Rosatom rocket engine failure

[YNM]

Alright, so there was an actual good-old explosion with radioactive material flying out of them.

[kerbiloid]

  On 8/26/2019 at 10:52 PM, DDE said:

His source link

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Chapter III.B on page 9 looks just like a todo list for KSP mod on ISRU.

Edited August 27, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Nothalogh]

  On 8/27/2019 at 1:28 AM, YNM said:

Alright, so there was an actual good-old explosion with radioactive material flying out of them.

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Well, something like that.

Likely some kind of prompt crit, and the ensuing power excursion caused a steam explosion.

[YNM]

  On 8/26/2019 at 1:33 PM, DDE said:

Kilopower?

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Given this thing seems to exist as well, I'm kinda drawing lines perhaps a bit too early here... but Russia/Soviet Union has been known to actually miniaturize some stuff, including nuclear bombs for oil and gas boosting operations, storage cavities etc.

So a miniature nuclear reactor wouldn't be too far off.

Question remains on how did it explode.

[kerbiloid]

Industrial nukes need no miniaturization.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

  On 8/27/2019 at 10:08 AM, YNM said:

So a miniature nuclear reactor wouldn't be too far off.

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The Russian nuclear-industrial complex (reference intended) is very excited about the prospects of powering remote sites in the Arctic using small-scale nuclear powerplants. See the Afrikontov .pdf: http://www.innov-rosatom.ru/events/grouparctic/5e334977fec5bf72d7dedcb904a914c0.pdf

A thread connecting it all is that, apparently, the Marines too have an interest in Kilopower.

[YNM]

  On 8/27/2019 at 11:20 AM, DDE said:

powering remote sites in the Arctic using small-scale nuclear powerplants.

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Change it to "powering *anything* using small-scale nuclear power plants"...

Imagine a single type of nuclear power plant fulfilling all your needs, from nuclear-powered submarine to nuclear icebreakers to generator ship to your remote land/air base or undersea base. Heck, perhaps they'd be more than stable enough to be used in space again.

[DDE]

Minor info:

 

[DDE]

I look down on CNBC's Burevestnik coverage, but anyway: 

 

Oh, and here's an image of the contaminated barges:

The blue containers are an odd fixture of Burevestnik test sites.

[sh1pman]

  On 8/29/2019 at 9:51 PM, DDE said:

 

I look down on CNBC's Burevestnik coverage, but anyway: 

 

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I thought the explosion happened “during the test of liquid fueled propulsion system”.

[DDE]

  On 8/29/2019 at 11:02 PM, sh1pman said:

I thought the explosion happened “during the test of liquid fueled propulsion system”.

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Agreed. But at this point it's difficult to negotiate that statement with the character of the ensuing radioactive contamination unless we're actually willing to accept that the Russian military has an unannounced NTR program up its sleeve.

[DDE]

Elsewhere the authorities have dismissed the one known case of caesium-137 contamination as entirely unrelated.

Meduza.io guys also did their own digging and found a match for the isotope composition during a criticality incident in Japan: http://www.irpa.net/irpa10/pdf/abstracts.pdf

[Scotius]

Is that debris on the left (half sunk) barge? Post-explosion wreckage?

[Nothalogh]

  On 8/30/2019 at 5:27 AM, DDE said:

unannounced NTR program up its sleeve

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I certainly hope so

[kerbiloid]

  On 8/30/2019 at 5:27 AM, DDE said:

unannounced NTR program up its sleeve.

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One failure doesn't mean a sleeve.

[DDE]

 

  On 8/30/2019 at 7:17 AM, Nothalogh said:

I certainly hope so

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Why, though? Not many military missions for an NTR, and not a single mention of an NTR in current Roscosmos plans (on the contrary, it's either SEP or NEP).

[Nothalogh]

  On 8/30/2019 at 10:34 AM, DDE said:

Why, though?

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Because it is imperative that the technology and implementation of NT propulsion systems be advanced, and if the US and its vassals won't step up and do it, then it's up to the Russians to do it instead.

[sh1pman]

  On 8/30/2019 at 8:04 PM, Nothalogh said:

Because it is imperative that the technology and implementation of NT propulsion systems be advanced, and if the US and its vassals won't step up and do it, then it's up to the Russians to do it instead.

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Or anyone else. Europe, China, etc. Thing is, if the military makes a working NTR, they won’t be too keen on sharing the design with the rest of the world. Everything about the project will stay classified for the next 50 years, and the only way for anyone else to get the design is through foreign spies. 

If someone wants to use an NTR engine on their orbital rocket, they’ll have to develop it themselves.

[Nothalogh]

  On 8/30/2019 at 8:17 PM, sh1pman said:

Or anyone else.

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Europe is basically the US, geopolitically, so if the US won't do it, neither will they.

 

Yes, it's possible that China could make some progress on this matter, but the Russians are the only ones other than the US that have built working prototypes before.

[AngrybobH]

  On 8/30/2019 at 8:17 PM, sh1pman said:

if the military makes a working NTR, they won’t be too keen on sharing the design with the rest of the world

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But it would make other countries step up research because they couldn't possibly let another country have a technology that they don't have (space race, nuclear proliferation, etc).

[kerbiloid]

Like fear-entangled particles.
Say, USSR never actually needed Buran.

[Nothalogh]

  On 8/31/2019 at 5:51 AM, kerbiloid said:

USSR never actually needed Buran.

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Indeed, they were building MAKS, until the Politburo demanded an STS clone.

[DDE]

Burevestnik becomes less deniable by the day.

(Kirienko being the head of Rosatom and having been slapped with a few medals for secret weapons development before 2018)

 

[sh1pman]

So, the best guess right now would be that they:

1) somehow dropped a Burevestnik missile into the sea, likely during the tests;

2) tried to recover it;

3) at some point its nuclear ramjet exploded, killing and wounding several engineers and releasing some amount of radioactive isotopes into the environment.

[kerbiloid]

Correction: not necessary Burevestneg, any craft with nuke propulsion.

Maybe it didn't fall, but couldn't surface.

Edited September 2, 2019 by kerbiloid