thespacereview | There is strong evidence from publicly available sources that a Russian company called KB Arsenal is working on a new type of military satellite equipped with a nuclear power source. Called Ekipazh, its mission may well be to perform electronic warfare from space.
| Called Ekipazh, its mission may well be to perform electronic warfare from space. |
KB Arsenal, based in St. Petersburg, is no newcomer to the development of nuclear-powered satellites. In the Soviet days it built satellites known as US-A (standing for “active controllable satellite”), which carried nuclear reactors to power radars used for ocean reconnaissance (in the West they were known as “radar ocean reconnaissance satellites” or RORSAT for short.) The satellites had been conceived in the early 1960s at the OKB-52 design bureau of Vladimir Chelomei before work on them was transferred to KB Arsenal at the end of that decade. The satellites’ three-kilowatt thermoelectric reactors, known as BES-5 or Buk, were built by the Krasnaya Zvezda (“Red Star”) organization. The US-A satellites operated in low Earth orbits at an altitude of roughly 260 kilometers and, after finishing their mission, the reactors were boosted to storage orbits at an altitude of about 900 kilometers. However, three of the satellites (Cosmos 954, 1402, and 1900) experienced problems with the boost maneuver; the first showered radioactive debris over northwestern Canada in January 1978. The program saw a total of 37 missions between 1965 and 1988.
In 1987 KB Arsenal launched two experimental satellites named Plazma-A (officially announced as Cosmos 1818 and 1867) equipped with five-kilowatt thermionic reactors of Krasnaya Zvezda variously called TEU-5, Topol, and Topaz. A thermionic reactor, which has no moving parts, converts heat directly into electricity through the process of thermionic emission, the spontaneous ejection of electrons from a surface. The Plazma-A satellites operated in safer 800-kilometer orbits. One of the experimental payloads (called Epikur) was intended to produce plasma clouds making it possible to mask satellites from anti-satellite interceptors.[1] This was part of a much broader effort undertaken by the Soviet Union to protect its satellite fleet from ASAT attacks.[2]
 The Soviet-era US-A/RORSAT (left) and Plazma-A satellites. Source |
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, work on space-based nuclear reactors came to a virtual standstill and several were even sold to the US.[3] KB Arsenal turned its attention to a project called Liana, comprising electronic intelligence satellites known as Lotos-S and military radar observation satellites called Pion-NKS. These are solar-powered satellites that share a common bus. After numerous delays the first Lotos-S satellite was orbited in 2009 and it was followed by three more in 2014, 2017, and 2018. Pion-NKS is still awaiting its first mission.
Plazma-2010
On February 2, 1998, the Russian government adopted a decree aimed at reviving the dormant Russian space nuclear program. It called for resuming research and development in the field with the goal of producing nuclear reactors with a capacity of up to 100 kilowatts and an operational lifetime of five to seven years after 2010. A key short-term goal was to use nuclear reactors as part of so-called “transport and energy modules” (TEM), a Russian term for electric space tugs. The nuclear reactor would power an electric propulsion system to boost spacecraft to their operational orbits (“transport”) and subsequently provide power to their on-board systems (“energy”). This would make it possible to increase the mass of payloads delivered to high orbits by two to three times and supply them with 10 to 20 times more power than before.[4]
In a way, KB Arsenal had already pioneered the transport function with the Plazma-A satellites in 1987. Their nuclear reactors powered small electric thrusters (called 62E or Gryada, built by OKB Fakel) to perform orbital corrections. However, it was not until 2004, six years after the 1998 government decree, that the company got down to designing a real nuclear-powered space tug that could host a variety of payloads. Called Plazma-2010 or UKP-YaEU (an acronym meaning “Universal Space Platform – Nuclear Power Unit”), it was described in some detail in several articles published by KB Arsenal early this decade.[5]
| In 2014, KB Arsenal published drawings of three nuclear-powered satellites on its website that were clearly based on the Plazma-2010 platform. These were literally said to be intended for “Earth remote sensing, space studies and the relay of signals during research of deep space.” |
Drawings published at the time showed the platform in its launch configuration attached to a payload and a liquid-fuel propulsion system. After launch, a boom would be extended to place the nuclear reactor at a safe distance from the payload. The platform would carry second-generation thermionic reactors of the Krasnaya Zvezda company, much improved versions of the earlier TEU-5/Topol/Topaz reactor flown in the 1980s. Krasnaya Zvezda worked out plans for several such reactors ranging in capacity from 10 to 400 kilowatts. The lightest of these (YaEU-25M) would make it possible to build a satellite that remained within the launch capacity of a Soyuz-2 class rocket. The heavier ones would require the use of a Proton or Angara-A5 rocket.
The electric propulsion system (not seen in the drawings) would be used to place the satellite into its operational orbit and perform subsequent orbital corrections. Two of the articles said KB Arsenal had ordered the Keldysh Research Center to perform studies of stationary plasma thrusters (a type of Hall-effect thruster) with a capacity of up to 35 kilowatts. No explanation was given for the presence of the liquid-fuel propulsion system. Possibly, it would have to boost the satellite to a relatively high parking orbit before handing over to the nuclear-powered electric propulsion system. In this way, the nuclear reactor does not pose an immediate threat to Earth in case something goes wrong after its activation.
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