Russia claims to have successfully tested a low-flying nuclear-powered cruise missile
Artist’s rendering of Burevestnik. Click for source.
According to claims coming from Russia’s state-run press yesterday, it has successfully tested a low-flying nuclear-powered cruise missile, dubbed Burevestnik (“Storm Petrel” in English), that uses a nuclear-powered rocket engine.
Few technical details have been released. The flight itself supposedly lasted fifteen hours during which the missile flew about 8,700 miles, making its average speed about 580 miles per hour. That speed is a little higher than the cruising speed of most airplanes. According to Russia’s state-run press, Burevestnik flies at an altitude of 80 to 300 feet and has an unlimited range.
It appears the missile captures air as it flies, compresses it and then sends it through the nuclear reactor to be heated, which when released as exhaust provides the thrust. If true, this missile is the equivalent of an autonomous airplane that can fly below radar detection anywhere on the globe, and thus a major threat to Russia’s enemies (which is essentially now the whole world).
At the same time, Russia’s ability to design, build and complete any high-tech project has been suspect for decades. Its government makes a lot of promises, but has almost never delivered.
Regardless, this technology bears watching. Expect the defense industry to use this story as a wedge with Congress to get more funding.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Artist’s rendering of Burevestnik. Click for source.
According to claims coming from Russia’s state-run press yesterday, it has successfully tested a low-flying nuclear-powered cruise missile, dubbed Burevestnik (“Storm Petrel” in English), that uses a nuclear-powered rocket engine.
Few technical details have been released. The flight itself supposedly lasted fifteen hours during which the missile flew about 8,700 miles, making its average speed about 580 miles per hour. That speed is a little higher than the cruising speed of most airplanes. According to Russia’s state-run press, Burevestnik flies at an altitude of 80 to 300 feet and has an unlimited range.
It appears the missile captures air as it flies, compresses it and then sends it through the nuclear reactor to be heated, which when released as exhaust provides the thrust. If true, this missile is the equivalent of an autonomous airplane that can fly below radar detection anywhere on the globe, and thus a major threat to Russia’s enemies (which is essentially now the whole world).
At the same time, Russia’s ability to design, build and complete any high-tech project has been suspect for decades. Its government makes a lot of promises, but has almost never delivered.
Regardless, this technology bears watching. Expect the defense industry to use this story as a wedge with Congress to get more funding.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
This is ingenious, or diabolical, depending.
I won’t re-link to all the nuclear rocket engine research already on the books (and paid for) from the 1960’s & 70’s, and I’m not an engineer, but sounds perfectly doable by downsizing established tech.
And they don’t need any radiation shielding.
This can’t be cost-effective however, for anything other than delivering nuclear weapons.
Defense Industry– I’m firmly of the belief, we perpetual pay for research already completed in the past, and we lack the basic industry to mass produce common analog weapons.
“ Expect the defense industry to use this story as a wedge with Congress to get more funding.”
My first thought when I heard of this.
I wonder if this method could be used to launch an object into orbit – a possible substitute for carrying large amounts of conventional rocket fuel to achieve escape velocity?
Could this be combined with the spin launch or magnetic rail launch technology for initial launch velocity?
The Russians have been working on this tech for awhile – perhaps even since Soviet times – as was also the case with the huge nuclear-powered torpedo Russia now claims to have in service as well. A couple of years back there were reports that a previous test flight of this cruise missile thingy came to grief somewhere on Russian territory and caused a significant forest fire.
It sounds scary, but it isn’t any faster than conventional subsonic cruise missiles and must – based on its fundamental engineering principles – produce a truly hellacious in-flight thermal signature. Given all of the thermal signature detection-and-tracking sats being put up by SDA, and even more to come for Golden Dome, the thing should be easily detectable enroute, especially coming in via the Arctic or over an ocean.
It could approach US territory from any direction, but would probably be based only on Russian national territory, given its unlimited range. No need for at-sea basing on subs in order to get close. Given the quite checkered Soviet/Russian history with both nuclear subs having shielded power reactors and their weaponry over the decades, keeping multiple unshielded mini-reactors aboard would seem guaranteed to revive those old Cold War-era jokes about being able to tell Northern Fleet sailors because they glow in the dark. I also don’t much fancy the chances of uneventful launches from subs or surface vessels – neither of which Russia has in much abundance anyway.
The main downside of launching from Mother Russian territory, of course, is the greater time between launch and arrival at notional targets. That would be particularly true of any sent to fly circuitous routes aimed at “sneaking” in from south of the US rather than from the north. Given the low speed of these things they are utterly unsuitable as first strike weapons.
To deal with potential drone swarms and conventional cruise missiles of whatever speed, one presumes Golden Dome will provide for an all-azimuth expansion of the system of interceptor bases the US operated along our northern border during the early Cold War to deal with Russian strategic bombers. This new Russian thingy would be just one more subsonic target for same.
Rather than the piloted supersonic Century-series fighter/interceptors of the 50s and 60s, it would make better economic sense to rely on lots of UAV hypersonic interceptors based on vehicles like Stratolaunch’s Talon series but armed with air-to-air missiles. There are any number of “NewDef” companies who could very quickly build such things using extant rocket engines. Anduril comes to mind. And Anduril is already building its own updated version of Ford’s Willow Run plant in Ohio called Arsenal 1. For a Sidewinder or an AMRAAM carried by such a craft, this new Russian thingy would be a gimme.
The defense industry – both vintage players and newbies – are already salivating over Golden Dome so I’m not sure there is any extra drool to be seen strictly in reaction to this Russian development.
jburn,
In a word – no. None of the experimental nuclear rocket engines built by the US and USSR during the Cold War were capable of lifting even themselves from the ground. They were always intended for strictly in-space use once they were placed there by conventional chemically-propelled rockets.
And this Russian thingy is not even powered by a rocket engine but an air-breathing jet engine. Small wonder it is designed to be both low-altitude and subsonic. Air is thickest close to the ground and far less thrust is required to maintain subsonic speed than supersonic or hypersonic. Even were this engine capable of the needed thrust, higher speeds would simply make the thermal engineering of the vehicle airframe near impossible. Supersonic and hypersonic aircraft only operate at extreme altitudes where the air is thin enough to prevent instant immolation from thermal friction/shock loads.
Could something other than conventional chemical rockets provide initial impetus? For an actual nuclear rocket, possibly. But an air-breathing engine will asphyxiate at very high altitudes and in space so what would be the point? The engine under discussion here is not a rocket.
Nuclear Propulsion in Space: Project Nerva
https://youtu.be/vs3zNwXhzSA
23:47
It seems to me that this is likely a turbojet with a vey low pressure ratio and fairly low turbine inlet temperature compared to conventional turbojets or turbofans. By not having to carry fuel onboard, a low efficiency can be used that bypasses the need for high compression as in conventional engines. Possibly as little as two stages of compressor and a single stage turbine. It is possible that the thermal signature could be quite low. Not crying wolf, just not dismissing possibilities.
These opinions are from when I was looking at air-turborocket numbers some years back. Low pressure ratios were normal for them. Expect a horrible T/W ratio.
Project Plutoski.
An unshielded nuclear reactor is a very nasty thing. If it flies over you you will die.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto
My own policy is to never accept a Russian at his word.
As such, I do not believe it. Nor do I believe they can mass produce these.
What I do think is that they see new research on Golden Dome, realize that this is Reagan’s Star Wars all over again, the difference this time is that it is real, where as the 80s version was mostly propaganda (and it worked).
The tech exists to make Golden Dome/Star Wars 2.0 work, and it will render a large part of the Russian arsenal moot.
A Russian Boomer cannot set sail without being tracked by half the western world and are not expected to be effective.
We have successfully intercepted their bombers and other aircraft in the air since the 1960s. (see the story about Bill Anders getting photographed giving the Russian pilots a rather infamous hand gesture).
To jburn,
Some of the Secret Projects Forum guys think this is a closed-cycle jet:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/9m730-burevestnik-ssc-x-9-skyfall-cruise-nuclear-powered-missile.30104/page-9#post-844811
If the political situation calms down, I could see it affixed to an aero shell and delivered to Jupiter or other gas giants as a flying probe–think hurricane hunter.
LM-9 likely it’s ride.
Putin has savaged Russian space capabilities… Rorsat money could be dual use.
A proposed NEP tug:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEM_(nuclear_propulsion)
That’s petrel, not petrol.
Blobfish: Typo fixed. Thank you!
sippin_bourbon noted:
“. . . this is Reagan’s Star Wars all over again, the difference this time is that it is real, where as the 80s version was mostly propaganda (and it worked).
It was said at the time that the Soviets (Russians) backed down because they believed we could build ‘Star Wars’. Kind of how we got the F-15 Eagle: we built the aircraft (MiG-25) we thought the Soviets had. The result dominated air-to-air for twenty years, so there was precedent of accomplishment.
Timberwind: I found out about Project Pluto at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas. An unshielded nuclear reactor flying at low altitude. I wrote:
“In the history of warfare, this is one of the most horrifying weapons I’ve seen: a nuclear-powered cruise missile. Not so much from the payload, although that was devastating with a dozen nukes, but the text states that the missile would be flying at Mach 3 at low altitude with an unshielded reactor. Think about that for a moment. The program was terminated with the advent of the less costly, more accurate (and safer?) Polaris ICBM.”
john hare,
I’m no aero engineer so I don’t have any feel for what constitutes a “low” pressure ratio. The ratio certainly has to be well above unity or the engine would produce no thrust. What is “low?” For that matter, what is “high?”
A nuclear jet engine substitutes the reactor core for the combustor in a conventional engine. Another difference would be that, as there is no fuel contributing to the mass flow out the tailpipe, mass coming in the inlet will equal mass going out the hot end instead of the hot end mass flow being greater. That would seem to require that, for a given thrust, the exhaust would need to be at least modestly hotter than in a conventional turbojet of comparable thrust.
In any case, there are decided limits to what can be done to disguise the heat signature of even a subsonic aircraft powered by any sort of jet engine. Against a ground-temperature background, exhaust plumes should stand out in certain parts of the IR band when observed by suitable sensors on-orbit.
But you are much more the subject matter expert here than am I. Always interested in learning more.
sippin_bourbon,
I share your general skepticism about anything said by Russia but I’m inclined to think this particular item is probably true.
You are correct to doubt Russia’s ability to mass produce such a weapon. Russia seems unable, these days, to produce any class of large weapon in quantity. And Ukraine’s recent tendency to drone-smash Russian weapons plants is only partially to blame. Russia’s defense industrial base was pretty pathetic even before Kyiv started picking it apart in earnest.
You are also correct that Golden Dome will, once deployed to even a minimum-viable extent, checkmate Russia’s entire remaining strategic arsenal. The PRC’s too. The tech to build all of the pieces of Golden Dome, then deploy them, is either already in-hand or will be imminently (i.e., Starship). The main job is one of software and systems integration and mass production. That is why SpaceX should get the prime contractor job for doing all of that as it can be mostly various elaborations of Starlink.
Jeff Wright,
One of the guys on the linked forum said only that if the Russians were using a closed-cycle engine that it wouldn’t necessarily leave a significant radiation signature to track. But no one said they thought that was what the Russians were actually using. Given that closed- or indirect-cycle nuclear aircraft engines were never actually built even during the USAF’s throw-a-lot-of-stuff-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks days in the late 50s and early 60s, it seems wildly unlikely the Russians would go to the needed trouble now in their far more straightened circumstances. Open-cycle nuke engines are so much simpler and Russkies have never been much deterred by the prospect of making a radioactive mess.
Interesting idea about using this tech for long-duration gas giant probes. Perhaps once Russia has fallen and the Ukes have looted the place by way of reparations, they might trade us the tech for something they have more use for. We could send your notional probe(s) outward to their destinations on expendable Starships. The LM-9, I suspect, will never be built as the PRC will most probably implode before it can accomplish that particular plan.
Putin certainly has savaged Russian space capabilities. But he has savaged much else besides, both in Russia and Ukraine. The Ukes are now returning the favor at compound interest. Baikonur is safe from them as it isn’t in Russia anymore. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Ukes give some explosive attention to Plesetsk at some point preceding the end of the Russo-Ukraine War.
I don’t think the Russkies have rorsats anymore. At least not those nuclear-powered jobs from a half-century ago. I’m not sure what you mean about “dual-use.”
The Russians have, over the decades, spitballed all sorts of space thingies that they’re never going to have either the time or the money to build. That TEM NEP tug is a classic example.
Blair Ivey,
Can’t argue with any of that. Not all of the wackadoodle ideas from the Cold War era were Soviet.
Dual use in that a tug and good radar returns could be used in probes.
A decade or two back–I seem to remember some art in Popular Science depicting thorium powered light aircraft.
Now I am starting to think I dreamed it. That and a cornucopia in Fruit of the Loom labels and Monopoly monocles.
Look up project Pluto (1957-1964) The U.S. developed a nuclear-powered ramjet for a supersonic cruise missile. It was a very dirty weapon, with large gamma radiation field around the missile and the fuel did not contain fission products well. Because it was supersonic, the shock wave at low altitudes was also destructive. Sounds like the Russians have developed a lower performing version (assuming it is not a fake).
Kiwi Transient Nuclear Test: An Explosive Nuclear Rocket Test
https://youtu.be/4zSCdYu2Ps8
28:12
Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory successfully constructed three working nuclear rocket engines as part of the Rover Program. In this test, a Kiwi rocket was intentionally forced to go super-critical and explode at the Nevada Test Site.
Phoebus-2A: LASL’s Nuclear Rocket Engine
(April, 1968)
https://youtu.be/LjU9kP_zd70
11:45
“In 1968, the Phoebus-2A reactor produced more than 4,000 megawatts of thermal power, making it the most powerful nuclear propulsion reactor of its time.”
As has been noted this appears to be an open cycle nuclear ramjet like Project Pluto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto. The final test reactor for that (460 Mw) completed testing in 1964. over 60 years ago. It was a stupid idea then, and remains a stupid idea now. It doesn’t seem to violate either the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) Or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT, which is not ratified by either the USA or USSR/Russia), but dang it certainly seems to skate along mocking the intention of the PTBT to avoid unnecessary radioactive pollution. with a terrain following autopilot it might be a pain to stop if its radiation didn’t give it away to the current version of the VELA satellites (yes VELA was primarily flash which this won’t show, but I bet there were also other sensors).
I don’t believe it at all. Not at all.
Why not a functional pulse jet style like the German V1 buzzbomb? No liquid fuel just hot nuclear fuel.
I think the German buzz bombs flew at about 400 mph.
This nothing more than a Russian buzz bomb.
Could you imagine the guys assembling the engine cores. Its OK Nikolai its just an unshielded nuclear core. You’ll be fine. No no it will not poison our land or kill or people.
It might work but does it really work the way they want.
They said their hyper-sonic missiles could never be shot down. Ukraine proved that wrong years ago.
USAF Film Report (1961)
“Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program”
Progress Report 1956-1958
https://youtu.be/V-8q8INxQEY
(30:24)
“Presents the program goals and evolution of nuclear-powered aircraft, including how global operating costs were expected to be reduced by eliminating the need to operate foreign air bases around the world. Materials problems required them to reduce requirements from high-altitude/supersonic to low altitude/subsonic. Ongoing development and progress are shown on the GE direct air cycle (XMA-2) in Idaho and Evandale, and the P&W indirect liquid-metal lithium-7 cooled cycle at CANAL, where they developed niobium-based alloys and technology that could run at the required crazy-high temperatures and withstand lithium. The Convair Nuclear Test Aircraft is shown, and shields made of Lithium hydride, BeO, tungsten alloys, and depleted uranium are discussed.”
George Harrison –
“Got My Mind Set on You” (Version 2)
https://youtu.be/_71w4UA2Oxo
3:51
“But it’s going take money, a whole lot of spending money,
It’s going to take plenty of money, to do it right, child.
It’s going to take time, a whole lot of precious time,
It’s going to take patience and time, to do it right…”
China has the tech base and the money.
Why are they not doing this already?
This is all another Putin threat. Russia doesn’t have the cash to keep its fleet operating. Why would it have the cash for this new weapon.
Could it be a similar problem as nuclear rockets have? The reactor can only get so hot before bad things happen. That being the heating limit on the fluid means that normal rockets and jets with reaction inside a chamber away from the solid structure can always operate much hotter.
Viability of this thing probably hinges on the efficiency of the turbo-machinery and airframe. The nuke portion being a souped up RTG
Another article
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-expert-nuclear-powered-missiles-russia.html
I don’t know if this anti-nuke site has much–won’t load
https://etc.bellona.org/2025/10/21/bellona-nuclear-digest-august-2025/
Wow a lot of nothing in that first article.
No details of how the engines will stay safe during storage and transportation.
No details on how the physical materials would stay solid and safe at cruse temperatures
No details on how to regulate the reactors core temperature.
No details on what happens if the regulation system jambs wide open or closes totally.
Try this
https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/burevestnik-part-i-i
“Some commentaries amplified worst-case scenarios. Military Watch Magazine asserted that Burevestnik could “lurk in the sky for years” before striking unpredictably, and some accounts suggested it might be capable, in principle, of circumglobal transit.”
Russian “Corona” evolution….
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/attachments/img_2385-png.752308/
Norway watched the launch. No radiation detected in the exhaust plum. Not from the launch booster or the nuclear engine exhaust.
This missile has been tested twice before and the nuclear engines have yet to fire up.The first time it flew for 6 seconds and the second time 13 seconds. This time ….. still no nuclear engine start up.
Putin was asked in a Russian tv interview about it and he agreed it did not fly nor was it a nuclear test. just a nuclear powered missile. Then he said that they have the Sarmat Missile instead.
https://en.defence-ua.com/news/missile_stuck_in_time_sarmat_will_soon_enter_combat_duty_the_kremlins_favorite_phrase_since_2021-16308.html
Until Putin tests a nuclear warhead and proves it still has nuclear weapons they talking out of their backsides trying to intimidate the world. If test it hey had a working nuclear weapon they could test one and really scare the world.
Please Putin make me eat my words.
Sarmat is their R-36 replacement (SS-9/SS-18) so real enough….one blew up in a silo.
I think Sunkar is Soyuz-5…an all Russian Zenit.
Sea Launch quite dead.
https://x.com/RussianSpaceWeb/status/1984261241301504056
Scott Manley’s take on “Skyfall.:”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yihh1OdHI8M&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.secretprojects.co.uk%2F
I do not think any have been fielded. none have been used during test launches like the test launches from a month ago. And its been years since its first test boom.