of Kalibr. I just meant that, in mission (long-range, subsonic cruise missile) it was like Kalibr but with more range. Though, now that I think of it, it's likely a lot more expensive so they probably wouldn't put a conventional warhead on it. Nuclear only would be my guess.

 

[paralay]

X-101, Kalibr and Thunderbird

 

[bipa]

To me that looks like the front-end of a Kh-101 upside down.

Not at all.

Indeed, different concept, slightly more elegant blend towards fuselage cross section.
Interesting bird. Thanks for the correction with pictures.
Paralay's drawing seems to depict a ventral air intake: is this speculation (assumption of similarity with Pluto...) or a fact from other available pictures?

 

[paralay]

B)

 

[Grey Havoc]

'Brief radiation spike' after rocket engine blast in northern Russia

The explosion on a naval test range in Arkhangelsk region kills two people and injures six.

www.bbc.com

Related?

 

[Forest Green]

Have they Chernobyl'd it again?

 

[GARGEAN]

For now it's just a yellow press screams based on nothing. We will see of it's real (most probably it don't).

 

[AN/AWW-14(V)]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1159535419249299458

 

[Forest Green]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1159535419249299458

They're having a really bad week over there. Half of Siberia is on fire and a munitions factory wasn't content with blowing up once either.

A Russian military ammo depot that blew up earlier this week just exploded again

The ammo depot, believed to house tens of thousands of artillery shells, exploded on Monday. It just exploded again, injuring at least ten more people.

news.yahoo.com

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

The BBC are now reporting the following relating to Thursday incident at Severodvinsk.

“The company told Russian media that its engineering and technical team had been working on the "isotope power source" for the propulsion system.”

The first acknowledgment of work on Hafnium 178-m2 isomer?

 

[flateric]

They (Rosatom) told of "maintenance of isotope power source on the liquid-powered powerplant”.

At the beginning in MoD press-release it was "liquid-powered jet engine" which sounds rather weird in Russian too.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Some parts of the Hafnium propulsion architecture (the only one I’ve ever seen published) look like a gas turbine, and the energy released by the Hafnium pellet is converted/transferred using a liquid.

 

[Forest Green]

In Soviet Russia, weapons test you.

 

[galgot]

Mmmh I think It's Putin Russia, not Soviet.
So that Hafnium thing mean it could really be a nuclear powered device ?

 

[Orionblamblam]

So that Hafnium thing mean it could really be a nuclear powered device ?

If that's what it was, it would be more like "A device with some nuclear stuff in it." The last I heard, the theory that supported hafnium isomers being a useful power source had been debunked.

SPECULATION ALERT:
So what *might* *maybe* be the case is that the Russians went ahead and built a hafnium isomer turbojet that was simply never going to work. And, rather than testing this useless device on the stand, they tried to test fly it, and it promptly fell out of the sky because hafnium isomer as a power source doesn't work. And it went kersplat and scattered hafnium hither and yon.

 

[Forest Green]

Russia says five died in missile test explosion

Russia's nuclear agency on Saturday said an explosion at an Arctic missile testing site had killed five of its staff after the military had put the toll at two. In a statement, Rosatom said the accident killed five of its staff and injured three, who suffered burns and other injuries. The...

news.yahoo.com

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Wouldn't it be most likely that this is a closed cycle system similar to an RTG being used as a heat source tied to a heat exchanger which is then used in place of the combustor section in an air breathing engine?

That’s effectively what the Hafnium isomer would be, if it indeed it’s achievable. All other RTG’s, although they have massive energy density, because the energy release is based on a slow rate of decay have tiny power density. The, as yet unproven claim for the Hafnium isotope is that you can accelerate the energy release by stimulating it with X-Rays.

 

[greenmartian2017]

There is an excellent article with fairly up-to-date coverage here:

Speculations on the Nenoksa Explosion

Looks like a test of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile. Many questions remain.

nucleardiner.wordpress.com

This should help all of you who are interested in what happened

 

[Forest Green]

Russia Says Small Nuclear Reactor Blew Up in Deadly Accident

The blast occurred Aug. 8 during a test of a missile

news.yahoo.com

 

[Flyaway]

Russia’s defence ministry said the explosion had taken place during testing of a rocket engine, but the country’s nuclear agency, Rosatom, later confirmed that several of its employees had been killed during testing of an “isotope power source in a liquid propulsion system”.

David Cullen, the director of the Nuclear Information Service in the UK, said on Monday that the view among independent experts was that the explosion appeared to have been caused by the failure of an experimental nuclear-powered cruise missile known in Russia as the 9M730 Burevestnik and by Nato as the SSC-X-9 Skyfall.

“Our suspicion is that something went wrong during or after a Russian test of its nuclear-powered cruise missile,” wrote Jeffrey Lewis, a US arms control specialist with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Russia was believed to have moved Burevestnik testing to the current Nenoksa site earlier this year.

Russia indicates rocket engine exploded in test of mini nuclear reactor

Test failure symptomatic of wider escalation of US-Russia nuclear tensions, expert says

www.theguardian.com

 

[edwest4]

I've seen this deliberate vague wording before. What does "small nuclear reactor" mean? It won't be explained in any detail. The idea of a nuclear powered aircraft makes far more sense than a missile. I'm sure US detection capabilities have improved since the 1990s. This is a case of maybe, maybe not. And US-Russia nuclear tensions? It is to laugh.

 

[Flyaway]

 

[edwest4]

I think it strange that sometimes Top Secret events are leaked to the outside world. I think Top Secret should stay Top Secret, at least for a while.

 

[sferrin]

He seems to think it's a Pluto-like nuclear ramjet. I thought this thing was a nuclear turbofan in a subsonic missile?

 

[rooster]

Does anyone think its a ruse to fool the world into thinking they are developing these weapons when they are not? Like their hollow missile shells on parade for the last umpteen years? If they can't have faith in the reliability of the SLBM force based on rockets, why would they have faith in miniaturized nuclear engines? At that rate most of their country will be sterile from radiation and they can make themselves extinct on their own.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Credit to Flateric

12 ) United States Patent
Podrog
( 10 ) Patent No . : US 9 , 797 , 309 B2
( 45 ) Date of Patent : * Oct . 24 , 2017
( 54 ) HAFNIUM TURBINE ENGINE AND METHOD OF OPERATION

If it works, it’s ideal for miniaturisation in a small sub sonic craft. The Hafnium source would be the size of a coin;- 15g has the same stored energy as 2 tons of kerosene.

 

[Hobbes]

I think it strange that sometimes Top Secret events are leaked to the outside world. I think Top Secret should stay Top Secret, at least for a while.

But this missile wasn't a secret: Putin has been bragging about it. This is a deterrent-type weapon, and those are useless if they're kept a secret.

And if you want to keep things secret, you should avoid the type of accident that can be detected halfway across the world.

 

[Orionblamblam]

And if you want to keep things secret, you should avoid the type of accident that can be detected halfway across the world.

One can fall down a rabbit hole of speculation. Consider: a lot of people got excited about hafnium isomers, a fair chunk of cash was spent on the idea, and the it was found to *apparently* be fundamentally flawed. But there's enough uncertainty that *maybe* it can work. But how about if the Russians spent *more* money studying and determined that it absolutely WILL NOT WORK. It's a lost cause. It's impossible. So why waste another minute on it?

For dirty tricks, that's why. Make it *look* like you've got a functional, or at least semi-functional, small and practical nuclear turbojet. Make it look like a hafnium isomer system, or a miniaturized plutonium or californium or whatever you want system. "Accidentally" trash one; this releases a burst of gamma/neutron/X-ray radiation that can be measured, along with a cloud of isotopes, all of which are tailored to make your "reactor" look like a hafnium/californium/whatever reactor. And after you've "accidentally" crashed one, fly another one around that is seemingly successful (even though it has only a conventional turbojet, an ultra-lightweight structure and nothing but a whole lot of fuel). The Americans and Japanese and Brits and whoever else will analyze the evidence you've scattered about and will decide "holy crap, the Russians have figured out how to make an unobtainum reactor," and will then blow a bajillion dollars on their own futile pursuit of the same thing. Not only with the US throw away buckets of cash, but the best minds in nuclear power, minds which could be doing something useful like designing NERVA engines or power reactors for subs or next-gen nukes, will be wasted on a useless pursuit of an impossible goal.

Further down the rabbit hole: The Russians find that the engine isn't 100% impossible, but they just can't seal the deal on it. Try as they might they just can't make it work. But if they convince the US that the Russians have it, the US will work on it until they've got it figured out. And since the Russians have spies everywhere, as soon as the US figures it out, the data will filter back directly to Putin and he'll laugh as he rides his armored bear to the nuclear turbojet factory and personally hammers out a functional prototype.

 

[Forest Green]

He seems to think it's a Pluto-like nuclear ramjet. I thought this thing was a nuclear turbofan in a subsonic missile?

There are references to Mach 2.9 in some sources. Fuel consumption isn't going to be a problem, so no reason to make it subsonic.

 

[Forest Green]

One can fall down a rabbit hole of speculation. Consider: a lot of people got excited about hafnium isomers, a fair chunk of cash was spent on the idea, and the it was found to *apparently* be fundamentally flawed. But there's enough uncertainty that *maybe* it can work. But how about if the Russians spent *more* money studying and determined that it absolutely WILL NOT WORK. It's a lost cause. It's impossible. So why waste another minute on it?

For dirty tricks, that's why. Make it *look* like you've got a functional, or at least semi-functional, small and practical nuclear turbojet. Make it look like a hafnium isomer system, or a miniaturized plutonium or californium or whatever you want system. "Accidentally" trash one; this releases a burst of gamma/neutron/X-ray radiation that can be measured, along with a cloud of isotopes, all of which are tailored to make your "reactor" look like a hafnium/californium/whatever reactor. And after you've "accidentally" crashed one, fly another one around that is seemingly successful (even though it has only a conventional turbojet, an ultra-lightweight structure and nothing but a whole lot of fuel). The Americans and Japanese and Brits and whoever else will analyze the evidence you've scattered about and will decide "holy crap, the Russians have figured out how to make an unobtainum reactor," and will then blow a bajillion dollars on their own futile pursuit of the same thing. Not only with the US throw away buckets of cash, but the best minds in nuclear power, minds which could be doing something useful like designing NERVA engines or power reactors for subs or next-gen nukes, will be wasted on a useless pursuit of an impossible goal.

Further down the rabbit hole: The Russians find that the engine isn't 100% impossible, but they just can't seal the deal on it. Try as they might they just can't make it work. But if they convince the US that the Russians have it, the US will work on it until they've got it figured out. And since the Russians have spies everywhere, as soon as the US figures it out, the data will filter back directly to Putin and he'll laugh as he rides his armored bear to the nuclear turbojet factory and personally hammers out a functional prototype.

They've 'accidentally' trashed 2 now though.

 

[Orionblamblam]

They've 'accidentally' trashed 2 now though.

All the better to make the thing look convincing. Make the development look challenging. So when the US tries its hand at it and encounters difficulties (such as PITA scientists and engineers claiming that the math simply doesn't work and the equations will never balance), they'll remember that the Russians certainly had trouble. But in the end *they* made it work, so the US should just keep shoveling money at it.

 

[Grey Havoc]

There are references to Mach 2.9 in some sources. Fuel consumption isn't going to be a problem, so no reason to make it subsonic.

A subsonic loiter capability would be desirable even so.

 

[sferrin]

He seems to think it's a Pluto-like nuclear ramjet. I thought this thing was a nuclear turbofan in a subsonic missile?

There are references to Mach 2.9 in some sources. Fuel consumption isn't going to be a problem, so no reason to make it subsonic.

Which sources?

 

[sferrin]

Credit to Flateric

12 ) United States Patent
Podrog
( 10 ) Patent No . : US 9 , 797 , 309 B2
( 45 ) Date of Patent : * Oct . 24 , 2017
( 54 ) HAFNIUM TURBINE ENGINE AND METHOD OF OPERATION

If it works, it’s ideal for miniaturisation in a small sub sonic craft. The Hafnium source would be the size of a coin;- 15g has the same stored energy as 2 tons of kerosene.

Hafnium this or that strikes me as Cold-Fusionesque. Too good to be true.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

I think most observers have seen nuclear powered missile, Googled it, found SLAM and therefore assumed that Skyfall must be a supersonic one of those......except the Skyfall configuration is clearly a subsonic.

It’s correct that a fission reactor has both an inherently high power and energy density so it makes sense to fly as fast as possible.

But Skyfall is a subsonic architecture, maybe because it’s power density is limited, which is what I would anticipate for a Hafnium type system.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Credit to Flateric

12 ) United States Patent
Podrog
( 10 ) Patent No . : US 9 , 797 , 309 B2
( 45 ) Date of Patent : * Oct . 24 , 2017
( 54 ) HAFNIUM TURBINE ENGINE AND METHOD OF OPERATION

If it works, it’s ideal for miniaturisation in a small sub sonic craft. The Hafnium source would be the size of a coin;- 15g has the same stored energy as 2 tons of kerosene.

Hafnium this or that strikes me as Cold-Fusionesque. Too good to be true.

Except Hafnium 178 is pretty nasty stuff, intensely radioactive (think Cobalt 60) so not really suitable for public consumption........it’s not the green fuel of the future.