Group items tagged

For about two weeks there have been arguments over the "suddenly revived" Soviet-made nuclear-powered satellite which had been placed into an 800 km-high orbit in 1987. The military space vehicle suddenly started losing parts, sparking fears of a possible threat. Rest assured, the Kosmos 1818 satellite is incapable of destroying the Earth. However, the question forces consideration of space security issues in general. The back story is as follows. In mid-summer last year, NORAD tracking systems spotted the first signs of the satellite's disintegration. On July 4, NASA published the information recorded. The process gained momentum, in the current state of the satellite covered in the NASA orbital debris bulletin of January 15.

Ecologists have expressed fears that remnants of the U.S. and Russian satellites that collided on Tuesday could pollute a large portion of Russia, a federal environmental official said on Friday. Konstantin Tsybko of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources said that a number of large ecological organizations had approached him since a U.S. Iridium satellite and the defunct Russian Cosmos-2251 collided approximately 800 kilometers (500 miles) above Siberia. This was the first time such an incident has occurred. "Their fear is understandable, especially since the Western press has published reports that there could be a nuclear reactor on board one of the satellites," Tsybko said.

Fragments have broken off a Soviet-era nuclear-powered satellite but do not pose a threat to the Earth's surface or the International Space Station, a senior Russian military official said. The Cosmos-1818 military satellite, which was decommissioned shortly after its launch in 1987, shed "insignificant" fragments into space on July 4, 2008, the deputy head of Russia's Space Forces Alexander Yakushin said in a statement Wednesday.

According to a report by The Associated Press, Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, finds it "baffling" that there are apparently no commercial satellite pictures available of a site in Syria taken in the months just after the Israelis allegedly destroyed whatever was allegedly there prior to September 6th, 2007. Except, of course, for the before/after photos, allegedly taken via commercial satellite, somehow obtained and published [.pdf] last year by David Albright at the Institute for Science and International Security.

Britain learned that apartheid South Africa was preparing to test an atomic bomb only after being alerted by the Russians. Previously secret papers released at the National Archives show how James Callaghan, the Labour prime minister, was informed in August 1977 of a secret test site in the Kalahari Desert in a personal letter from Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet president. A Soviet spy satellite had discovered the site at Vastrap, in a remote area south of South Africa's border with Botswana, a week earlier. Two 750-foot shafts had been drilled in preparation for underground explosions. The Americans appear to have possessed similar satellite imagery but failed to inform their closest ally until after the Brezhnev letter.

In yesterday's post, I provided a little background and explained that how the question of why we have so many nuclear weapons, and why we had even more back in the day, is not a very simple question. But I've learned a few things about this issue that I never knew before, and hopefully you didn't know them either. In the Cold War, especially the earlier years, the world was a much different place. There was no internet, no cell phones, very few satellites (the first satellite went up in 1957 and didn't do anything), no GPS systems, and a much more limited ability to fly over enemy air space to take pictures. We certainly didn't have stealth planes or UAV's. Today, we have all these things, and the US uses them to spy on its enemies. In the Cold War, the USSR resided behind the so-called "Iron Curtain" of secrecy and suspicion. In short, we couldn't see them, and they couldn't see us.

Visitors at Three Mile Island are asked not to photograph guard towers, vehicle barriers and other security measures. Yet these items are easily seen on the Internet through such sites as Microsoft's maps.live.com, now bing.com/maps. Scott Portzline, a consultant for the watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert, thinks this is a security issue. He has been monitoring sites like Google Earth, which bring satellite images to home computers, for several years. But he noticed that recently the level of detail has increased. The amount of detail on Microsoft's site "could show terrorists the quickest and best route to buildings," Portzline said.

Japan says it is deploying missile interceptors to destroy any parts of a North Korean rocket that might fall on its territory. North Korea has said it will launch a satellite into orbit next month. South Korea, Japan and the US say the launch is cover for a test of the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile. The US said a launch would violate UN Security Council resolutions. Russia said North Korea should "abstain" from testing any missiles.

In a significant, indigenous effort by an Indian industry, the Hyderabad-based MTAR Technologies has fabricated a critical component - The Grid Plate - for the Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs). MTAR Technologies, a maker of precision engineering equipment for the strategic sectors, has made the Grid Plate, which supports and accurately positions the core sub-assemblies in the reactor at a substantially low cost. Interestingly, the Vikas Engine, which powered the PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle), to put the Chandrayaan-I mission to the moon successfully, has also been developed by the MTAR.

In August 2007, India and the United States reached a bilateral agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation as envisioned in the joint statement released by President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 18, 2005. The deal, which marks a notable warming of U.S.-India relations, would lift the U.S. moratorium on nuclear trade with India, provide U.S. assistance to India's civilian nuclear energy program, and expand U.S.-Indian cooperation in energy and satellite technology. But critics in the United States say the deal fundamentally reverses half a century of U.S. nonproliferation efforts, undermine attempts to prevent states like Iran and North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons, and potentially contribute to a nuclear arms race in Asia. "It's an unprecedented deal for India," says Charles D. Ferguson, science and technology fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you look at the three countries outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)-Israel, India, and Pakistan-this stands to be a unique deal."

On January 15, outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a nuclear cooperation accord with her United Arab Emirates (UAE) counterpart Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan. The treaty, which to become law needs to be presented to the U.S. Congress, would help the Persian Gulf state become the first Arab country to develop a nuclear power sector. Along with last year's nuclear agreement with India, this treaty emphasizes a trend away from decades of U.S. policy dominated by the fear of nuclear proliferation. Not since the 1950s Eisenhower-era "Atoms for Peace" program has so much hope been placed in peaceful nuclear cooperation. Background The pact marks an astonishing diplomatic journey for the UAE and Shaikh Abdullah. Ten years ago in 1999, the shaikh, a son of the then ruler and a half-brother of the current UAE president, was an honored guest during a visit to Pakistan's unsafeguarded Kahuta uranium enrichment and missile facility. While there, he saw the prefabricated structures built in Sharjah, a member sheikhdom of the UAE, which were hiding the production line of the nuclear-capable Ghauri missile from U.S. satellites passing overhead. For a quarter century, until 2004, the UAE helped Pakistan elude Western export controls by serving as a vital transit point for Pakistan's purchases of nuclear-weapon-related parts and manufacturing equipment.

As you may recall, about a month ago, when North Korea launched a ballistic missile which they claimed was intended to peacefully put a satellite in orbit, former House speaker Newt Gingrich - now a Fox News contributor, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and apparent front-runner among the self-anointed seeking to replace Obama as president - went ballistic himself: "Those who claim that there is little to fear from Iran or North Korea because 'at best' they will have only one or two nuclear weapons ignore the catastrophic level of threat we now face from just 'a couple' of nuclear weapons.

Developments in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs: _ 1994: Under agreement with U.S., North Korea pledges to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for help building two safer power-producing nuclear reactors. _ Aug. 31, 1998: North Korea fires suspected missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean, calling it a satellite. _ Sept. 13, 1999: North pledges to freeze long-range missile tests. _ Sept. 17, 1999: President Bill Clinton agrees to first major easing of economic sanctions against North Korea since Korean War's end in 1953.

"Researchers at the National Institute of Geological Sciences (NIGS) in the University of the Philippines have discovered a thrust fault less than 200 meters southwest of the derelict Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). "It's at the tip of Napot Point," said NIGS professor Alfredo Mahar Francisco Lagmay. "At least from the papers I have been researching on, I have never seen a description of this fault." According to Lagmay, he and his team have been scouting for exposed faults such as this one for the past few months through maps and satellite images."

"In December 2009, leading climatologist Dr. James Hansen cited new satellite data doubling or tripling previous sea level rise predictions. Climate change, he said, "is really a moral issue analogous to that faced by Lincoln with slavery," an apt comparison considering the dangers for peoples of color in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco. Dr. Ray Tompkins, toxic cleanup expert, and Marie Harrison, Greenaction activist, expose some of the dangers in their comments on the Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard Draft Environmental Impact Report, a prerequisite to Lennar's plans to build over 10,000 condominiums. Planners don't anticipate increased flood hazards from the currently projected sea level rise combined with a "Big One" - a major earthquake - on the Shipyard, an EPA Superfund site."

"The United States appeared on Thursday to rule out an early withdrawal of its battlefield nuclear weapons from Europe and said if it cut its arsenal it would want Russia to move its arms further from NATO nations. The stance sketched out by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is likely to please former Soviet satellites now in the 28-member Western security alliance who view the so-called "tactical" nuclear weapons as critical to deterring Russia. However, it may frustrate those that regard them as Cold War relics that have little military justification but bring huge risks -- including of accidents or nuclear terrorism -- to the nations that house them."

High resolution satellite image of Fukushima 1

Russia has warned that both the Russian and Australian economies will suffer if Canberra carries out a threat to withhold uranium sales to Moscow because of the conflict in Georgia. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has joined world leaders in calling on Russia to observe a cease-fire agreement that requires it to remove its military from the former Soviet state.

Iran expressed readiness to freeze its uranium enrichment program in return for lifting the international sanctions imposed on it, Israel's Channel 2 senior analyst Ehud Ya'ari revealed Thursday evening.