Two expeditions to the Kursk site were undertaken jointly between the Russian Federation Navy and the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority. The first of these expeditions was in August, immediately following the sinking, and the second in October 2000 during which twelve of the twenty-three casualties in the stern compartment were recovered.
These two expeditions, particularly the latter, established the radiological regime in and around the Kursk. Air, sediment and seawater samples were taken and analyzed, and water samples within the submarine, from compartments № 3, 4 and 7, were collected and sealed in cans for subsequent gamma spectrometry. Similarly, the remote operated vehicles (ROV) and the diving personnel were rigged to monitor dose rates at various locations about the casing of the submarine (Amundsen Ingar, 2001).
The preliminary results from these two expeditions did not indicate the presence of radionuclides that may have been released from the submarine reactors or, potentially, from any nuclear weapons carried on board.
The presence of nuclear weapons on board the Kursk at time of the sinking was of particular concern. In 1989, another Russian Northern Fleet submarine, Komsomolets, which was lost in the Barents Sea at about 1,700m was leaking from both its single reactor and from two nuclear tipped torpedoes loaded in the bow tubes at the time of the foundering. For the Kursk, the Russian Federation Northern Fleet confirmed that at the time of the foundering no nuclear weapons were on board.
At this stage, no attempt was made to sample within the sealed reactor compartment, nor was any significant monitoring undertaken of any thermal gradients in the flood hull in the vicinity of the reactor compartment.