![]() The chairman of this science panel itself was Dr. Īn independent panel of scientific and engineering experts was commissioned by Frank Press, who was the Science Advisor to president Carter and the chairman of the OSTP, to evaluate the evidence and determine the likelihood that the event was a nuclear detonation. The SALT II treaty had been signed three months earlier, and was pending ratification by the United States Senate, and Israel and Egypt had signed the Camp David Accords six months earlier. The outcome was politically important to Carter, as his presidency and 1980 re-election campaign prominently featured the themes of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. The Carter Administration asked the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to convene a panel of instrumentation experts to re-examine the Vela Hotel 6911 data, and to attempt to determine whether the optical flash detected came from a nuclear test. Office of Science and Technology evaluation The report concluded that if a nuclear test had been carried out, responsibility should be ascribed to the South African weapons programme. A later NSC report revised this position to "inconclusive" about whether a nuclear test had occurred. The initial assessment by the United States National Security Council (NSC), with technical support by the Naval Research Laboratory in October 1979 was that the American intelligence community had "high confidence" that the event was a low-yield nuclear explosion, although no radioactive debris had been detected, and there were "no corroborating seismic or hydro- acoustic data". īhangmeter light patterns detected by a pair of sensors on Vela satellite 6911 on 22 September 1979Īfter the event was made public, the United States Department of Defense (DOD) clarified that it was either a bomb blast or a combination of natural phenomena, such as lightning, a meteor, or a glint from the Sun. The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico detected an anomalous ionospheric wave during the morning of 22 September 1979, which moved from the southeast to the northwest, an event that had not been observed previously. Sheep in New Zealand showed no such trace. It was reported that low levels of iodine-131 (a short-half-life product of nuclear fission) were detected in sheep in the southeastern Australian States of Victoria and Tasmania soon after the event. Studies of wind patterns confirmed that fall-out from an explosion in the southern Indian Ocean could have been carried from there to southwestern Australia. United States Air Force (USAF) surveillance aircraft flew 25 sorties over that area of the Indian Ocean from 22 September to 29 October 1979 to carry out atmospheric sampling. These data were found not to have enough substantial evidence of a detonation of a nuclear weapon however a detailed, affirming study regarding MILS data correlating with time and location of the Vela flash was not considered in that finding. Īcoustic data of the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) established by United States to detect Soviet submarines and the Missile Impact Locating System (MILS) designed to detect missile nose cone impact locations of test missiles in the Atlantic and Pacific test ranges were searched in an effort to gain more knowledge on the possibility of a nuclear detonation in the region. The satellite reported a double flash, which could be characteristic of an atmospheric nuclear explosion of two to three kilotons, in the Indian Ocean between the Crozet Islands (a sparsely inhabited French possession) and the Prince Edward Islands (which belong to South Africa) at 47°S 40☎ / 47°S 40☎ / -47 40 Coordinates: 47°S 40☎ / 47°S 40☎ / -47 40. In addition to being able to detect gamma rays, X-rays, and neutrons, the satellite also contained two silicon solid-state bhangmeter sensors that could detect the dual light flashes associated with an atmospheric nuclear explosion: the initial brief, intense flash, followed by a second, longer flash. The " double flash", then dubbed the South Atlantic flash, was detected on 22 September 1979, at 00:53 UTC, by the American Vela satellite OPS 6911 (also known as Vela 10 and Vela 5B ), which carried various sensors designed to detect nuclear explosions that contravened the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The two satellites are separated after launch. Two Vela 5A/B satellites in a clean room.
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