Soviet submarine TK-202

TK-202 in 1999 before recycling/scrapping
Career (Soviet Union, Russia)
Name: TК-202
Laid down: 1 October 1980
Launched: 26 April 1982
Commissioned: 28 December 1983
Decommissioned: 1997
General characteristics
Class and type:Typhoon class submarine
Propulsion:Pressurized-water nuclear reactors

ТК-202 was a ballistic missile submarine of the Russian Navy, formerly having served in the Soviet Navy.

Hull number TК-202 was laid down at the Sevmash shipyards in Severodvinsk in October 1980 and launched in April 1982. She was the second ship of the Soviet Project 941 Akula class (Russian for shark, NATO reporting name Typhoon). In December 1983, she began her commission in the Soviet Northern Fleet. She was, along with the other Akulas, based in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.

During her service in the Soviet era, she never received a proper name, as it was deemed an unsocialistic idea to name individual ships. Several of her sister ships later received names, but the TК-202 and the TК-13 continued to be called by their hull numbers alone. ТК stands for тяжелая крейсерская (tyazholaya kreyserskaya), meaning heavy cruiser.

The 14-year old submarine was deactivated in 1997, and was laid up from July 1999 at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk awaiting decommissioning. With funding from the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction programme the defueling of her reactors started in June 2002 at the Zvezdochka shipyard.

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