P
Peter the Dane
Guest
I have for some time been looking at the leftovers from the sovjet-union.<br /><br />one of the things a lot of peopol either dont know or have chosen to forget, is that aprox 930kg highly enriched uranium(90% enriched) are circeling earth in low orbits.<br /><br />for those who dont know much about this, the sovjet used to send up radar-sats to spy on us/nato navy´s.<br />for much more info take a look here: <br />http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/RORSAT/RORSAT.html<br /><br />from http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/ianus/npsm2.htm#2_2_1 quote:<br /><br />"A RORSAT consists of three major components: the payload and propulsion section, the nuclear reactor, and the disposal stage, which is used to maneuver the reactor to an orbit of 900 to 1,000 km of altitude at the end of the mission. The satellite is 1.3 m in diameter and 10 m in length. A RORSAT weighs 3,800 kg, of which 1,250 kg are made up by the reactor and the disposal stage. These two components are 5.3 m long. The reactor core consists of 37 cylindrical fuel elements with 31.1 kg of highly enriched (90%) uranium-2357 embedded in a beryllium casing.<br /><br />The cooling liquid for the reactor is liquid sodium-potassium. The thermo-ionic converter uses the dissipated heat to create electrical energy with an efficiency as low as 2 to 4%.<br /><br />For the radar equipment, a RORSAT requires appr. 2 kilowatt electrical power. The technical structure of the system was extremely simple. Shielding was omitted unless absolutely required. Therefore, these satellites were a flying source of radiation which severely impacted the operation e.g. of science satellites equipped with gamma ray detectors.<br /><br />As mentioned before, the active RORSAT lifetime was fairly short. The ‘record’ was 134 days. How should the radioactive payload - which was not limite