Burevestnik has been a thorn in the side of the Russian defense establishment despite the recent test that the Russians claim was successful.
Burevestnik (Storm Petrel) is a nuclear-powered cruise missile with, allegedly, unlimited range and endurance. It appears to be an attempt to replicate the US supersonic low altitude missile (SLAM), a project that was started in 1954 and canceled in 1964.
The Russians have decided to move far beyond existing nuclear arms controls.
A single theory is behind SLAM and Burevestnik, as far as we know. The SLAM (part of Project Pluto) was a missile that would be accelerated to Mach 3 using a booster motor, and then flown using a ramjet powered by a small nuclear reactor.
The small reactor was called Tory and in its final form, before the program was cancelled, it was named Tory II-C . The reactor design was classified, but the Secret-level classification was removed in 1973. The goal of the project was described as follows:
Operation of the Tory II-A core at a total power of 160 megawatts, with 800 pounds of air per second passing through the core and emerging at a temperature of 2000 °F, is the central objective of the test program….
The core, 3 feet in diameter and 4-1/2 feet long, will be composed of bundled ceramic tubes whose central holes will provide continuous air passages from end to end of the reactor. These tubes are to be composed of a homogeneous mixture of UO2 fuel and BeO moderator, compacted and sintered to achieve high strength and density….
The Pluto program, devoted to development of a nuclear-powered ram-jet engine, requires development of a reactor having decidedly unconventional qualities. This reactor, to be used as a heat source in the ramjet engine, must be run at exceptionally high power while its size and mass are kept to a minimum. Half of the volume of the reactor exhaust be devoted to the open coolant flow area. Temperature of the reactor core material must approach 2500° F, well above the temperatures at which most conventional structural materials lose their strength.
Furthermore, this reactor must withstand the thrust of a large air pressure drop across its length, and the additional loads due to the acceleration of maneuvering. It must stand up under severe thermal stress caused by large changes in core temperature. Extremely high radiation flux levels present severe problems in heat removal as well as in avoidance of radiation damage to many components of the reactor and its control system.
Screenshot of Burevestnik launch in 2017
The Tory reactor documentation after its declassification and release in 1973 gave the Russians extensive information on how to design their own tiny nuclear power plant.
The Tory reactor and the reactor in the Burevestnik most likely are similar, and both versions face similar issues. These include not only very high operating temperatures over many flight hours, but also the fact that each generates significant radiation. In the case of SLAM, radiation from the engine exhaust was a major issue leading to the program’s termination. In the Russian case, we know of at least one major accident in 2018 that led to a massive radiation leak and to the deaths of at least five scientists.
Because the missile is very small, proper shielding of the nuclear reactor in each is hard to achieve.
The 2018 accident occurred either in or very near the beaches of the White Sea in Russia’s north at the State Central Navy Testing Range, near Nyonoksa near Severodvinsk. According to reports, an explosion occurred during an attempt to recover from the seabed a Burevestnik missile that was lost during a previously failed test.
https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/missile-dialogue-initiative/2023/10/russia-claims-to-have-tested-nuclear-powered-cruise-missile/
This was not the first failed test. In November 2017 at the Pankovo test range, which is 170 km north of Rogachevo air base on Yuzhny Island of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, there was an unsuccessful test of a Burevestnik missile. After two minutes of flight that covered some 35 k, it crashed into the Barents Sea. Three vessels, one of which was equipped to handle radioactive material, were tasked with the recovery of debris from the missile.
A wrecked blue Rosatom container on the barge where an explosion happened in 2019 during recovery of a Burevestnik missile. The barge was towed to shore just west of Nyonoksa test site on the coast of the White Sea. The barge became contaminated with radioactivity. Photo: screenshot from Belomorkanal TV
The Russian testing, with all its problems, went far beyond where SLAM development was before cancellation. SLAM was never actually flight tested: the reactor experiments were all on the ground.
A Russian military band prepares to attend the funerals of five Russian nuclear engineers killed by a rocket explosion in Sarov. Photo: Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation
Strategic value of SLAM and Burevestnik
SLAM was supposed to be a cruise missile operating in the high subsonic range that could operate at relatively low altitude for many hours, if not days, and could maneuver to fool air defense radars and weapons. In the 1950s the US was protected by Nike and Nike-Zeus systems primarily along the East Coast and by long range radars, based on the DEW(Distant Early Warning) line. DEW radars were focused on ballistic missile attacks coming over the North Pole. Later systems, such as BMEWS, were placed in Alaska and in the UK, but have since been replaced.
Assuming the US had a proper air defense capability, Burevestnik’s main value would be its ability to evade early warning radars, including future space-based systems as projected for Golden Dome. Assuming the Russians could produce large numbers of Burevestnik missiles, one possible line of thinking in Russia is that Burevestnik could give them a first strike capability that, in future, Golden Dome could deny to them. Russian strategists probably think that the US would find it complicated, maybe impossible, to track and destroy Burevestnik cruise missiles without undertaking a major revision of America’s air defenses beyond Golden Dome. Perhaps this best explains the Russian defense establishment fixation on Burevestnik.
The US and Tomahawk
The Tomahawk cruise missile, which started out as a nuclear-armed weapon, replaced SLAM. The Tomahawk had long range, could be launched from land, sea and from bombers and had sophisticated guidance allowing it to operate overland following the nap of the earth. This meant that radars would have difficulty detecting the Tomahawk, with limited early warning.
Recent US threats to arm Ukraine with Tomahawks (with conventional warheads) has created significant angst in Russia. That’s because Russian air defenses would be challenged by Tomahawks and the Russian military could not be sure whether the arriving missiles were conventional or equipped with nuclear warheads, or both.
The Tomahawk was made possible by advances in highly efficient jet engine technology and special fuel allowing the engine to operate safely on submarines. Tomahawk uses a rocket booster followed by power from the jet engine, which is a Williams Research F-107 turbofan. Russia does not produce an engine of similar efficiency.
The future for Burevestnik
It remains an open question if the Russians will serially produce the Burevestnik and eventually deploy them. Very little is known about how such a system can be supported in the field, and there is no literature, beyond the accidents already known, on the safety of the system. Likewise, it isn’t clear the missile is as invulnerable as the Russians seem to think.
