Vastrap Test Range Airfield | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Summary | |||||||||||
Airport type | Military (AFB Bloemspruit) | ||||||||||
Operator | SAAF | ||||||||||
Location | Vastrap Weapons Range | ||||||||||
Elevation AMSL | 3,234 ft / 986 m | ||||||||||
Coordinates | 27°50′5″S21°37′50″E / 27.83472°S 21.63056°E | ||||||||||
Runways | |||||||||||
|
Vastrap (Stand firm) is a small military airfield situated in the Kalahari Desert north east of Upington inside a 700 square kilometre weapons test range of the same name [1] belonging to the South African National Defence Force. It was constructed to allow the SAAF to practice tactical bombing operations, and for aircraft to service the SADF's defunct underground nuclear weapon test site.
The area was selected for nuclear weapons testing due to its remoteness, low population density, stable geological formations and lack of underground rivers. [2]
Two underground shafts 385 metres (1,263 ft) and 216 metres (709 ft) in depth and 1 metre (3.3 ft) in diameter were drilled from 1975–1977. [3] Neither was ever used to perform a detonation, although instrumented tests were performed. The shafts were sealed with sand and concrete under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency in July 1993. [4]
The site was first detected by the Soviet spy satellite, Cosmos 922 when it photographed the area from 21–25 July 1977, and reported to the Americans on 6 August, who in turn confirmed its existence with an overflight of the Lockheed SR-71 spy plane. [5] The US then applied pressure on the South Africans for it to be closed; [6] France also insisted on closure, threatening cancellation of the Koeberg nuclear power station contract. [7]
David Albright reported that South African officials believed that an attempt to re-use the site in the late 1980s was detected by Western or Soviet intelligence agencies, and that this discovery influenced the Tripartite Accord. [8] In an effort to mask activities, a shed was built over one of the shafts, and the water that was pumped out in preparation for a test was hauled away.
The airfield is operated by AFB Bloemspruit.
The Nevada National Security Site, known as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) reservation located in southeastern Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of the city of Las Vegas. Formerly known as the Nevada Proving Grounds, the site was established in 1951 for the testing of nuclear devices. It covers approximately 1,360 square miles (3,500 km2) of desert and mountainous terrain. Nuclear weapons testing at the site began with a 1-kiloton (4.2 TJ) bomb dropped on Frenchman Flat on January 27, 1951. Over the subsequent four decades, over 1,000 nuclear explosions were detonated at the site. Many of the iconic images of the nuclear era come from the site.
Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance, yield, and effects of nuclear weapons. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by different conditions, and how personnel, structures, and equipment are affected when subjected to nuclear explosions. However, nuclear testing has often been used as an indicator of scientific and military strength. Many tests have been overtly political in their intention; most nuclear weapons states publicly declared their nuclear status through a nuclear test.
The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is a United Kingdom Ministry of Defence research facility responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the UK's nuclear weapons. It is the successor to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) with its main site on the former RAF Aldermaston and has major facilities at Burghfield, Blacknest and RNAD Coulport.
Operation Greenhouse was the fifth American nuclear test series, the second conducted in 1951 and the first to test principles that would lead to developing thermonuclear weapons. Conducted at the new Pacific Proving Ground, on islands of the Enewetak Atoll, it mounted the devices on large steel towers to simulate air bursts. This series of nuclear weapons tests was preceded by Operation Ranger and succeeded by Operation Buster-Jangle.
Operation Teapot was a series of 14 nuclear test explosions conducted at the Nevada Test Site in the first half of 1955. It was preceded by Operation Castle, and followed by Operation Wigwam. Wigwam was, administratively, a part of Teapot, but it is usually treated as a class of its own. The aims of the operation were to establish military tactics for ground forces on a nuclear battlefield and to improve the nuclear weapons used for strategic delivery.
Operation Plumbbob was a series of nuclear tests that were conducted between May 28 and October 7, 1957, at the Nevada Test Site, following Project 57, and preceding Project 58/58A.
Operation Hurricane was the first test of a British atomic device. A plutonium implosion device was detonated on 3 October 1952 in Main Bay, Trimouille Island, in the Montebello Islands in Western Australia. With the success of Operation Hurricane, Britain became the third nuclear power, after the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Vela incident was an unidentified double flash of light detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite on 22 September 1979 near the South African territory of Prince Edward Islands in the Indian Ocean, roughly midway between Africa and Antarctica. Today, most independent researchers believe that the flash was caused by a nuclear explosion—an undeclared joint nuclear test carried out by South Africa and Israel.
From the 1960s to the 1990s, South Africa pursued research into weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons under the apartheid government. Six nuclear weapons were assembled. South African strategy was, if political and military instability in Southern Africa became unmanageable, to conduct a nuclear weapon test in a location such as the Kalahari desert, where an underground testing site had been prepared, to demonstrate its capability and resolve—and thereby highlight the peril of intensified conflict in the region—and then invite a larger power such as the United States to intervene.
Chagan (Чага́н) was a Soviet underground nuclear test conducted at the Semipalatinsk Test Site on January 15, 1965.
The Pokhran-II tests were a series of five nuclear bomb test explosions conducted by India at the Indian Army's Pokhran Test Range in May 1998. It was the second instance of nuclear testing conducted by India; the first test, code-named Smiling Buddha, was conducted in May 1974.
Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie is a 1995 American documentary film directed by Peter Kuran and narrated by William Shatner.
Operation Tumbler–Snapper was a series of nuclear weapons tests conducted by the United States in early 1952 at the Nevada Test Site. The Tumbler–Snapper series of tests followed Operation Buster–Jangle and preceded Operation Ivy.
Underground nuclear testing is the test detonation of nuclear weapons that is performed underground. When the device being tested is buried at sufficient depth, the nuclear explosion may be contained, with no release of radioactive materials to the atmosphere.
Project Gnome was the first nuclear test of Project Plowshare and was the first continental nuclear weapon test since Trinity to be conducted outside of the Nevada Test Site, and the second test in the state of New Mexico after Trinity. It was tested in southeastern New Mexico on December 10, 1961, approximately 40 km southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Operation Redwing was a United States series of 17 nuclear test detonations from May to July 1956. They were conducted at Bikini and Enewetak atolls by Joint Task Force 7 (JTF7). The entire operation followed Project 56 and preceded Project 57. The primary intention was to test new, second-generation thermonuclear weapons. Also tested were fission devices intended to be used as primaries for thermonuclear weapons, and small tactical weapons for air defense. Redwing demonstrated the first United States airdrop of a deliverable hydrogen bomb during test Cherokee. Because the yields for many tests at Operation Castle in 1954 were dramatically higher than predictions, Redwing was conducted using an "energy budget": There were limits to the total amount of energy released, and the amount of fission yield was also strictly controlled. Fission, primarily "fast" fission of the natural uranium tamper surrounding the fusion capsule, greatly increases the yield of thermonuclear devices, and constitutes the great majority of the fallout, as nuclear fusion is a relatively clean reaction.
Yucca Flat is a closed desert drainage basin, one of four major nuclear test regions within the Nevada Test Site (NTS), and is divided into nine test sections: Areas 1 through 4 and 6 through 10. Yucca Flat is located at the eastern edge of NTS, about ten miles (16 km) north of Frenchman Flat, and 65 miles (105 km) from Las Vegas, Nevada. Yucca Flat was the site for 739 nuclear tests – nearly four of every five tests carried out at the NTS.
Cannikin was an underground nuclear weapons test performed on November 6, 1971, on Amchitka island, Alaska, by the United States Atomic Energy Commission. The experiment, part of the Operation Grommet nuclear test series, tested the unique W71 warhead design for the LIM-49 Spartan anti-ballistic missile. With an explosive yield of almost 5 megatons of TNT (21 PJ), the test was the largest underground explosion ever detonated by the United States.
{{cite web}}
: External link in |publisher=
(help)