The United States officially carried out 1,054 nuclear tests between 1945 and 1992, but only one of them is known to have had satellites among its victims. In 1962, the United States detonated the 1.4 megaton rocket. raw starfish thermonuclear warhead 250 miles above the planet. The resulting electromagnetic pulse (EMP) explosion was much broader than expected and even damaged about 300 streetlights in Hawaii, about 900 miles away. in space, raw starfishThe persistent artificial radiation belt also inadvertently destroyed many of the early satellites launched by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union.

“When a nuclear detonation occurs in outer space, basically the entire body of the bomb is ionized and almost all of the electrons in the mass of the weapon are freed,” Areg Danagoulian, a nuclear scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said in a statement.

Once free, these ions fuse in the Van Allen radiation belt, where electrons bombard everything in their path. This further ionizes the particles and produces harmful radiation. Bottom line: Detonating nuclear weapons in space can be just as disastrous as detonating them on Earth.

In 1967, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union signed the Outer Space Treaty, which designated the cosmos as “the province of all mankind” while prohibiting the use or testing of nuclear weapons beyond the planet’s atmosphere. Since then, 115 other nations, including China, have signed the agreement, which by all accounts kept space neutral and free of nuclear weapons for almost 55 years, until the satellite called Cosmos2553.

In 2022, Russia launched its supposed surveillance and sensor satellite, but observers and critics immediately raised suspicions about its true purpose. Cosmos2553 has an unusual orbit and routinely passes through some of the most radioactive regions on Earth.

“It goes through the most hostile environment possible on the entire planet,” Danagoulian said. “Why would you put a satellite in that orbit? Well, that location is probably the best spot to trap electrons if you were going to detonate a thermonuclear weapon.”

The true purpose of Cosmos2553 is still unclear, but the worst-case scenario imagined by Danagoulian would have devastating consequences. An anti-satellite nuclear weapon in position hypothetically has the capacity to destroy many international communications and Internet satellites, GPS and reconnaissance equipment.

To make matters worse, it remains extremely difficult to confirm whether or not a satellite hosts nuclear weapons. After reviewing the available unclassified research, Danagoulian realized that there was still no proposed method for evaluating suspected orbiters. But that doesn’t mean the problem is unsolvable.

According to Danagoulian, there is a way forward for international monitoring of nuclear satellites. In a feasibility study published today in Naturedescribes a new satellite-based sensor system that could be launched near a suspected orbiter and then monitor it for signs of nuclear activity. The key lies in a type of atomic reaction called spallation that involves protons energized under radioactive conditions.

“When an energetic proton collides with elements with a high atomic number, such as uranium and plutonium, each proton can knock out about 40 neutrons. That’s a ridiculously large number,” Danagoulian said. “We’re talking millions of protons per second per square centimeter, and many of them generate 40 neutrons.”

Basically, there is a lot of irrefutable evidence, if you have the right team to find it. In their system, two neutron sensor panels called scintillators are installed between synthetic crystal diamond devices. The combined matrix allows you to differentiate between nuclear radioactive neutrons and natural protons and electrons. From there, the device can estimate the direction of origin of the neutrons to determine whether they are natural atmospheric particles or from a nuclear-capable satellite.

Danagoulian calculated that his sensor system could detect an orbiting nuclear bomb with 99 percent accuracy if it spent a week orbiting about 2.5 miles from the target. However, several sensor satellites within a radius of about 1 km of the suspected weapon could get a response after only a few hours.

“You can fake intelligence, but you can’t fake physics,” he added.

The MIT researcher stressed that his system is currently purely hypothetical and requires further development and testing in the real world. At the same time, he hopes his feasibility study will highlight that such solutions are not only realistic, but worth exploring.

“The goal now is to get national laboratories to use this work for their own research and to get policymakers to seriously consider this technology as a potential part of the national technical means,” Danagoulian said.

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