"Burevestnik" Nuclear-powered cruise missile

The Russian cruise missile "Petrel" will be equipped with batteries

The Russian “Petrel” rocket (9M730) will receive a powerful rechargeable battery.

The Avia.pro resource has proved that the newest Russian “Petrel” cruise missile, the successful tests of which became known several months ago, will be equipped with a powerful 9B280-1 battery resistant to various types of exposure, including water, high temperatures and etc.

In fact, the information that the Russian cruise missile with a nuclear power plant 9M730 will be equipped with 9B280-1 batteries appeared about a year ago, but the source reported that these data are true.

http://avia.pro/news/rossiyskuyu-krylatuyu-raketu-burevestnik-osnastyat-batareyami

IMHO russia should develop a conventional warhead version of the burevestnik. If the country that is getting bombed has to deal with a small but of isolated radioactive material so be it. NATO got away with polluting 2 countries with DU. A busted radiocative engine is nothing compared to that.

Nah, you don't want to hand over that technology to any of your enemies... a nuke will obliterate the target and destroy all evidence of the weapon and its systems clean enough.

If it is Russia then any suggestion of nuclear rubble you might as well use a nuke weapon for all the shit you would get from western media and governments... Kh-102 and Kh-101 would be rather better alternatives in terms of nuke and conventional warhead options...

In fact, the information that the Russian cruise missile with a nuclear power plant 9M730 will be equipped with 9B280-1 batteries appeared about a year ago, but the source reported that these data are true.

Would be interesting if the missile uses a nuclear ramjet, or an electric jet motor with nuclear batteries...

GarryB wrote:

IMHO russia should develop a conventional warhead version of the burevestnik. If the country that is getting bombed has to deal with a small but of isolated radioactive material so be it. NATO got away with polluting 2 countries with DU. A busted radiocative engine is nothing compared to that.

Nah, you don't want to hand over that technology to any of your enemies... a nuke will obliterate the target and destroy all evidence of the weapon and its systems clean enough.

If it is Russia then any suggestion of nuclear rubble you might as well use a nuke weapon for all the shit you would get from western media and governments... Kh-102 and Kh-101 would be rather better alternatives in terms of nuke and conventional warhead options...

In fact, the information that the Russian cruise missile with a nuclear power plant 9M730 will be equipped with 9B280-1 batteries appeared about a year ago, but the source reported that these data are true.

Would be interesting if the missile uses a nuclear ramjet, or an electric jet motor with nuclear batteries...

Looks like it is an electric propulsion system with a nuclear reactor that generates electricity directly. There is no conversion of heat into
electricity via turbine and so we have a much more compact design. The purpose of the batteries is obscure to me. Perhaps it has something
to do with optimizing the electron production and reactor cooling. They could be running the reactor on "high" for a few hours with excess
electricity stored in the batteries and then running it on "low" to cool it down. But thermal management is not the only issue. The operational
cycle of the reactor likely affects the efficiency of the electron output and it may not be possible to run the reactor optimally in a constant
state.

I am not sure I am convinced yet on this missile and that is not because it is Russian....as some of you have indicated that it can fly for weeks and so on...power may be guaranteed from nuclear energy but unless you are in orbit, there are no known examples of something like a missile or rocket travelling for days and weeks....I doubt if the numerous components that make up that missile will have that kinda of tolerance considering the mass of the missle is not going to be that high. You are talking about generation leaps in every part that goes into that missile. For me it is not meant to travel like some of you indicated for days and weeks, it exists to do its job in a much simpler profile whatever that is. Ofcourse, "impossible is an opinion and not a fact". So I may be wrong.

southpark wrote:I am not sure I am convinced yet on this missile and that is not because it is Russian....as some of you have indicated that it can fly for weeks and so on...power may be guaranteed from nuclear energy but unless you are in orbit, there are no known examples of something like a missile or rocket travelling for days and weeks....I doubt if the numerous components that make up that missile will have that kinda of tolerance considering the mass of the missle is not going to be that high. You are talking about generation leaps in every part that goes into that missile. For me it is not meant to travel like some of you indicated for days and weeks, it exists to do its job in a much simpler profile whatever that is. Ofcourse, "impossible is an opinion and not a fact". So I may be wrong.

It's a subsonic third-strike weapon

It won't be pushing any performance envelopes so as long as power unit works there is nothing there to malfunction

Phrase 'nuclear engine' sounds huge but whole thing is pretty straightforward

Avangard, Sarmat and Peresvet are complicated ones, this one not so much

PapaDragon wrote:

It's a subsonic third-strike weapon

It won't be pushing any performance envelopes so as long as power unit works there is nothing there to malfunction

Phrase 'nuclear engine' sounds huge but whole thing is pretty straightforward

Avangard, Sarmat and Peresvet are complicated ones, this one not so much

I am finding it hard to simplify it like that especially flying objects....subsonic means how subsonic? Very close to supersonic can also be subsonic and the material science does not work like that although I think this is more to do with a nonstop flying object in atmosphere than speed while speed is one parameter that can be adversial. They have to deal with all kinds of things, if it is something designed to evade AD threats then it has some complexity in physical moving parts...if it is too subsonic then can be taken out by relatively simple automated air defence systems that standby in discreet mode just for that scenario. As an engineer, it just sounds a bit too much...even a simple automobile needs to take a break otherwise even with nuclear car engine other parts will break down like lubricants and lots of other materials.

I am just suspicious of the mission profile that was discussed here not the menacing nature of it....

It's supposed to have speed of passenger jet, be launched once nuclear attack is detected and travel to safe zone (one of polar regions or south Pacific for example) where it would run in circles for several days or weeks.

After certain amount of time passes it will move to strike targets

It won't have to deal with AA defenses because there are unlikely to be any in place or staffed that long after nuclear exchange

It's purpose is strictly to mop up survivors of nuclear war, warheads will probably be salted as well since survivors will probably be spread out over large area

Basically it's a deterrence weapon, something that lets adversaries onow that there will be no survivors or rebuilding on their end

The objective is clear to me and no conflict with what you said but can you reference anything in flying realm (in atmosphere) that is powered and has a reach (rules out airships) like this one that can speak to the tolerance of components that can go into something like this? Also from the video I have seen, I think it is this missile...I remember seeing this actively evading AD systems...correct me if that is a different one. One way I am able to see this is comparing this to drones which can already get to 48 day loitering....so may be the correct way is to think of it like a drone rather than a classical missile but only fully autonomous. Weeks and days is still pretty wild....I wonder if they tested remotely close to that tolerance....

southpark wrote:The objective is clear to me and no conflict with what you said but can you reference anything in flying realm (in atmosphere) that is powered and has a reach (rules out airships) like this one that can speak to the tolerance of components that can go into something like this? Also from the video I have seen, I think it is this missile...I remember seeing this actively evading AD systems...correct me if that is a different one. One way I am able to see this is comparing this to drones which can already get to 48 day loitering....so may be the correct way is to think of it like a drone rather than a classical missile but only fully autonomous. Weeks and days is still pretty wild....I wonder if they tested remotely close to that tolerance....

Ignore promo CGI, that stuff is never accurate especially Russian one, they hardly even bother with it

Only image of these missiles is of their transport containers, they should be somewhere in this tread

This is still project under development and it will be at least several years until they are in service

Don't expect too many accurate details before then

Ofcourse, I take almost nothing at face value when it comes to stuff like this. But it is interesting for people working in tech and science fields when unprecedented things come to the horizon and the possibilities of how some stubborn problems are solved. If it is what they say it is or even remotely close to it....then it is kinda holy grail of lot of things. We will see I guess...

An August 8 image from
@planetlabs
showing the Serebryanka, a nuclear fuel carrier, near a missile test site in Russia, where an explosion and fire broke out earlier. The ship's presence may be related to the testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1159617978641465344

Photos from the Mash Telegram channel (some skepticism required) that allegedly show first responders evacuating injured people from Arkhangelsk. The Mi-8 (RA-22629) helicopter is operated by the 2nd United Arkhangelsk Aviation Division company though.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1159488596275081222

Rosatom has announced that 5 of its employees died in the test, and another 3 were injured with burns of varying degrees of severity.

This makes it more likely that the missile in question was the 9M730 Burevestnik (SSC-X-9 Skyfall) nuclear-powered cruise missile, which was developed by Rosatom's Russian Federal Nuclear Center (VNIIEF) and the Novator Design Bureau.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1159949983996698624

I disagree... I think that considering the burns that we are talking about very high energy liquid fuels... a nuclear motor does not need liquid fuels... as mentioned above it uses batteries.

The question is why does it need batteries...

It could be an electrically driven turbojet engine, which uses these batteries to provide electrical power, which suggests these are nuclear batteries, but the article mentions they are rechargable... why would nuclear batteries need to be recharged and how would that even work.

Perhaps the missile uses a ramjet propulsion with the air heated by nuclear reactor rather than burning fuel, and these batteries are charged in flight perhaps with a free spinning set of blades in the intake or the exhaust with a dynamo to generate power to operate the electronics in the missile and charge the batteries... a ramjet has no shaft of spinning blades so a nuclear ramjet generates heat and not electricity to make the missile fly.

But either theory... electric or ramjet... there is no liquid fuel to burn people... a solid rocket booster would be all that is needed to get this missile airborne, there would be no advantage to using liquid propellent rockets for this.

Personally I think the accident, which was at a navy facility was with Zircon or perhaps testing Onyx missiles with Zircon fuel... perhaps the more powerful fuels require modification of the Onyx design for their use...

As noted elsewhere, the radiation released was trivial. So the images of guys in suits are contextless BS.

People are innumerate. If you tell them a radiation spike was measured, then they think of Chernobyl, when in reality someone eating a
banana passed by. Potassium 40 emits both beta and gamma radiation.

I think the protective suits were needed because the fuel was made of some toxic chemicals.

The radiation was brought up because workers from Rosatom died in the incident. But Rosatom has a lot of companies, some of which are producing fuel pumps and other equipment for engines/missiles.

Big_Gazza wrote:I'm thinking that the test may have been a nuclear thermal engine (based on the engine from the Burevestnik GLCM) intended for space applications.  The engine heats a reaction fluid (such as liquid hydrogen) and expels it to generate thrust.  A hydrogen explosion would explain the description of the event and the reactor may have been damaged and caused a loss of radionuclides (but not likely an actual breach of the reactor housing) that accounts for the apparent short-term rise in background rads.

Reports indicate there was a fire before the blast, which is not what you would expect with a nuke-powered ramjet/scramjet lacking combustible fluids.  Overheating and loss of containment of (hydrogen) fuel?  

Time will tell I guess.

The RT pieces quoting Rosatom employees made it sound like the rocket engine used actual fuel in addition to an isotope. That story does
not make sense and it is probably some BS not to reveal the concept.

Basically all the "concerned" and make any incident in Russia int an anti-Russian hate fest shout GTFO. It's none of their business.

Check out some of the brazen racist commentary on this "Chernobyl style coverup" on other boards. "Russians are all drunk primitives handling
God-like technology" (which I guess someone gave them or they stole). F*CK all you NATO retards. All you have is a point and click
education and do not know what real mathematics and science look like.

As noted elsewhere, the radiation released was trivial. So the images of guys in suits are contextless BS.

Those are hazmat suits... Russian Air Force personnel would be wearing something like them to fuel up Kh-22M missiles too... has nothing to do with radiation.

Check out some of the brazen racist commentary on this "Chernobyl style coverup" on other boards. "Russians are all drunk primitives handling
God-like technology" (which I guess someone gave them or they stole). F*CK all you NATO retards. All you have is a point and click
education and do not know what real mathematics and science look like.

Yeah, irritates me too, but what are you going to do... if they want to stew in their own ignorance then that is their problem...

They can celebrate their open liberal LGBT friendly countries... how long are they going to last... these are the last days of rome...

Arrow wrote:www.russiadefence.net/post?t=7211&mode=reply

So it was Burevestnik nuclear engine. The program is in very serious trouble.

You were so excited that you posted a link to nowhere
If one of the programs Putin presented had to be cancelled this is the one that I think no one would care.

Arrow wrote:www.russiadefence.net/post?t=7211&mode=reply

So it was Burevestnik nuclear engine. The program is in very serious trouble.

It's a nuclear powered cruise missile with propulsion system never attempted before

Of course there is risk of stuff blowing up from time to time

How is it in trouble?

This cannot be the same propulsion unit as used in the Burevestnik. Rockets aren't built before the engines are certified for
sanity. This may be a variant where its performance was being pushed. I guess they have learned their lesson.

Well they might be pushing the performance to go from a subsonic nuclear ramjet powered missile to a hypersonic nuclear sramjet powered missile... shift from low altitude flight to high altitude flight but crank up the speed by a significant amount...

That would certainly be worth testing and working towards, with a potential result of a much more potent weapon... in fact early on in the cold war before ICBMs had been perfected there was a wide range of very long range cruise missiles that flew high but fast and remained in the atmosphere and were intended to be intercontinental nuclear weapons... having a nuclear powered hypersonic missile with unlimited range could lead to a return to such strategic cruise missiles... imagine an unlimited range hypersonic mach 8-10 cruise missile... you would not need strategic bombers or cruise missile carriers any more... it would make little point to fly them to launch areas at subsonic speeds and then launch them on their hypersonic missions to their targets... when you can launch them from airfields deep inside Russia at hypersonic speeds just after launch the other way around the planet towards their targets... they might take twice as long to get to the targets in a direct flight... perhaps one hour, but you could also fill them up with dozens of warheads that it can drop on the way too and it could fly around the US for years with its nuclear rocket engine switched to filthy to pollute their atmosphere as it flys around randomly releasing dirty small fission bombs... perhaps cobalt laced weapons.

They say explosion happened on a test platform out at sea so that could be reason for human casualties

Usually static test would be done on the ground with various protective barriers in place and bunker for operators but since this was nuclear engine they had to choose between operators' safety and civilian safety/environmental damage

It was either/or situation so they opted to take a risk with platform rather than with potentially irradiating civilians