OPINION — “Soviet nuclear weapon technology appears to be highly sophisticated and adequate for present delivery systems, but significant advancements can still be made through further development and testing. Probably one of the strongest requirements is in the area of high-altitude effects of nuclear weapons. The Soviets conducted several such tests in 1961-1962, but probably need additional tests to obtain weapon effects data pertinent to antimissile development and countermeasures.”
That’s a quote from a once Top Secret, now declassified, 60-year-old National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) entitled, The Soviet Atomic Energy Program that was first circulated in November 1963.
I want to go back in history to give a bit of context to the recent sudden concern about the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be developing and someday might deploy a nuclear weapon in space that if detonated, could destroy satellites in low-earth-orbit (LEO) that are key to U.S. military and commercial activities.
First, it must be understood that a nuclear weapon burst that explodes high above the Earth – generally said to be above the atmosphere at some 20 miles or more – generates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could cause damage to electronic devices, such as operational parts of orbiting satellites or, as some thought 60 years ago, the warheads of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs).
Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the U.S. experimented with exploding nuclear weapons at high altitudes based on the idea they be exploded in space and the resultant EMP would destroy electric circuits in warheads from an enemy’s incoming ICBMs.
In 1961, the Soviets began high-altitude nuclear tests in what was called the ‘K Project’ with two explosions over Kazakhstan that each was only 1.2 kilotons (the equivalent of 1.2 thousand tons of TNT), so the EMP could be carefully measured. The Soviets took the program seriously and had scientists and engineers with equipment for measuring the EMP scattered across the affected area of the high-altitude Kazakhstan-based tests.
The last three of the Soviet K Project series in Kazakhstan, held in 1962, used thermonuclear warheads, with the explosive power of 300 kilotons (equivalent to 300,000 tons of TNT). The EMP from the K Project high-altitude nuclear test on October 22, 1962 (during the Cuban Missile Crisis), fused all of a 350-mile monitored overhead telephone line protected by fuses; caused all of the fuses to blow; shut down 620 miles of shallow-buried power cables and was said to have set a fire to the power plant in the city of Karaganda.
The main U.S. high-altitude test took place on July 9, 1962, and was called ‘Starfish Prime’. It was detonated 19 miles southwest of Johnston Island in the northern Pacific at an altitude of 250 miles. Its explosive power was 1.4 megatons, equivalent to 1.4 million tons of TNT and far larger than any of the Soviet high-altitude tests. It was followed by four more much less powerful high-altitude nuclear shots lofted by rockets from Johnston Island “for the purpose of studying the effects of nuclear detonations as defensive weapons against ballistic missiles,” according to a 1983 Defense Nuclear Agency report.
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The U.S. treated what was called the Fishbowl test shots as a major worldwide scientific event.
The U.S. and allies were in position to observe and measure EMP from the detonations via equipment that was airborne, on land, and under the sea from hundreds of miles away. In fact, magnetic field disturbances were measured throughout the world.
A declassified August 1962, Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) report said, “Long and short-range communications were tested throughout the world by communications simulation experiments and by monitoring a large number of existing communication nets. Both government and private communications systems were exercised during the period of interest with the aim of determining signal propagation conditions as a function of frequency, path location, and time relative to burst.”
Even Moscow paid attention with a Soviet scientific expeditionary ship stationed near Johnston Island to gather data and a second Soviet scientific expeditionary ship at a point near Fiji in the South Pacific at the opposite end of the earth’s magnetic field line from Johnston Island.
‘Starfish Prime’ caused EMP far larger than expected, driving many instruments off scale. The EMP caused electrical damage in Hawaii, about 900 miles away, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off burglar alarms, and damaging a telephone microwave link which halted calls from Kauai to other Hawaiian Islands.
However, according to the 1962 DTIC report, “As an aid to penetration for incoming missiles by disrupting enemy anti-missile radars, ‘Starfish Prime’ was not as effective as anticipated. Detonation degradation of communications and radar surveillance capabilities were found to be appreciably less than expected.”
But in the months that followed, some satellites that had been in low-earth orbit at the time of ‘Starfish Prime’ and later explosions from Fishbowl tests began to black out, including the world’s first communications satellite, Telstar. That was seen as an unexpected after effect: EMP trapped by Earth’s magnetic field, were affecting the satellites’ electronics and solar panels.
A 2010 report from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) entitled, Collateral Damage to Satellites from an EMP Attack, examined “the potential damage to satellites from high-altitude nuclear detonations not specifically targeting space assets.”
Of particular interest was “Lessons learned from atmospheric nuclear tests of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s are presented. In particular, the STARFISH PRIME test of 1962 injected long-lived trapped energetic electrons into Earth’s magnetic field, causing the early demise of several satellites.”
The DTRA report said, “At least eight satellites that were in orbit during this time were damaged by long-term effects of nuclear-enhanced trapped radiation,” and goes on to detail those findings. It also discusses potential protection for satellites if nuclear explosions become a threat.
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An interesting sidelight was that concern about the possible danger the trapped radiation in space could have to humans. The DTRA report notes that the flight of Mercury astronaut Walter Schirra was postponed after a September 5, 1962, meeting President Kennedy had with officials “to discuss upcoming high-altitude nuclear tests and possible health repercussions for Schirra who was scheduled to go into orbit a few weeks later.”
Of course, in 1963 the Partial Test Ban Treaty barred nuclear tests in outer space, and in 1967 both the U.S. and Soviet Union signed the Outer Space Treaty which prohibited the introduction of weapons of mass destruction in outer space.
I have presented this background to show, as with past concerns about China and Russia introducing hypersonic nuclear weapons in space, these ideas have been around for decades.
So where are we now?
As National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby put it on February 15 at the White House, “We’re talking about a capability that we don’t believe is active and not deployed.” And to show how seriously it is being taken, Kirby said, “We will engage directly. We plan to engage directly with the Russians about this and — as well as allies and partners. And as I said, we’ll continue to work through what our next steps and our approaches might be.”
Personally, I agree with former Defense Secretary Robert Gates who said when asked last Wednesday about the potential Russian space weapon development, “Well, it’s not terribly surprising to me that they would explore these kinds of weapons. You know, back in the 1970s, they were experimenting with what was called the “fractional orbital bombardment system,” which was essentially the use of space in terms of launching nuclear weapons. So–and the idea of disabling satellites is not exactly a new one.”
Gates, in a conversation on Washington Post Live with David Ignatius added, “If you’re using actually a nuclear weapon in space, how do you prevent it from simultaneously taking out all the Russian satellites that are up there? How are you going to differentiate between a Russian satellite, a Chinese satellite, and an American satellite, if you’re setting off something as crude as a nuclear–as a nuclear device? So, it has a lot of complications, it seems to me.”
In fact, I would take Gates’ view a step further and suggest that Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing in the nuclear weapons field to claim he is still a big world power. Look for a moment where he’s claimed over past years to be developing new, nuclear hypersonic ballistic missiles, hypersonic cruise missiles, and the Poseidon nuclear-powered nuclear-tipped torpedo.
How many new types of nuclear weapons do you need when you already have thousands of nuclear bombs and warheads on sub-launched and ground-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles?
It strikes me that he’s a more high-powered Kim Jong Un who sees using the nuclear weapon threat as a way to draw the world spotlight to himself.
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