The idea that the missile’s range is unlimited is a slight misnomer, Boulègue explains. The accident on Thursday caused a 30-minute spike in radiation levels in the nearby Severodvinsk; seven people have reportedly died.So what do we know about the rocket behind this destruction? “It appears to be a nuclear-powered missile, i.e., produces thrust by possibly leveraging the heat generated during nuclear reactions to heat up ingested air to produce thrust,” says George Nacouzi, a senior engineer at the RAND Corporation.
Russian scientists have indicated that they were working on miniaturised sources of nuclear energy when a rocket engine exploded last week, increasing scrutiny of … (The Trump administration responded that "Russia has been developing destabilizing weapons systems for over a decade, in direct violation of its treaty obligations"). One of Russia's other missiles in development – the SSC-8 – promoted the US to pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force treaty which was signed in 1987. Preliminary design was done by 2013, and 9 more years are planned for development (in space assembly). Sorry, you have entered an invalid email. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. This nuclear propulsion is what makes the engine stand out – it's a literal flying nuclear power source. Following last week's explosion at the military base in Nyonoksa, in north-west Russia, residents are preparing for a At the center of the problem appears to be the nuclear rocket engine 9M730 Burevestnik – known as SSC-X-9 Skyfall to Nato. This site uses cookies to improve your experience and deliver personalised advertising. “Given where we are in terms of arms control at the moment, is [the Burevestnik] something that the Russians might throw on the table as an arms control card with the US in some future negotiation?”Nuclear propulsion, and its inherent instability, has historical antecedents. You will hear from us shortly. Russia has approximately 2,000 “nonstrategic” nuclear weapons on a wide range of delivery platforms. Thank You. The US Air Force is turning old F-16s into pilotless AI-powered fightersThe deadly clash between China and India is all about roadsAn airstrike, a family destroyed and the months-long quest for answersHow digital sleuths unravelled the mystery of Iran's plane crashHow Russia's top secret global hacking operation unravelledMiniature nuclear reactors could give the UK energy freedomInside the building guarding Britain's nuclear secrets “Mixing Ergol with nuclear propulsion is dangerous, as the accident has shown, because it’s super unstable – the technical challenge behind it is to make sure it is stable.”The explosion comes as tensions have heightened around Russia's nuclear programme. Boulègue explains that we need to bear in mind that just because the missile is in development today, it doesn’t mean it will actually be deployed at any time. What we concretely know about the Burevestnik are only the facts Vladamir Putin gave on March 1, 2018, during an address to the Federal Assembly – that the Burevestnik is a nuclear-armed, nuclear-propelled cruise missile. In theory nuclear propulsion allows the rocket to have a supposedly “unlimited range” – yet is also the source of its issues.“The Burevestnik is technically an intercontinental cruise missile,” says Mathieu Boulègue, a research fellow on the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House. “There are a lot of reasons to believe that this project might be abandoned along the way in the 2020s if it proves too costly, too dangerous, and basically, useless,” he says. All rights reserved. That's the take by Vladimir Koshlakov, the head of Russia's Keldysh Research Center and a man who want to build a nuclear-powered rocket (you heard that right). Given the secretive nature surrounding military technology, it's impossible to know exact details of what the engine is capable of but analysts can pick up some clues from what has been disclosed. Though again, there isn’t a lot of reliable information on the detail behind this process. During a test of the R-16 ICBM on October 24, 1960, the test missile exploded on the pad, killing the first commander of the SRF, Chief Marshal of … Russia has also closed a bay in the White Sea near where the accident took place for a month, indicating possible contamination or a continuing search operation.The development of an experimental weapon such as the Burevestnik would also help to explain the secrecy around the incident, despite public concerns over radiation levels.The US tried and failed to develop ground-hugging nuclear-powered cruise missile technology during the cold war, and questions remain as to whether the Burevestnik has a meaningful purpose, given the existence of high flying intercontinental ballistic missiles as an alternative.Such experimental long-range cruise missiles would not have been covered by the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty between the US and Russia Cullen said, however, that the test failure was “symptomatic of a wider escalation in nuclear tensions stemming from a gradual breakdown in US-Russia relations” partly because “Russia is trying to rectify what it believes is a strategic disadvantage it has against the US by developing non-conventional capabilities”.Ruslan Kostylenkov says officers beat and sexually assaulted him to make him confess Thousands take to streets to protest at removal of Sergei Furgal, who faces murder chargesUnrest in Khabarovsk as Sergei Furgal is held in Moscow in connection with murdersSergei Furgal flown to Moscow after being detained in Khabarovsk region