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Russia explosion: Five confirmed dead in rocket blast
Five people were killed and three injured following a rocket explosion on an Arctic naval test range in Russia on Thursday, state nuclear company Rosatom confirmed. Rosatom said the accident occurred during tests on a liquid propellant rocket engine. The three injured staff members suffered serious burns in the accident. Authorities had previously said that two people died and six were injured in the blast at the site in Nyonoksa.
The company told Russian media that its engineering and technical team had been working on the "isotope power source" for the propulsion system. The Nyonoksa site carries out tests for virtually every missile system used by the Russian navy, including sea-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and anti-aircraft missiles.
Authorities in Severodvinsk, 47km (29 miles) east of Nyonoksa said that radiation levels shortly after the blast were higher than normal for about 40 minutes but returned to normal. Locals have rushed to buy medical iodine, with pharmacies' stocks of iodine reported to be running out in the cities of Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk. The rush for iodine was reported earlier by a news website for the Arkhangelsk region, 29.ru.
Also at The Guardian, NBC, and CNN.
See also: U.S.-Based Experts Suspect Russia Blast Involved Nuclear-Powered Missile
Update: Russia Confirms Radioactive Materials Were Involved in Deadly Blast
In a statement released at 1 a.m. Saturday, Russia's nuclear energy company, Rosatom, said five employees had died, in addition to the two military personnel previously confirmed dead, as a result of a test on Thursday morning involving "isotopic sources of fuel on a liquid propulsion unit."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rich on Sunday August 11 2019, @02:47PM (2 children)
If the radiation was locally high for about 40 minutes, and no radiation has been detected in neighbouring countries, it looks like it was a neutron activated isotope, maybe gaseous. A guess is that they had some kind of fission powered reaction engine, which dismantled after a power excursion. If that happens very shortly after startup, there will be little fission residue to detect. Ugly enough for the operators, but magnitudes below an NPP blowing up after a thousand gigawatthours. The measured radiation would therefore be from the propellant. I had a very quick look at the Wikipedia table of isotopes sorted by half-life, but I couldn't find any conclusive candidate in the 100-to-10000 second range.
A Pluto-style direct cycle ramjet would mostly irradiate N and O of the atmosphere, but the isotopes above the common ones are stable too, so no major radiation through neutron capture. If they used a silicon based ceramic matrix for the reactor cell, Si-31 would roughly be in the ballpark, but if that was released, so would be longer life decay products - unless there is some ablation and the activity came from regular operation mode rather than the accident.
The press also reported about "liquid" being involved, so it might have been a NERVA-style thing. With LH2 as propellant, there might me miniscule amounts of Tritium in the plume. But hardly enough to be the reason for the measurement. Also, what purpose might such an engine serve? A surprise flight to mars?
Or, as the base seems to be associated with the Navy, and the "liquid" hint did not explicitly designate a propellant, maybe some kind of long-range high-speed torpedo (Shkval-style)?
Any thoughts on the seen radiation profile and the "liquid"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @07:43PM (1 child)
Dismantled? Is that a euphemism for exploded?
(Score: 2) by Rich on Sunday August 11 2019, @08:41PM
Well, it might just have fallen apart, leaving its core exposed with a runaway reaction, melting down or sublimating away and exceeding some radiation limits for operators while doing so. Although from experience with cutting-edge military propulsion trials, we can assume there was a high probability of a rather explosive dismantling.
Keep in mind that military reactors run weapons grade material, not that 3% enriched stuff for proliferation-panicky pussies. They don't want the dead weight around, or the hassle with regular refueling. They have refueling cycles of a quarter century, compared to the yearly top up of NPPs. That might actually help with the waste isotope mix, but hope for heaven if something goes really bad. In theory, some wave breeder might yield the same result when decade-long endurance is desired (which it is not with a reaction engine, btw), but I guess with their budget they just go the easy route. So, expect stuff to properly blow up when reaction control fails in such an arrangement.