Nuclear Icebreakers: Arktika Class

[Brian James]

Nuclear Icebreaker RFS Arktika, lead ship of her Class pictured under construction at Baltic Works Shipyards,St. Petersburg,February, 2019.
Construction began on November 5th 2013 and she was launched on June 16th 2016.
Designed for 40 years of reactor life, Arktika will require refuelling every seven years with less than 20% Uranium-235 enriched fuel.The new icebreaker is able to navigate through ice up to almost three meters thick.The cost of one RITM-200 reactor is 8 billion rubles (US$ 140 million).
On September 2nd 2016, Baltic Shipyard installed the first RITM-200 nuclear reactor steam generator and twenty days later completed the installation of the second RITM-200 nuclear reactor. Each reactor has a 175 MW thermal capacity.She is expected to be in service by June 2019.

[Brian James]

Project 22220, Arktika Class Nuclear Powered Icebreaker Yakutiya pictured fitting out at Baltic Shipyard, Vasilievsky Island Plant, Saint Petersburg on April 26th 2024.