Russian scientists have indicated that they were working on miniaturised sources of nuclear energy when a rocket engine exploded last week, increasing scrutiny of the possibility that the accident occurred while testing an experimental cruise missile powered by a small reactor. The explosion last Thursday at a military testing ground in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region killed at least five people and caused radiation readings in neighbouring cities to spike to 20 times their normal level for half an hour.
Russia’s defence ministry said the explosion had taken place during testing of a rocket engine, but the country’s nuclear agency, Rosatom, later confirmed that several of its employees had been killed during testing of an “isotope power source in a liquid propulsion system”.
In a video statement released on Sunday evening, an official from the Russian Federal Nuclear Centre, where five employees were killed in the explosion, said the agency was working on a number of experimental technologies, including “miniaturised sources of energy using [fissile] materials”.
