VELA NUCLEAR RADIATION DETECTION SATELLITE MISSION REPORT TITAN IIIC 55914
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- Made by the U.S. Air Force's Eastern Test Range, this rarely seen film shows the launch of the special Vela satellite designed to detect radiation from nuclear tests. The film shows the Titan IIIC launch vehicle used in the program with a specific focus on the C-18 / Vela - VB mission. This was the last of the Vela satellites, launched on April 8, 1970. The Titan IIIC shown was the 100th launched at the Eastern Test Range. The Titan IIIC consisted of a two-stage Titan core and upper stage called the Titan Transtage, both burning hypergolic liquid fuel, and two large UA1205 solid rocket boosters.
Vela was the name of a group of satellites developed as the Vela Hotel element of Project Vela by the United States to monitor compliance with the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty by the Soviet Union.
Vela started out as a small budget research program in 1959. It ended 26 years later as a successful, cost-effective military space system, which also provided scientific data on natural sources of space radiation. In the 1970s, the nuclear detection mission was taken over by the Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites. In the late 1980s, it was augmented by the Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. The program is now called the Integrated Operational Nuclear Detection System (IONDS).
The total number of satellites built was 12, six of the Vela Hotel design and six of the Advanced Vela design. The Vela Hotel series was to detect nuclear initiations in space, while the Advanced Vela series was to detect not only nuclear explosions in space but also in the atmosphere.
All spacecraft were manufactured by TRW and launched in pairs, either on an Atlas-Agena or Titan III-C boosters. They were placed in orbits of 118,000 km (73,000 miles),[1] well above the Van Allen radiation belts. Their apogee was about one-third of the distance to the Moon. The first Vela Hotel pair was launched on October 17, 1963,[2] one week after the Partial Test Ban Treaty went into effect, and the last in 1965. They had a design life of six months, but were actually shut down after five years. Advanced Vela pairs were launched in 1967, 1969 and 1970. They had a nominal design life of 18 months, later changed to 7 years. However, the last satellite to be shut down was Vehicle 9 in 1984, which had been launched in 1969 and had lasted nearly 15 years.
The Titan IIIC was an expendable launch system used by the United States Air Force from 1965 until 1982. It was the first Titan booster to feature large solid rocket motors and was planned to be used as a launcher for the Dyna-Soar and Manned Orbiting Laboratory, though both programs were cancelled before any astronauts flew. The majority of the launcher's payloads were DoD satellites, namely for military communications and early warning, though one flight (ATS-6) was performed by NASA. The Titan IIIC was launched exclusively from Cape Canaveral while its sibling, the Titan IIID, was launched only from Vandenberg AFB.
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Great upload on a little known but very important early milspace program. Vela was critical in ID'ing both the Israeli and South African nuclear programs.
Also, Titan III was awesome. The later Titan 34 and Titan IV became overly complex and expensive but the III-series was really in the sweet spot for the time for payload/cost.
Thanks,
While they were very capable both the USAF and NASA would've been better served if the Saturn I and IB had stayed in production.
0:17 - That nuclear explosion appears to be the Ivy King shot which was the test of the TX-18F yielding 500KT which was the largest pure fission device the US tested.
I agree...King was a boosted fission test with a plutonium core seeded with a bit of deuterium and tritium. Among other test parameters, it was included to give some data on thermonuclear burning before the Mike shot. Distinctive, long stemmed mushroom cloud for Ivy King.
@@MrCrystalcranium The TX-18F tested in Ivy King was a pure fission device using only Orally (Weapons grade U-235) as Orally can be safely used in larger quantities than plutonium can be. The test first testing fusion-boosting happened in Operation Greenhouse specifically the Item shot.
The VELA 6911 event in September 1979 had surely kept The Services occupied for some time...
I thought it detected the double light flash signature of a nuclear explosion.
That's what it was designed to do. And yes it did. It detected the signature double flash in September 1979 over Prince Edward Island which is half way between South Africa and Antartica. The island is South African territory. Which was very convenient as the israelis didn't exactly have loads of space to test atom bombs. But israel's interest in South Africa wasn't just about its remote islands. South Africa had something else the israelis wanted. Uranium. Lots and lots of Uranium in the ground. It was what you might call mutually beneficial arrangement. It seems that neither country however knew the Americans had satellites designed to detect any Soviet nuclear tests. In the end it didn't really matter. Jimmy Carter did what all American do, he covered up for Israel.
@@drugfuck Kinda had to since they stole the enriched stuff from us for the bomb's core. Actual historical fact!
Thanks for this!