Zahlen, bitte! How the USA destroyed its Telstar 1 satellite in a nuclear test
In the 1960s, the nuclear powers tested the consequences of nuclear tests. A US test with 1.45 megatons involuntarily put several satellites out of action.
62 years ago, during Operation Starfish Prime, the USA triggered the strongest nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NEMP) to date via gamma radiation during a nuclear weapons test with a 1.45 megaton bomb 400 kilometers above the Pacific Ocean. The telephone networks of numerous Hawaiian islands collapsed, the radio links between the islands were also damaged, street lighting failed, and numerous electrical appliances gave up the ghost.
In space, which was still sparsely populated at the time, a total of seven satellites failed due to the ionization of the magnetosphere caused by the X-rays released, including the first civilian communications satellite, Telstar. The impulse was so strong that the measuring instruments deployed by the launch vehicle and the six accompanying rockets were destroyed. A further, even more powerful test with a detonation at an altitude of 1000 kilometers was cancelled after international criticism.
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Wild West tests by the nuclear powers
1962 was not only the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but also a record year in terms of nuclear weapons. The USA detonated a total of 92 nuclear warheads before the "Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water" was signed by the USA, the Soviet Union and Great Britain in 1963. Operation Starfish Prime was therefore one of many tests in which the military simply dropped a bomb and saw what happened.
A warhead called the MK-2, a further development of the bombs produced by the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory for the B-52 long-range bombers, was mounted on a medium-range Thor missile. Launched from Johnston Island on 9 July 1962, the missile reached an altitude of 965 kilometers before the reentry vehicle was separated during descent and the nuclear warhead was detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers, 576 meters from the intended "target point". The explosion could be seen from the Hawaiian Islands, particularly well from the nearest island of Oahu, 1288 kilometers from Johnston, where the street lights failed.
For seven minutes after the explosion, auroras could be seen. A film recording of the explosion was discovered decades later in a military archive -- along with a proposal by scientist James Van Allen to use the Van Allen Belt, which he had discovered shortly before, for nuclear experiments.
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Radiation damage from launching satellites
The electromagnetic pulse (EMP), to which household appliances on the Hawaiian Islands fell victim, was not visible. The X-rays emitted also caused trouble. The Telstar satellite launched into space on July 10 therefore only functioned for four months, but thanks to a British pop song it became much better known than the British satellite Ariel 1, which was also hit: two thirds of the power supply from the solar cells was damaged and the tape recorder recording the data failed.
After 1962, the findings on electromagnetic impulses from the Cold War initially found their way into science fiction, where they appeared as "ray guns". From around 1978, (military) research focused on EMP systems and in particular on the question of how data centers and radar systems could be protected against EMP attacks. Some of you will remember the 1985 film "In the Face of Death", in which James Bond has to rescue a microchip invented in the West, which is impervious to EMP attacks, from the clutches of the KGB (it is obvious that no such thing was developed in the East).
(Image:Â USGOV-PD, United States Air Force)
Neither confirmed nor refuted is the report that the USA and/or Great Britain used EMP weapons in the second Iraq war to disrupt the Saddam regime's communications. With this uncertainty, it can be stated that at least research continues to achieve success. EMP systems are being developed, for example, to defend against drones or vehicles used as weapons.
EMP as the Achilles heel of modern communication
In any case, it is known that the then US President Trump once took an interest in military EMP and HMP (High-Powered Microwave) weapons when he was presented with a summary of a research report by the US Electromagnetic Defense Task Force (eng, PDF). Having arrived at the new, semi-cold war, the question that has arisen several times is whether Russia's President Putin could decide to use such a weapon. There are both cautious and thoughtful voices on the subject. In today's digitalized world, such a NEMP by Russia, as triggered in the Pacific in 1962, would have fatal consequences, according to one expert interviewed, who wishes to remain anonymous: "Europe would be catapulted straight back to 1890."
(mki)
