Rosatom rocket engine failure

[DDE]

Anyway, this thread has taken an entirely weird turn. Here’s my take.

The explosion occurred onboard a ship at a Navy weapons testing ground on a shallow sea. It involved a liquid propellant missile, and a radioactive isotope. This much is evident from the several Rosatom statements being circulated.

For some years, there have been sporadic mentions of a Skiff seabed-based ballistic missile: https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/4746647 The confusion around the topic is considerable; “Skiff” happens to be the NATO designation for the R-29 SLBM family, and the mentions of such a weapon keep popping up in the story of the Poseidon intercontinental torpedo - indeed, H.I. Sutton is convinced it’s a Posedion variant.

Given the proposed strategic role and that it was a cooperation between the submarine manufacturer Rubin and the Makeyev SLBM guys, it’s probably an R-29 missile in a new, reinforced, autonomous launch container. The container would use one of the available strontium (more precisely, strontium titanite) RTGs for power, and to keep the missile at room temperature because NTO can freeze quite easily, unlike IRFNA.

The direct employer of the five dead Rosatom guys has promised a more extensive press conference tomorrow. What’s alarming is that it’s the head company of Rosatom’s weapons division.

9 minutes ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

I’m sorry I do not speak Russian?

Then you can see why that’s a problem. Somehow the discussion of the Dean Drive mechanical rocket is a step up from the NTR speculation.

Edited August 10, 2019 by DDE

[Cheif Operations Director]

4 minutes ago, DDE said:

Anyway, this thread has taken an entirely weird turn. Here’s my take.

The explosion occurred onboard a ship at a Navy weapons testing ground on a shallow sea. It involved a liquid propellant missile, and a radioactive isotope. This much is evident from the several Rosatom statements being circulated.

For some years, there have been sporadic mentions of a Skiff seabed-based ballistic missile: https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/4746647 The confusion around the topic is considerable; “Skiff” happens to be the NATO designation for the R-29 SLBM family, and the mentions of such a weapon keep popping up in the story of the Poseidon intercontinental torpedo - indeed, H.I. Sutton is convinced it’s a Posedion variant.

Given the proposed strategic role and that it was a cooperation between the submarine manufacturer Rubin and the Makeyev SLBM guys, it’s probably an R-29 missile in a new, reinforced, autonomous launch container. The container would use one of the available strontium (more precisely, strontium titanite) RTGs for power, and to keep the missile at room temperature because NTO can freeze quite easily, unlike IRFNA.

The direct employer of the five dead Rosatom guys has promised a more extensive press conference tomorrow. What’s alarming is that it’s the head company of Rosatom’s weapons division.

Then you can see why that’s a problem. Somehow the discussion of the Dean Drive mechanical rocket is a step up from the NTR speculation.

How is this a mechanical rocket?

[DDE]

45 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

He says that the word питание ("food or power supply") refers exclusively to electric current...
Probably, @DDE is a robot, as humans usually refer with it  to something to eat.

I can neither confirm nor deny.

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

*Sees thread earlier today* Oh... I saw this news somewhere else. That's pretty sad news. Rockets aren't safe, especially possibly nuclear ones.

*Checks back on thread later because the forum is classifying it as a "hot" thread and there's 3 page argument on extremely basic physics and conservation of mass/energy*

...

 

I'm just gonna leave now...

[Cheif Operations Director]

2 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Like

 E1 ^

<E2 E3>

 

You are correct. If you have three engines firing in a T shape like that, it will produce thrust.

However, if you get that configuration by taking the exhaust from engine 1 and redirecting it into two nozzles (2 and 3), which is what I believe you are getting at, you will not produce forward thrust. That is like having a jet engine, set vertically, blow its exhaust out of two horizontal holes. It will not produce vertical thrust because the thrust has been redirected sideways. That redirection cancels out the propellant's vertical momentum, which goes back into the craft.

 

I mean, sort of  I guess but their a certain point where that is not true, I mean if I ignite a rock engine inside if a building with an open roof the building does not go into the ground. The holes would be act as nozzles and the back end of the plane being hit with that force would cancel out the forward velocity. The difference is that’s I am  preemptively  slowing the velocity down before that force can cause the equal and opposite reaction of canceling it out. 

3 minutes ago, steve_v said:

You are proposing a rocket engine that expels no reaction mass, one that violates the laws of physics. You are insisting that it could work anyway, and therefore :

What from an engineering perspective am I proposing? Stop with the sarcastic comments, I am asking in good faith.

4 minutes ago, steve_v said:

The problem with this is propulsion without reaction. Slowing the particles down without counteracting the engine is your solution to that, and it has serious problems of it's own.

It does not counteract it solely because of its location in relation to the angle of the thrust

[KeranoKerman]

Enough of the catching exhaust, magnets and people just saying no, catching or diverting thrust doesn’t give you a better rocket engine. No matter how many newtons you waste on trying to beat Newton, you can’t win. Except in gravity maybe... but that has nothing to do with rocket engines.

 

Anyways, the article I read seemed to be strange by saying a “jet” which would make it more like the American project SLAM (yes, that is the actual name) where you would pass air through a reactor core to heat it up and accelerate it. Curious Droid on YouTube did a great video on this. What was confusing is that the article said that it was a liquid propulsion system, which sounds like a rocket engine (American equivalent: NRX).

I’m thinking that it was a jet engine where to decrease weight of the engine they are injecting some fuel gas/liquid into the air coming in to get some more thrust, at the cost of some efficiency.

 

[NiL]

So i'm ukrainian (can understand russian), surprised, that so little is known in enlish-speaking internet segment about Burevestnik (it's a bird, afaik Mallard) rocket (also btw sorry for my bad english, i hope it is understandable). So russian economy is pretty f-d up because of political reasons and government needs something for propaganda and constantly promising big projects like moon base in 5 years (was in 2008 lol), new Armata tank (only 2 prototypes were built) and stuff. In 2018, after one of the new laws, which i don't know how to translate (is "pension" a word in english?), people were upset, and Putin had a 1.5 hour presentation with some really crappy animation of a new nuclear super-missle with unlimited range, wich would be "invisible to US early detection system". He said a couple of silly things (20 000 m/s cruising speed - in lower atmosphere lol), so nobody was thinking that he was even a little bit serious. Sorry about politics, i understand that i can be somewhat unobjective, that's what i heard and believe. After that there were no information about the rocket (i remember a russian article about problems with new rocket testing, but it was really vague). That's the story. Now info about Burevestnik from 2018 presentation and russian wikipedia (may not be true, i mean «20 km/s in the lower atmosphere»...)

NATO codename: SSC X-9 Skyfall

It's a winged rocket

It has unlimited range 

Uses literally "a nuclear engine" (ядерный двигатель) - wich... err... Better translates as "atomic engine", in russian it can mean everything from thermonuclear scramjet ot Orion drive to NTR. NERV-style engines in russian called "ядерные ракетные двигатели" (nuclear rocket motors), not just "ядерные двигатели", it's a big difference and can lead to mistranslations. 

It uses a solid fuel booster to launch 

According to some not very trustworthy articles that i found it has a nuclear thermal engine that uses air as reaction mass (that makes it similar to an ancient US Project Pluto) - it makes sence (russia can do it), but contradics Putin's and russian Defence Departament (Minoborony)'s claims about the rocket being hypersonic (20 km/s is obv silly, but in general...) and also contradicts that info about explosion (about "liquid-fueled engine). Some sources claim that rocket is 9m long, 1.5m in diameter and has a 3m long solid booster on the start. The power of Burevestnik's "nuclear engine™" is estimated (by that source) as 760 kVt. 

English Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik

Video from 2018 presentation with animation and some strange test video (time - 1.20): 

 

 

[KeranoKerman]

If you want to keep this argument about your tarps and magnets, create another thread. This is about a explosion of a nuclear propulsion mechanism, not other rocket engine designs

[NiL]

About the explosion: Russia just closed a huge part of Barwntsovo sea (Barenz sea? Dunno how to translate) near Archangelsk (and, i believe, Severodvinsk, in wich people spotred a high background radiation too os somewhere there too)

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 minute ago, NiL said:

About the explosion: Russia just closed a huge part of Barwntsovo sea (Barenz sea? Dunno how to translate) near Archangelsk (and, i believe, Severodvinsk, in wich people spotred a high background radiation too os somewhere there too)

Seems like that quick release of radiation turns out to be a bit more long lasting, oh well what is new in Soviet Russia and their nuclear program. 

[steve_v]

8 minutes ago, NiL said:

NATO codename: SSC X-9 Skyfall

So you're saying that this was what blew up? Fascinating. I didn't know anyone was still working on nuclear scramjets.
 

4 minutes ago, NiL said:

Russia just closed a huge part of Barwntsovo sea

Sounds like it was somewhat more serious than first announced... how unexpected.

Edited August 10, 2019 by steve_v

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, NiL said:

found it has a nuclear thermal engine that uses air as reaction mass (that makes it similar to an ancient US Project Pluto) - it makes sence (russia can do it), but contradics Putin's and russian Defence Departament (Minoborony)'s claims about the rocket being hypersonic (20 km/s is obv silly, but in general...) 

I don't see how an NTR precludes it being hypersonic. In fact, it eliminates the most problematic part of a scramjet - sustaining the actual combustion. If the heat is supplied from a nuclear reaction, there's no combustion and no problem. The biggest speed limiting factor is, therefore, how much aerodynamic heating the fuselage and the engine can take. Which can be a lot, especially on a disposable vehicle that could use ablative materials. 20km/s is a bit excessive, being twice the Earth's escape velocity. It's either particularly inept propaganda or a unit conversion error (like the all too common "mach to km/h conversion"). 

Perhaps the engine that exploded wasn't for Burevestnik? It does sound like some sort of an NTR. I suspect the confusion is less about disinformation and more officials not knowing what they're talking about, because their idea of what an "atomic engine" is comes, at best, from Strugatsky brothers novels. Nuclear reactors don't explode, but turbopumps might (say, from trying to pump something non-liquid), and one doing so on an atomic engine could subsequently lead to meltdown and release of radioactive materials, because a typical NTR is cooled by its own exhaust. 

Here's a thought. There was a post out there about a Soviet program to develop an open-cycle GCNR. If that's what exploded... well, I suppose a bit of radioactive fallout here and there isn't that big of a price for a friggin' GCNR.  Russia has been bringing out a lot of high-tech surprises lately, many rooted in Soviet-era projects. 

[KeranoKerman]

Given the translation from @NiL I think that the missile went critical on the launchpad causing a flash of radiation. I don’t know about the location, but maybe some radioactive material from the detonation got shot or spilled into that sea. Or the test was on a ship, which would make more sense

 

[NiL]

Fuq, i just went out for a couple of minutes to collect some information when it was a russian rocket explosion thread, and now it's all about magnets and HOW NTRs WORK, i dunno what to do with it, will upload stuff abot explosion anyway. 

1. I messed out, its not the part of Barentsovo sea, but Beloe (White) sea. Also "Serebryanka" ship, wich is a specialized ship intended for collecting nuclear waste (i was surprised to know that something like that exists, but it is) was spotted near the closed area. The map of closed area:

It's closed up to 10th of September because of a russian Defence Departament (Minoborony) request. 

Someone in the thread said that it could be a destrusction of a missle on a carrier with RTG power source for keeping propellant cool, but i highly doubt it - because there was a fire on a rocket test site in Nyonoks (a city just under the closed zone on a map above), background radiation there was 5 times over the normal for a short time AND in the same time part of the sea looking a lot alike the trajectory of a rocket was closed. I doubt that a single RTG could pollute that much of an area, also if that was an explosion on a ship, why woud you close an area near the shore (near the rocket test site)?

People are scared and buying iodine (because there's a myth that it protects from radiation) and/or joking about season 2 of "Chernobyl", that piece of paper in the phrmacy's window says "All the iodine was sold out":

 

 

Nyonoks radiation level measured by some guy

2 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

 

If you don't permanently expel something backwards, or push off of something in the environment, you will not gain velocity. If you recapture what you expel, you are by definition not expelling it permanently.

Wait, is this thread now THAT dank? That guy with magnets is proposing to capture expelled fuel, lol? 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Ultimate Steve said:

And yes, if you send a Progress crashing into Mir, Mir would have altered velocity. However, in your engine, Mir launched Progresszt itself, and the energy spent to accelerate Progress (accelerating Mir in the opposite direction) went straight back into decelerating Progress (and decelerating Mir in the opposite direction).

This is wrong. MIR didn't "launch" the Progress, and thus did not gain much energy from it undocking (well, it did. Really little). Progress used its own reaction engines to get to the point of accident. The momentum imparted to MIR came, ultimately, from the propellant expelled from the Progress after undocking.

13 minutes ago, KeranoKerman said:

Given the translation from @NiL I think that the missile went critical on the launchpad causing a flash of radiation. 

It certainly went critical, but that in itself is not a bad thing, because a critical reactor is one that's running normally. It probably went prompt critical, exceeded its operating parameters and melted down. 

BTW, if this was on a ship, I have another, very simple explanation: The Burevestnik's reactor melted down, overheating the rocket booster, which exploded and blew up the reactor, scattering its contents over the sea. Reactors don't explode on their own, but SRBs do (including when overheated), and since that's what it uses for launch, that's a likely explanation for what made such a mess.

[Ultimate Steve]

11 minutes ago, NiL said:

(because there's a myth that it protects from radiation)

I do not believe it is a myth, but it doesn't protect against radiation everywhere, just one crucial place. Iirc, your thyroid loves iodine. It will suck up as much as it can get. However, in many nuclear reactions, a radioactive type of iodine is created. If this gets spread out in an explosion, it can get into your thyroid and cause cancer and sickness.

The solution is, as soon as possible after the explosion, take lots of non radioactive iodine so it will overwhelm your thyroid so for some time, it will not be able to absorb any more. When it encounters the radioactive iodine it will not absorb it. This gives you enough time to get out before getting thyroid cancer.

Edit: mobile typo made me say the opposite of what I wanted to.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Ultimate Steve

[KeranoKerman]

17 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

As for the topic, yes, spike in radiation is quite telling. Some sort of excursion deffinitely happened.

I think that it proves that the reactor had to go critical. I don’t know another type of event that could cause that.

I wonder if one of the satellites used to detect nuclear bomb tests picked that up.

[Ultimate Steve]

2 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

This is wrong. MIR didn't "launch" the Progress, and thus did not gain much energy from it undocking (well, it did. Really little). Progress used its own reaction engines to get to the point of accident. The momentum imparted to MIR came, ultimately, from the propellant expelled from the Progress after undocking

I am aware of that, I was using that as an example. Like how progress altered mirs course by hitting it, exhaust would alter the course of a deflector by hitting it. However, since the deflector is attached to the engine providing the exhaust, there would be no net thrust. I said that if Mir had launched the progress into itself there would be no velocity change, like in his engine. Sorry for not being clear.

[Cheif Operations Director]

11 minutes ago, NiL said:

Fuq, i just went out for a couple of minutes to collect some information when it was a russian rocket explosion thread, and now it's all about magnets and HOW NTRs WORK, i dunno what to do with it, will upload stuff abot explosion anyway. 

1. I messed out, its not the part of Barentsovo sea, but Beloe (White) sea. Also "Serebryanka" ship, wich is a specialized ship intended for collecting nuclear waste (i was surprised to know that something like that exists, but it is) was spotted near the closed area. The map of closed area:

It's closed up to 10th of September because of a russian Defence Departament (Minoborony) request. 

Someone in the thread said that it could be a destrusction of a missle on a carrier with RTG power source for keeping propellant cool, but i highly doubt it - because there was a fire on a rocket test site in Nyonoks (a city just under the closed zone on a map above), background radiation there was 5 times over the normal for a short time AND in the same time part of the sea looking a lot alike the trajectory of a rocket was closed. I doubt that a single RTG could pollute that much of an area, also if that was an explosion on a ship, why woud you close an area near the shore (near the rocket test site)?

People are scared and buying iodine (because there's a myth that it protects from radiation) and/or joking about season 2 of "Chernobyl", that piece of paper in the phrmacy's window says "All the iodine was sold out":

 

 

Nyonoks radiation level measured by some guy

Wait, is this thread now THAT dank? That guy with magnets is proposing to capture expelled fuel, lol? 

Nice info

[NiL]

25 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

I don't see how an NTR precludes it being hypersonic. 

>Atmospheric TWR of a RTG-powered NTR is too low? 

Perhaps the engine that exploded wasn't for Burevestnik? It does sound like some sort of an NTR. I suspect the confusion is less about disinformation and more officials not knowing what they're talking about, because their idea of what an "atomic engine" is comes, at best, from Strugatsky brothers novels. Nuclear reactors don't explode, but turbopumps might (say, from trying to pump something non-liquid), and one doing so on an atomic engine could subsequently lead to meltdown and release of radioactive materials, because a typical NTR is cooled by its own exhaust. 

>Maybe, but the size of polluted zone is too big for a single turbopump explosion, also we don't know about any other nuclear rocket project. In the same time, of course, i don't even know what ca cause it, i mean in this case nuclear ramjet and NTR are not wery different. 

>I agree about "officials not knowing about", it really sounds believeable

Here's a thought. There was a post out there about a Soviet program to develop an open-cycle GCNR. If that's what exploded... well, I suppose a bit of radioactive fallout here and there isn't that big of a price for a friggin' GCNR.  Russia has been bringing out a lot of high-tech surprises lately, many rooted in Soviet-era projects. 

>Maybe it's too high-tech for Russia? I mean it's a nuclear missle, it's expendable and needs to be storable, and gaseous core NTRs does not sound like that at all (to me personally at least).

 

[NiL]

6 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I do not believe it is a myth, but it doesn't protect against radiation everywhere, just one crucial place. Iirc, your thyroid loves iodine. It will suck up as much as it can get. However, in many nuclear reactions, a radioactive type of iodine is created. If this gets spread out in an explosion, it can get into your thyroid and cause cancer and sickness.

The solution is, as soon as possible after the explosion, take lots of non radioactive iodine so it will overwhelm your thyroid so for some time, it will not be able to absorb any more. When it encounters the radioactive iodine it will not absorb it. This gives you enough time to get out before getting thyroid cancer.

Edit: mobile typo made me say the opposite of what I wanted to.

I don't think that drinking alcohol solution of iodin from pharmcy can help a lot, but thanks for information, i didn't know that

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, NiL said:

>Atmospheric TWR of a RTG-powered NTR is too low? 

Last time I heard of it, Burevestnik had a full-on nuclear reactor. An RTG ramjet probably wouldn't work too well. This kind of performance is well within the capabilities of a nuclear reactor, though. Besides, they wouldn't be in this fix if this was an RTG.

16 minutes ago, NiL said:

>Maybe, but the size of polluted zone is too big for a single turbopump explosion, also we don't know about any other nuclear rocket project. In the same time, of course, i don't even know what ca cause it, i mean in this case nuclear ramjet and NTR are not wery different. 

No, turbopump could be what killed the technicians, and the initial case of reactor meltdown. Those things carry terrifying angular momentum, not to mention incredible pressures, especially for high thrust engines. That said, when I wrote that I was thinking it was a standalone test. If this was Burevestnik, it was likely the booster rocket that blew up. Solids can do that, and it's the most explodey part of a test missile. A live one could have a warhead (conventional or nuclear, an accidental explosion would look similar), but this one probably didn't. The talk of rockets is likely ignorant officials who heard something like "a rocket booster blew up a nuclear engine" and thought "a nuclear rocket blew up". 

16 minutes ago, NiL said:

>Maybe it's too high-tech for Russia? I mean it's a nuclear missle, it's expendable and needs to be storable, and gaseous core NTRs does not sound like that at all (to me personally at least).

Soviets were working on it until the engineers were reassigned to Buran. Their work probably still exists. However, a GCNR would not be used for missiles. Again, I was thinking it was a land-based test of a nuclear rocket. 

12 minutes ago, NiL said:

I don't think that drinking alcohol solution of iodin from pharmcy can help a lot, but thanks for information, i didn't know that

I bet most people who buy that care more for the solvent than for iodine...  

19 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I am aware of that, I was using that as an example. Like how progress altered mirs course by hitting it, exhaust would alter the course of a deflector by hitting it. However, since the deflector is attached to the engine providing the exhaust, there would be no net thrust. I said that if Mir had launched the progress into itself there would be no velocity change, like in his engine. Sorry for not being clear.

Be careful about it, because kooks  latch onto inconsistencies like this and try to invalidate one argument on the basis of a poorly chosen example.  I've seen that happen way too often. If winning such an argument is at all possible (it often isn't), your own arguments need to be ironclad.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Guest

[NiL]

9 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

No, turbopump could be what killed the technicians, and the initial case of reactor meltdown. Also, those things carry terrifying angular momentum, not to mention incredible pressures. That said, when I wrote that I was thinking it was a standalone test. If this was Burevestnik, it was likely the booster rocket that blew up. Solids can do that, and it's the most explodey part of a test missile. A live one could have a warhead (conventional or nuclear, an accidental explosion would look similar), but this one probably didn't.

It sounds convincing, but what's with the large closed sea zone and Serebraynka ship?

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, NiL said:

It sounds convincing, but what's with the large closed sea zone and Serebraynka ship?

This happened at sea (sensible, it's better to let a faulty nuclear engine sink beneath the White Sea than let it hit land and spill uranium over it), so reactor guts were scattered over the sea. The large zone is likely a matter of security, as well. They likely don't want anything interfering with the cleanup operation, and covertly taking photos of the test ship/test site while at it.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Guest

[lajoswinkler]

I think we can exclude any RTGs being blown to bits. They are simply way too weak to be used as energy source for any engine.

 

Since apparently this has been on a sea platform, and people have been blown by an explosion into the sea, this might've easily been an engine with a small powerful reactor with highly enriched uranium being damaged to the point it was blown into bits which fell into the sea, thus stopping the direct fission product release.

There shouldn't be lots of fission products in such reactor since they don't work for months, but are propulsion tests.

Arctic currents will dillute it, but Grenland and Alaska should be able to detect it. Grenland first.