“We are indeed working on a megawatt class space-based reactor. We still need to decide if we’re going directly to 1 megawatt or to half a megawatt [first]. We are moving in that direction and the work is proceeding according to schedule”, Rogozin said, answering a question about Ekipazh, a project of KB Arsenal to produce an interplanetary space tug with a nuclear installation. “The safest orbit to place the reactor is at least 800 km. This also gives us the opportunity to develop a tug using an electric propulsion system. Its speed will not be very high, but it can work very long and efficiently. That is why we are developing this.”
My latest findings on Ekipazh are in this article published today on The Space Review:
Quote from: B. Hendrickx on 10/07/2019 10:49 pmMy latest findings on Ekipazh are in this article published today on The Space Review:Really impressive article! Reads like a detective novel.I don't understand two things however:- The power to mass ratio of the thermionic reactor does not seem that great compared to solar panels. Ultraflex solar panels are quoted at 150kW/t (150W/kg) whereas YEU-50 only reaches 50/4.2=12.0 kW/t . The megawatt-class TEM has a much better ratio.- Jamming from a satellite in a high orbit is really complicated: the square-losses are 3 600 worse from GEO than with an airborne jammer 600km away. Plus the satellite will likely not be where the enemy radars are looking at, so they will be able to reject it more easily. I don't get the military value of this.
What doesn’t appear to have been developed yet, or publicly revealed at least, is something that does all these things at once: a Russian, nuclear-powered satellite carrying a weapon.If the U.S. has “intelligence that is not about development, but the actual plans to deploy, then, yes, it is a new development,” Budjeryn said.A nuclear-fueled satellite might be able to carry a high-powered jammer that could block out a wide array of communications and other signals for prolonged periods of time, according to a 2019 technical essay in The Space Review, an online publication widely shared among experts following this week’s news.
If the rumored space weapon is indeed Ekipazh, then the question is what the fuss is all about.
A more likely scenario is that it is a nuclear-powered anti-satellite system. In that case, it could well be Ekipazh, the nuclear-powered electronic warfare system that KB Arsenal has been working on since 2014. Some of the later reports have mentioned that possibility, including this NBC story (although it doesn’t mention Ekipazh by name)
It’s not clear yet what exactly it is. The initial reporting focused mostly on a space-based nuclear weapon, but this looks quite unlikely (for the simple reason that it would also knock out many of Russia’s own satellites, not to mention the fact that it would violate the Outer Space Treaty). A more likely scenario is that it is a nuclear-powered anti-satellite system. In that case, it could well
Quote from: B. Hendrickx on 02/15/2024 10:35 pmIt’s not clear yet what exactly it is. The initial reporting focused mostly on a space-based nuclear weapon, but this looks quite unlikely (for the simple reason that it would also knock out many of Russia’s own satellites, not to mention the fact that it would violate the Outer Space Treaty). A more likely scenario is that it is a nuclear-powered anti-satellite system. In that case, it could well A US government official has now stated that the weapon would violate the OST, indicating that it is a nuclear weapon, not a nuclear reactor powering a weapon.
OST also bans WMDs in space, not just nuclear bombs. As I hypothesized in the "Live Events" section thread, can a weapon (nuclear-powered or not) be classified as a WMD in today's LEO environment with thousands of -mostly Starlink- active satellites it can disable, while a few years ago when many less active satellites were present it would have affected one or two orders of magnitude less assets? In other words, can it be argued that a certain system with a definite destructive/reach yield capability would not have been classified as WMD before the current proliferation of satellites in LEO, but it will be now given the vulnerable population has increased?I guess it depends on whether a WMD on Earth is classified as such by its own merits alone (absolute yield) or based on the context it is employed (densely populated or not).
Thanks for the update. Could it be that Ekipazh is a high power microwave system, not a jammer? Do Russian use the same word for both?Edit: Apparently they have considered it , there is a Sputnik article saying that:https://sputnikglobe.com/20210709/russias-nuclear-powered-space-tug-zeus-can-disable-enemy-spacecraft-systems-designer-says-1083345504.htmlIs the paper they reference available?
Russia is trying to develop a nuclear space weapon that would destroy satellites by creating a massive energy wave when detonated, potentially crippling a vast swath of the commercial and government satellites that the world below depends on to talk on cell phones, pay bills, and surf the internet, according to three sources familiar with US intelligence about the weapon....This kind of new weapon — known generally by military space experts as a nuclear EMP — would create a pulse of electromagnetic energy and a flood of highly charged particles that would tear through space to disrupt other satellites winging around Earth.
