Russian rocket with a nuclear engine. Nuclear engine of a global cruise missile

Every few years some
the new lieutenant colonel discovers Pluto.
After that, he calls the laboratory,
to find out the future fate of the nuclear ramjet.

It’s a fashionable topic these days, but it seems to me that nuclear ramjet air is much more interesting. jet engine, because he does not need to carry the working fluid with him.
I assume that the President’s message was about him, but for some reason everyone started posting about the YARD today???
Let me collect everything here in one place. I’ll tell you, interesting thoughts appear when you read into a topic. And very uncomfortable questions.

A ramjet engine (ramjet engine; the English term is ramjet, from ram - ram) is a jet engine that is the simplest in the class of air-breathing jet engines (ramjet engines) in design. It belongs to the type of direct reaction jet engines, in which thrust is created solely by the jet stream flowing from the nozzle. The increase in pressure necessary for engine operation is achieved by braking the oncoming air flow. The ramjet is inoperative when low speeds flight, especially at zero speed, one or another accelerator is needed to bring it to operating power.

In the second half of the 1950s, during the era cold war, in the USA and the USSR ramjet projects with nuclear reactor.

Photo by: Leicht modifiziert aus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pluto1955.jpg

The energy source of these ramjet engines (unlike other ramjet engines) is not chemical reaction combustion of fuel, but the heat generated by a nuclear reactor in the heating chamber of the working fluid. The air from the input device in such a ramjet passes through the reactor core, cooling it, heats itself up to the operating temperature (about 3000 K), and then flows out of the nozzle at a speed comparable to the exhaust speeds for the most advanced chemical rocket engines. Possible purposes of an aircraft with such an engine:
- intercontinental cruise launch vehicle of a nuclear charge;
- single-stage aerospace aircraft.

Both countries created compact, low-resource nuclear reactors that fit into the dimensions of a large rocket. In the USA, bench tests were carried out under the Pluto and Tory nuclear ramjet research programs in 1964. fire tests nuclear ramjet engine "Tory-IIC" (full power mode 513 MW for five minutes with a thrust of 156 kN). No flight tests were conducted and the program was closed in July 1964. One of the reasons for the closure of the program was the improvement of the design of ballistic missiles with chemical rocket engines, which fully ensured the solution of combat missions without the use of schemes with relatively expensive nuclear ramjet engines.
It’s not customary to talk about the second one in Russian sources now...

The Pluto project was supposed to use low-altitude flight tactics. This tactic ensured secrecy from the radars of the USSR air defense system.
To achieve the speed at which a ramjet engine would operate, Pluto had to be launched from the ground using a package of conventional rocket boosters. The launch of the nuclear reactor began only after Pluto reached cruising altitude and was sufficiently removed from populated areas. The nuclear engine, giving an almost unlimited range of action, allowed the rocket to fly in circles over the ocean while awaiting the order to switch to supersonic speed towards a target in the USSR.

SLAM concept design

It was decided to conduct a static test of a full-scale reactor, which was intended for a ramjet engine.
Since the Pluto reactor became extremely radioactive after launch, it was delivered to the test site via a specially built, fully automated railway line. Along this line, the reactor moved over a distance of approximately two miles, which separated the static test stand and the massive “dismantling” building. In the building, the “hot” reactor was dismantled for inspection using remotely controlled equipment. Livermore scientists monitored the testing process using a television system located in a tin hangar far from the test stand. Just in case, the hangar was equipped with an anti-radiation shelter with a two-week supply of food and water.
Just to supply the concrete needed to construct the walls of the demolition building (which was six to eight feet thick), the United States government purchased an entire mine.
Millions of pounds of compressed air were stored in 25 miles of oil production pipes. Given compressed air was intended to be used to simulate the conditions in which a ramjet engine finds itself during flight at cruising speed.
To ensure high air pressure in the system, the laboratory borrowed giant compressors from the submarine base in Groton, Connecticut.
The test, during which the unit ran at full power for five minutes, required forcing a ton of air through steel tanks that were filled with more than 14 million 4cm diameter steel balls. These tanks were heated to 730 degrees with heating elements in which oil was burned.

Installed on a railway platform, Tori-2S is ready for successful testing. May 1964

On May 14, 1961, engineers and scientists in the hangar from which the experiment was controlled held their breath as the world's first nuclear ramjet engine, mounted on a bright red railway platform, announced its birth with a loud roar. Tori-2A was launched for only a few seconds, during which it did not develop its rated power. However, the test was considered successful. The most important thing was that the reactor did not ignite, which some representatives of the Atomic Energy Committee were extremely afraid of. Almost immediately after the tests, Merkle began work on creating a second Tory reactor, which was supposed to have more power with less weight.
Work on Tori-2B has not progressed beyond the drawing board. Instead, the Livermores immediately built the Tory-2C, which broke the silence of the desert three years after testing the first reactor. A week later, the reactor was restarted and operated at full power (513 megawatts) for five minutes. It turned out that the radioactivity of the exhaust was significantly less than expected. These tests were also attended by Air Force generals and officials from the Atomic Energy Committee.

At this time, the customers from the Pentagon who financed the Pluto project began to be overcome by doubts. Since the missile was launched from US territory and flew over the territory of American allies at low altitude to avoid detection by Soviet air defense systems, some military strategists wondered whether the missile would pose a threat to the allies. Even before the Pluto missile drops bombs on the enemy, it will first stun, crush and even irradiate allies. (Pluto flying overhead was expected to produce about 150 decibels of noise on the ground. By comparison, the noise level of the rocket that sent the Americans to the Moon (Saturn V) was 200 decibels at full thrust.) Of course, ruptured eardrums would be the least of your problems if you found yourself with a naked reactor flying overhead, frying you like a chicken with gamma and neutron radiation.

Tori-2C

Although the rocket's creators argued that Pluto was also inherently elusive, military analysts expressed bafflement at how something so noisy, hot, large and radioactive could remain undetected for as long as it took to complete its mission. At the same time, the US Air Force had already begun to deploy Atlas and Titan ballistic missiles, which were capable of reaching targets several hours before a flying reactor, and the USSR anti-missile system, the fear of which became the main impetus for the creation of Pluto. , never became an obstacle for ballistic missiles, despite successful test interceptions. Critics of the project came up with their own decoding of the acronym SLAM - slow, low, and messy - slowly, low and dirty. After successful tests Polaris missiles The fleet, which had initially shown interest in using the missiles for launch from submarines or ships, also began to abandon the project. And finally, the cost of each rocket was 50 million dollars. Suddenly Pluto became a technology with no applications, a weapon with no viable targets.

However, the final nail in Pluto's coffin was just one question. It is so deceptively simple that the Livermoreians can be excused for deliberately not paying attention to it. “Where to conduct reactor flight tests? How do you convince people that during the flight the rocket will not lose control and fly over Los Angeles or Las Vegas at low altitude?” asked Livermore Laboratory physicist Jim Hadley, who worked on the Pluto project until the very end. He is currently engaged in detecting nuclear tests being carried out in other countries for Unit Z. By Hadley's own admission, there were no guarantees that the missile would not get out of control and turn into a flying Chernobyl.
Several solutions to this problem have been proposed. One would be a Pluto launch near Wake Island, where the rocket would fly figure-eights over the United States' portion of the ocean. “Hot” missiles were supposed to be sunk at a depth of 7 kilometers in the ocean. However, even when the Atomic Energy Commission persuaded people to think of radiation as a limitless source of energy, the proposal to dump many radiation-contaminated rockets into the ocean was enough to stop work.
On July 1, 1964, seven years and six months after the start of work, the Pluto project was closed by the Atomic Energy Commission and the Air Force.

According to Hadley, every few years a new lieutenant colonel air force discovers Pluto. After this, he calls the laboratory to find out the further fate of the nuclear ramjet. The lieutenant colonels' enthusiasm disappears immediately after Hadley talks about problems with radiation and flight tests. No one called Hadley more than once.
If anyone wants to bring Pluto back to life, he might be able to find some recruits in Livermore. However, there won't be many of them. The idea of what could become one hell of a crazy weapon is best left in the past.

Technical characteristics of the SLAM rocket:
Diameter - 1500 mm.
Length - 20000 mm.
Weight - 20 tons.
The range is unlimited (theoretically).
Speed at sea level is Mach 3.
Weapons - 16 thermonuclear bombs(each power is 1 megaton).
The engine is a nuclear reactor (power 600 megawatts).
Guidance system - inertial + TERCOM.
The maximum skin temperature is 540 degrees Celsius.
The airframe material is high-temperature Rene 41 stainless steel.
Sheathing thickness - 4 - 10 mm.

Nevertheless, the nuclear ramjet engine is promising as propulsion system for single-stage aerospace aircraft and high-speed intercontinental heavy transport aviation. This is facilitated by the possibility of creating a nuclear ramjet capable of operating at subsonic and zero flight speeds in the rocket engine, using on-board working fluid reserves. That is, for example, an aerospace aircraft with a nuclear ramjet starts (including takes off), supplying working fluid to the engines from the onboard (or outboard) tanks and, having already reached speeds from M = 1, switches to using atmospheric air.

As Russian President V.V. Putin said, at the beginning of 2018, “a successful launch of a cruise missile with a nuclear power plant took place.” Moreover, according to him, the range of such a cruise missile is “unlimited.”

I wonder in what region the tests were carried out and why the relevant nuclear test monitoring services slammed them. Or is the autumn release of ruthenium-106 in the atmosphere somehow connected with these tests? Those. Chelyabinsk residents were not only sprinkled with ruthenium, but also fried?
Can you find out where this rocket fell? Simply put, where was the nuclear reactor broken up? At what training ground? On Novaya Zemlya?

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Now let’s read a little about nuclear rocket engines, although that’s a completely different story

A nuclear rocket engine (NRE) is a type of rocket engine that uses the energy of fission or fusion of nuclei to create jet thrust. They can be liquid (heating a liquid working fluid in a heating chamber from a nuclear reactor and releasing gas through a nozzle) and pulse-explosive ( nuclear explosions low power for an equal period of time).
A traditional nuclear propulsion engine as a whole is a structure consisting of a heating chamber with a nuclear reactor as a heat source, a working fluid supply system and a nozzle. The working fluid (usually hydrogen) is supplied from the tank to the reactor core, where, passing through channels heated by the nuclear decay reaction, it is heated to high temperatures and is then ejected through the nozzle, creating jet thrust. There are various designs NRE: solid-phase, liquid-phase and gas-phase - corresponding to the state of aggregation of nuclear fuel in the reactor core - solid, melt or high-temperature gas (or even plasma).

East. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1822546

RD-0410 (GRAU Index - 11B91, also known as “Irgit” and “IR-100”) - the first and only Soviet nuclear rocket engine 1947-78. It was developed at the Khimavtomatika design bureau, Voronezh.
The RD-0410 used a heterogeneous thermal neutron reactor. The design included 37 fuel assemblies, covered with thermal insulation that separated them from the moderator. ProjectIt was envisaged that the hydrogen flow first passed through the reflector and moderator, maintaining their temperature at room temperature, and then entered the core, where it was heated to 3100 K. At the stand, the reflector and moderator were cooled by a separate hydrogen flow. The reactor went through a significant series of tests, but was never tested for its full operating duration. The out-of-reactor components were completely exhausted.

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And this is an American nuclear rocket engine. His diagram was in the title picture

Author: NASA - Great Images in NASA Description, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6462378

NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) is a joint program of the US Atomic Energy Commission and NASA to create a nuclear rocket engine (NRE), which lasted until 1972.
NERVA demonstrated that the NER was viable and suitable for space exploration, and in late 1968 the SNPO confirmed that NERVA's newest modification, the NRX/XE, met the requirements for a manned mission to Mars. Although the NERVA engines were built and tested to the maximum extent possible and were considered ready for installation on a spacecraft, most of the American space program was canceled by the Nixon administration.

NERVA has been rated by the AEC, SNPO, and NASA as a highly successful program that has met or exceeded its goals. Main goal program was to "establish a technical base for nuclear rocket propulsion systems to be used in the design and development of propulsion systems for space missions." Almost all space projects using nuclear propulsion engines are based on NERVA NRX or Pewee designs.

Mars missions were responsible for NERVA's demise. Members of Congress from both political parties decided that a manned mission to Mars would be a tacit commitment for the United States to support the costly space race for decades. Each year, the RIFT program was delayed and NERVA's goals became more complex. After all, although the NERVA engine had many successful tests and strong support from Congress, it never left Earth.

In November 2017, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) published a roadmap for the development of China's space program for the period 2017-2045. It provides, in particular, for the creation of a reusable ship powered by a nuclear rocket engine.

Often in general educational publications about astronautics they do not distinguish the difference between a nuclear rocket engine (NRE) and a nuclear rocket electric motor installation(YAEDU). However, these abbreviations hide not only the difference in the principles of converting nuclear energy into rocket thrust, but also a very dramatic history of the development of astronautics.

The drama of the story lies in the fact that if those stopped mainly by economic reasons Since research into nuclear propulsion and nuclear propulsion in both the USSR and the USA continued, human flights to Mars would have long ago become commonplace.

It all started with atmospheric aircraft with a ramjet nuclear engine

Designers in the USA and USSR considered “breathing” nuclear installations capable of drawing in outside air and heating it to colossal temperatures. Probably, this principle of thrust generation was borrowed from ramjet engines, only instead of rocket fuel The fission energy of atomic nuclei of uranium dioxide 235 was used.

In the USA, such an engine was developed as part of the Pluto project. The Americans managed to create two prototypes of the new engine - Tory-IIA and Tory-IIC, which even powered up the reactors. The installation capacity was supposed to be 600 megawatts.

The engines developed as part of the Pluto project were planned to be installed on cruise missiles, which in the 1950s were created under the designation SLAM (Supersonic Low Altitude Missile, supersonic low-altitude missile).

The United States planned to build a rocket 26.8 meters long, three meters in diameter, and weighing 28 tons. The rocket body was supposed to contain a nuclear warhead, as well as a nuclear propulsion system having a length of 1.6 meters and a diameter of 1.5 meters. Compared to other sizes, the installation looked very compact, which explains its direct-flow principle of operation.

The developers believed that, thanks to the nuclear engine, the SLAM missile's flight range would be at least 182 thousand kilometers.

In 1964, the US Department of Defense closed the project. The official reason was that a cruise missile with nuclear engine pollutes everything around too much. But in fact, the reason was the significant costs of maintaining such rockets, especially since by that time rocketry was rapidly developing based on liquid-propellant rocket engines, the maintenance of which was much cheaper.

The USSR remained faithful to the idea of creating a ramjet design for a nuclear powered engine much longer than the United States, closing the project only in 1985. But the results turned out to be much more significant. Thus, the first and only Soviet nuclear rocket engine was developed at the Khimavtomatika design bureau, Voronezh. This is RD-0410 (GRAU Index - 11B91, also known as “Irbit” and “IR-100”).

The RD-0410 used a heterogeneous thermal neutron reactor, the moderator was zirconium hydride, the neutron reflectors were made of beryllium, the nuclear fuel was a material based on uranium and tungsten carbides, with about 80% enrichment in the 235 isotope.

The design included 37 fuel assemblies, covered with thermal insulation that separated them from the moderator. The project provided that the hydrogen flow first passed through the reflector and moderator, maintaining their temperature at room temperature, and then entered the core, where it cooled the fuel assemblies, heating up to 3100 K. At the stand, the reflector and moderator were cooled by a separate hydrogen flow.

The reactor went through a significant series of tests, but was never tested for its full operating duration. However, the outside reactor components were completely exhausted.

Technical characteristics of RD 0410

Thrust in void: 3.59 tf (35.2 kN)
Reactor thermal power: 196 MW
Specific thrust impulse in vacuum: 910 kgf s/kg (8927 m/s)
Number of starts: 10
Working resource: 1 hour
Fuel components: working fluid - liquid hydrogen, auxiliary substance - heptane
Weight s radiation protection: 2 tons
Engine dimensions: height 3.5 m, diameter 1.6 m.

Relatively small overall dimensions and weight, high temperature of nuclear fuel (3100 K) with an effective cooling system with a hydrogen flow indicate that the RD0410 is an almost ideal prototype of a nuclear propulsion engine for modern cruise missiles. And, taking into account modern technologies for producing self-stopping nuclear fuel, increasing the resource from an hour to several hours is a very real task.

Nuclear rocket engine designs

A nuclear rocket engine (NRE) is a jet engine in which the energy generated by a nuclear decay or fusion reaction heats the working fluid (most often hydrogen or ammonia).

There are three types of nuclear propulsion engines depending on the type of fuel for the reactor:

solid phase;
liquid phase;
gas phase.

The most complete is the solid-phase version of the engine. The figure shows a diagram of the simplest nuclear powered engine with a solid nuclear fuel reactor. The working fluid is located in an external tank. Using a pump, it is supplied to the engine chamber. In the chamber, the working fluid is sprayed using nozzles and comes into contact with the fuel nuclear fuel. When heated, it expands and flies out of the chamber through the nozzle at great speed.

In gas-phase nuclear propellant engines, the fuel (for example, uranium) and the working fluid are in a gaseous state (in the form of plasma) and are held in the working area by an electromagnetic field. Uranium plasma heated to tens of thousands of degrees transfers heat to the working fluid (for example, hydrogen), which, in turn, being heated to high temperatures forms a jet stream.

Based on the type of nuclear reaction, a distinction is made between a radioisotope rocket engine, a thermonuclear rocket engine and a nuclear engine itself (the energy of nuclear fission is used).

An interesting option is also a pulsed nuclear rocket engine - it is proposed to use a nuclear charge as a source of energy (fuel). Such installations can be of internal and external types.

The main advantages of nuclear powered engines are:

high specific impulse;
significant energy reserves;
compactness of the propulsion system;
the possibility of obtaining very high thrust - tens, hundreds and thousands of tons in a vacuum.

The main disadvantage is the high radiation hazard of the propulsion system:

fluxes of penetrating radiation (gamma radiation, neutrons) during nuclear reactions;
removal of highly radioactive compounds of uranium and its alloys;
outflow of radioactive gases with the working fluid.

Nuclear propulsion system

Considering that it is impossible to obtain any reliable information about nuclear power plants from publications, including from scientific articles, the operating principle of such installations is best considered using examples of open patent materials, although they contain know-how.

For example, the outstanding Russian scientist Anatoly Sazonovich Koroteev, the author of the invention under the patent, provided a technical solution for the composition of equipment for a modern YARDU. Below I present part of the said patent document verbatim and without comment.

The essence of the proposed technical solution is illustrated by the diagram presented in the drawing. A nuclear propulsion system operating in propulsion-energy mode contains an electric propulsion system (EPS) (the example diagram shows two electric rocket engines 1 and 2 with corresponding feed systems 3 and 4), a reactor installation 5, a turbine 6, a compressor 7, a generator 8, heat exchanger-recuperator 9, Ranck-Hilsch vortex tube 10, refrigerator-radiator 11. In this case, turbine 6, compressor 7 and generator 8 are combined into a single unit - a turbogenerator-compressor. The nuclear propulsion unit is equipped with working fluid pipelines 12 and electrical lines 13 connecting the generator 8 and the electric propulsion unit. The heat exchanger-recuperator 9 has the so-called high-temperature 14 and low-temperature 15 working fluid inputs, as well as high-temperature 16 and low-temperature 17 working fluid outputs.
The output of the reactor unit 5 is connected to the input of turbine 6, the output of turbine 6 is connected to the high-temperature input 14 of the heat exchanger-recuperator 9. The low-temperature output 15 of the heat exchanger-recuperator 9 is connected to the entrance to the Ranck-Hilsch vortex tube 10. The Ranck-Hilsch vortex tube 10 has two outputs , one of which (via the “hot” working fluid) is connected to the radiator refrigerator 11, and the other (via the “cold” working fluid) is connected to the input of the compressor 7. The output of the radiator refrigerator 11 is also connected to the input to the compressor 7. Compressor output 7 is connected to the low-temperature 15 input to the heat exchanger-recuperator 9. The high-temperature output 16 of the heat exchanger-recuperator 9 is connected to the input to the reactor installation 5. Thus, the main elements of the nuclear power plant are interconnected by a single circuit of the working fluid.
The nuclear power plant works as follows. The working fluid heated in the reactor installation 5 is sent to the turbine 6, which ensures the operation of the compressor 7 and the generator 8 of the turbogenerator-compressor. Generator 8 generates electrical energy, which is sent through electrical lines 13 to electric rocket engines 1 and 2 and their supply systems 3 and 4, ensuring their operation. After leaving the turbine 6, the working fluid is sent through the high-temperature inlet 14 to the heat exchanger-recuperator 9, where the working fluid is partially cooled.
Then, from the low-temperature outlet 17 of the heat exchanger-recuperator 9, the working fluid is directed into the Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube 10, inside which the working fluid flow is divided into “hot” and “cold” components. The “hot” part of the working fluid then goes to the refrigerator-emitter 11, where this part of the working fluid is effectively cooled. The “cold” part of the working fluid goes to the inlet of the compressor 7, and after cooling, the part of the working fluid leaving the radiating refrigerator 11 also follows there.
Compressor 7 supplies the cooled working fluid to the heat exchanger-recuperator 9 through the low-temperature inlet 15. This cooled working fluid in the heat exchanger-recuperator 9 provides partial cooling of the counter flow of the working fluid entering the heat exchanger-recuperator 9 from the turbine 6 through the high-temperature inlet 14. Next, the partially heated working fluid (due to heat exchange with the counter flow of the working fluid from the turbine 6) from the heat exchanger-recuperator 9 through the high-temperature outlet 16 again enters the reactor installation 5, the cycle is repeated again.
Thus, a single working fluid located in a closed loop ensures continuous operation of the nuclear power plant, and the use of a Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube as part of the nuclear power plant in accordance with the claimed technical solution improves the weight and size characteristics of the nuclear power plant, increases the reliability of its operation, simplifies its design and makes it possible to increase efficiency of nuclear power plants in general.

Links:

Moscow. March 12. website - Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Yuri Borisov, in an interview published on Monday with the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, spoke about the latest Russian weapons, which on March 1 became one of Vladimir Putin’s main topics for the Federal Assembly.

Nuclear powered cruise missile

Among other new products, the president has a nuclear-powered cruise missile. According to him, no other country in the world has anything like this yet.

“It can practically be detected on the very approach to the target, and its maneuver capabilities make the cruise missile also invulnerable. It can carry a load to any distance. It can fly for days,” the Deputy Minister of Defense told Krasnaya Zvezda.

“We probably managed to do this for the first time. Thank you very much to our nuclear scientists, who made this fairy tale a practical reality. Last year, comprehensive tests were carried out, they confirmed all the approaches that were incorporated into this cruise missile,” Borisov continued.

He clarified that during the tests, the capabilities of bringing a nuclear power plant to a given power level were confirmed. The Deputy Minister explained that the rocket is launched using conventional powder engines, and then the nuclear installation is launched, and the launch must occur in a short period of time.

“The uniqueness of this missile is that it may be slower compared to the hypersonic Kinzhal, but it flies along a given trajectory, skirting folds of terrain at low altitude, which makes it difficult to detect,” Borisov said.

Hypersonic complex "Avangard"

The representative of the military department also paid attention to the Avangard hypersonic complex. According to him, the system has been well tested and the Ministry of Defense has a contract for its mass production. “So this is not a bluff, but real things,” Borisov claims.

He noted that when creating the Avangard, Russian scientists had to overcome a number of difficulties related to the fact that the temperature on the surface of the warhead reaches 2 thousand degrees. “It really flies in plasma. Therefore, the problem of controlling this object and protection issues were very acute, but solutions were found,” Borisov noted.

ICBM "Sarmat"

The Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) should replace the Voevoda ICBM, the deputy minister continued.

“It is understood that, unlike its predecessors, it can also be equipped with hypersonic units, which increase the problem of its interception by an order of magnitude from outside anti-missile systems", he said.

According to Borisov, all practical, scientific, technical and production problems have already been solved, and the necessary production capacities have been prepared.

“Last year, the throwing tests went well. They will certainly continue, because, as you know, rocket technology requires increased reliability. This is very formidable weapon, and it is required to guarantee its 100% application. Therefore, a large number of tests is, of course, normal practice,” Borisov said.

According to him, the launch weight of the Sarmat rocket will exceed 200 tons.

"She can fly through both the Northern and South pole due to the fact that its range of application is significantly increased in relation to the Voevoda. And the opportunity to deduce serious payload allows us to use different “fillings” - combat units, which, together with heavy decoys, quite effectively overcome all kinds of missile defense elements,” he said.

"The most attractive thing, of course, is to shoot down ballistic missile at the start, when it is in the active phase of the flight. Our new product "Sarmat" has a much smaller active area than its progenitor "Voevoda". This is what makes the new ICBM less vulnerable,” Borisov said.

Disposal of "Voevoda"

In the near future, the Russian military will begin dismantling the Voevoda ICBM (according to NATO classification - SS-18 Satan).

“Everyone has heard well about this strategic missile, and in our country it is nicknamed “Voevoda”, and in the West they call it “Satan”. It was developed back in the mid-1980s and is on combat duty, but time passes, technology moves forward, this system is becoming obsolete. It is already at the end of its life cycle..." Borisov explained.

Meanwhile, last December, the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Colonel-General Sergei Karakaev, stated that the Voevoda would remain in the operational composition of the Missile Forces strategic purpose(Strategic Missile Forces) until 2024. He said that the complexes could remain on combat duty after that, until 2025-2027.

Nuclear underwater drone

Underwater vehicle with nuclear power power plant, which the president described with the words “this is simply fantastic,” makes it possible to create on its basis a torpedo with record overall dimensions and weight characteristics, Borisov said.

He clarified that the device can dive to a depth of over 1 thousand meters and maneuver while moving towards the intended target, moving almost autonomously.

“It does not require any correction, i.e. gyroscopy and guidance system allow it to approach the target with sufficiently high accuracy, quickly, “without evidence.” I don’t know today any means that can stop this weapon, because even the speed characteristics it is many times higher than that of existing surface and underwater assets, including torpedo weapon", said Borisov.

He called the new weapon unique, opening up completely different opportunities for the defense and security of the Russian Federation. According to him, unlike current nuclear submarines, it takes a matter of seconds, not several hours, to bring the new device to a given reactor power.

Hypersonic complexes "Dagger"

Finally, speaking of hypersonic missile systems“Dagger,” Borisov noted that they can destroy both stationary and moving targets, including aircraft carriers and ships of the cruiser, destroyer, and frigate class.

In addition to hypersonic speed, Kinzhal has the ability to bypass everything hazardous areas air or missile defense. “It is the ability to maneuver in hypersonic flight that makes it possible to ensure the invulnerability of this product and a guaranteed hit on the target,” said the deputy minister.

He recalled that since December last year, the first “Daggers” were put into experimental combat operation and are already on duty.

In the fifties of the 20th century, humanity dreamed of nuclear engines for cars and airplanes. Numerous science fiction stories talked about the conquest of space using photonic and nuclear rockets with an unlimited power reserve. And at this time, in the secret arsenals of rival countries of the USA and the USSR, nuclear reactors were being developed, which were supposed to propel airplanes and cruise missiles carrying atomic weapons. In America, development of an unmanned nuclear bomber (or missile) has begun that will be able to overcome air defenses at low altitude. The project was called SLAM (Supersonic Low-Altitude Missile) - a supersonic low-altitude rocket with a ramjet nuclear engine. The development was called "Pluto".

This is a rocket flying at ultra-low altitude with a supersonic speed of 3 Mach (mach three). In its arsenal there were thermonuclear charges (about 14 pieces), which were supposed to be fired upward at the desired point, and then move along a ballistic trajectory to the intended target. At the same time, it was not only nuclear charges that had a damaging effect. The rockets moving at supersonic speed created air shock wave, sufficient to hit people along the trajectory. In addition, there was the problem of radioactive fallout - the rocket exhaust contained radioactive fission products.

The need for long-term flight at M3 speed at ultra-low altitude required materials that would not melt or collapse under such conditions (according to calculations, the pressure on the rocket should have been 5 times greater than the pressure on the supersonic X-15).

To accelerate to the speed at which the ramjet engine would begin to operate, several conventional chemical accelerators were used, which were then undocked, as in space launches. After starting and leaving populated areas the rocket had to turn on the nuclear engine and circle over the ocean (there was no need to worry about fuel), awaiting the order to accelerate to M3 and fly to the USSR.

Because the efficiency of a ramjet increases with temperature, the 500 MW reactor, called Tory, was designed to be very hot, with an operating temperature of 2500F (over 1600C). Porcelain maker Coors Porcelain Company was tasked with making about 500,000 pencil-like ceramic fuel cells that would withstand such temperatures and ensure even heat distribution inside the reactor. On May 14, 1961, the world's first nuclear propulsion engine mounted on a railway platform turned on. The Tory-IIA prototype worked for only a few seconds and developed only a fraction of its design power, but the experiment was considered a complete success. We were preparing to begin work on a new, improved project - Tory-III. However, updated data on radioactive contamination of the area during testing led to the closure of this project in 1964. The total cost was $260 million.

Calculated performance characteristics: length-26.8 m, diameter-3.05 m, weight-28000 kg, speed: at an altitude of 300 m-3M, at an altitude of 9000 m-4.2M, ceiling-10700 m, range: at an altitude of 300 m - 21,300 km, at an altitude of 9,000 m - more than 100,000 km, combat unit- from 14 to 26 thermonuclear warheads. The rocket was supposed to be launched from a ground-based launcher using solid fuel boosters, which were supposed to work until the rocket reached a speed sufficient to launch a nuclear ramjet engine. The design was wingless, with small keels and small horizontal tails arranged in a canard pattern. The missile was optimized for low altitude flight (25-300 m) and was equipped with a terrain following system.

Test data: 155 megawatts, about 300 kg/sec air flow, internal temperature 1300 C, exhaust temperature about 1000 C. The diameter of the reactor working area is 90 cm, length 120 cm. 100 thousand hexagonal fuel elements. Ceramic structure with molybdenum frame. Water cooling(since the reactor is test and stationary). The first power test took place in May 1961, the reactor reached 50 megawatts at a temperature of 1100 C.
The TORY-IIC reactor was intended for testing in the conditions of an air-cooled rocket.
Tested in 1964 at full power, worked for 5 minutes. Radiation at 160 Megawatts is 1000 roentgens per hour. Residual radiation in the test area after 24 hours: inside the chamber (direct contact with the exhaust) - 200 r/hour
The dose to personnel three kilometers from the reactor is 20 milliroentgen/hour when operating at full power.

In the USSR, development of an atomic aircraft (an aircraft with a nuclear power plant) was carried out. On August 12, 1955, Resolution No. 1561-868 of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was issued, ordering aviation enterprises to begin designing a Soviet nuclear aircraft. The Bureau of A. N. Tupolev and V. M. Myasishchev had to develop aircraft, capable of operating on nuclear power plants. And the bureau of N.D. Kuznetsov and A.M. Lyulka was commissioned to build those same power plants. Curated these, like all the others nuclear projects USSR, the “father” of the Soviet atomic bomb Igor Kurchatov.

Several variants of supersonic bombers have been proposed. Myasishchev Design Bureau proposed a project for the M-60 supersonic bomber. In fact, the talk was about equipping the already existing M-50 with a nuclear power plant open type, designed in the bureau of Arkhip Lyulka. However, the difficulty in operating a “dirty” engine, the need to “attach” it to the aircraft right before the flight in automatic mode and other technical difficulties forced the abandonment of this project.

A new project was started to be developed - the M-30 nuclear aircraft with a closed-type nuclear installation. The design of the reactor was much more complex, but the issue of radiation protection was not so pressing. The plane was to be equipped with six turbojet engines powered by one nuclear reactor. If necessary power point could also work on kerosene. The weight of the crew protection and engines was almost half that of the M-60, thanks to which the aircraft could carry a payload of 25 tons.

The design bureau of A. N. Tupolev was developing a third project - a subsonic bomber on a nuclear installation. The existing Tu-95 aircraft was taken as a basis, which had to be retrofitted nuclear reactor. The question of protection against radioactive radiation. The protective cover consisted of a coating of 5-centimeter-thick lead plates and a 20-centimeter layer of polyethylene and ceresin, a product obtained from petroleum raw materials and vaguely reminiscent of laundry soap.

In May 1961, the Tu-95M bomber No. 7800408, packed with sensors, took to the skies with a nuclear reactor on board and four turboprop engines with a capacity of 15,000 horsepower each. The nuclear power plant was not connected to the engines - the plane was flying on jet fuel, and the operating reactor was still needed in order to assess the behavior of the equipment and the level of radiation exposure of the pilots. In total, from May to August the bomber made 34 test flights.
It turned out that during the two-day flight the pilots received 5 rem of radiation. For comparison, today it is considered normal for nuclear power plant workers to be exposed to radiation of up to 2 rem, but not for two days, but for a year. It was assumed that the crew of the nuclear aircraft would include men over 40 years of age who already have children.
The radiation was also absorbed by the body of the bomber, which after the flight had to be isolated for “cleaning” for several days. In general, radiation protection was considered effective, but not fully developed. Besides, for a long time no one knew what to do with possible accidents nuclear aircraft and subsequent contamination of large spaces with nuclear components. Subsequently, it was proposed to equip the reactor parachute system, capable of separating a nuclear installation from an aircraft body in an emergency and softly landing it.
Ultimately this project was abandoned. The world's first nuclear aircraft was parked at an airfield near Semipalatinsk, and then was destroyed. The creation of rockets was recognized as a priority area.

But, apparently, the development of nuclear-powered cruise missiles continued. New materials that can withstand high temperatures - up to 2,000 degrees, new designs of closed reactors, a new design made it possible to overcome technical difficulties that could not be overcome in the 50s - 60s of the 20th century. Latest achievements modern technologies made it possible to realize cruise missiles with a nuclear power plant in metal.

The history of the creation of a nuclear rocket engine

A nuclear rocket engine (NRE) is a type of rocket engine that uses the energy of fission or fusion of nuclei to create jet thrust. The working fluid (usually hydrogen) is supplied from the tank to the reactor core, where, passing through channels heated by the nuclear decay reaction, it is heated to high temperatures, about 3000K, and then thrown out through the nozzle, creating jet thrust. In the USSR, a government decree on the development of “cruise missiles with a ramjet engine using nuclear energy” was signed in 1953, and the management of the work was entrusted to academicians M. V. Keldysh, I. V. Kurchatov and S. P. Korolev.

The RD-0410 used a heterogeneous thermal neutron reactor; the design included 37 fuel assemblies covered with thermal insulation that separated them from the moderator. In 1972, the physical start-up of the IVG reactor at the Baikal complex took place.

Basic parameters

Thrust in void: 3.59 tf (35.2 kN)

Number of starts: 10

Working resource: 1 hour

Fuel components: working fluid - liquid hydrogen, auxiliary substance - heptane
Weight with radiation protection: 2 tons

Engine dimensions: height 3.5 m, diameter 1.6 m.

The USA had its own program NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) - a joint program of the US Atomic Energy Commission and NASA to create a nuclear rocket engine (NRE), which lasted until 1972. The first NERVA NRX in 1966 was launched during almost 2 hours, including 28 minutes at full power. Funding for the program was cut slightly in 1969, and the new Nixon administration cut it further in 1970, ending production of the Saturn rockets and canceling the Apollo program after Apollo 17. Without the Saturn S-N rocket, which was supposed to carry NERVA into orbit, the project lost its meaning.

Characteristics
Diameter: 10.55 m Length: 43.69 m
Dry weight: 34,019 kg. Gross weight: 178,321 kg
Thrust in vacuum: 333.6 kN
Operating time: 1200 s
Working fluid: liquid hydrogen.

Vought SLAM (Supersonic Low-Altitude Missile - low-altitude supersonic missile) is a project of an American strategic cruise missile with a ramjet nuclear engine. The unsolved problem of SLAM was the radioactive contamination of the area during the flight of the rocket and destruction along its route, in peacetime this made SLAM testing and training launches extremely difficult. The continuous removal of particles of the working fluid from the reactor by the air flow led to the fact that the rocket left behind a monstrous plume of radioactive fallout. At the top of the SLAM fuselage, 26 launchers for thermonuclear warheads were located in two rows. In 1964, the SLAM project was closed.