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This was not the first failed test. In November 2017 at the Pankovo test range, which is 170 km north of Rogachevo air base on Yuzhny Island of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, there was an unsuccessful test of a Burevestnik missile. After two minutes of flight that covered some 35 k, it crashed into the Barents Sea. Three vessels, one of which was equipped to handle radioactive material, were tasked with the recovery of debris from the missile.

A wrecked blue Rosatom container on the barge where an explosion happened in 2019 during recovery of a Burevestnik missile. The barge was towed to shore just west of Nyonoksa test site on the coast of the White Sea. The barge became contaminated with radioactivity. Photo: screenshot from Belomorkanal TV

The Russian testing, with all its problems, went far beyond where SLAM development was before cancellation. SLAM was never actually flight tested: the reactor experiments were all on the ground.

A Russian military band prepares to attend the funerals of five Russian nuclear engineers killed by a rocket explosion in Sarov. Photo: Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Strategic value of SLAM and Burevestnik

SLAM was supposed to be a cruise missile operating in the high subsonic range that could operate at relatively low altitude for many hours, if not days, and could maneuver to fool air defense radars and weapons. In the 1950s the US was protected by Nike and Nike-Zeus systems primarily along the East Coast and by long range radars, based on the DEW(Distant Early Warning) line. DEW radars were focused on ballistic missile attacks coming over the North Pole. Later systems, such as BMEWS, were placed in Alaska and in the UK, but have since been replaced.

Nike Zeus missile launch

Assuming the US had a proper air defense capability, Burevestnik's main value would be its ability to evade early warning radars, including future space-based systems as projected for Golden Dome. Assuming the Russians could produce large numbers of Burevestnik missiles, one possible line of thinking in Russia is that Burevestnik could give them a first strike capability that, in future, Golden Dome could deny to them. Russian strategists probably think that the US would find it complicated, maybe impossible, to track and destroy Burevestnik cruise missiles without undertaking a major revision of America's air defenses beyond Golden Dome. Perhaps this best explains the Russian defense establishment fixation on Burevestnik.

The US and Tomahawk

The Tomahawk cruise missile, which started out as a nuclear-armed weapon, replaced SLAM. The Tomahawk had long range, could be launched from land, sea and from bombers and had sophisticated guidance allowing it to operate overland following the nap of the earth. This meant that radars would have difficulty detecting the Tomahawk, with limited early warning.

Recent US threats to arm Ukraine with Tomahawks (with conventional warheads) has created significant angst in Russia. That's because Russian air defenses would be challenged by Tomahawks and the Russian military could not be sure whether the arriving missiles were conventional or equipped with nuclear warheads, or both.

The Tomahawk was made possible by advances in highly efficient jet engine technology and special fuel allowing the engine to operate safely on submarines. Tomahawk uses a rocket booster followed by power from the jet engine, which is a Williams Research F-107 turbofan. Russia does not produce an engine of similar efficiency.