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There is still considerable disagreement within the Intelligence Community as to whether the flash in the South Atlantic detected by a US [redacted] satellite in September 1979 was a nuclear test, and if so, by South Africa. If the latter, the need for South Africa to test a device during the time frame of this Estimate is significantly diminished.
South Africa; Nuclear program start date: 1967 [1] First nuclear weapon test ... If the Vela incident was a nuclear test, South Africa is virtually the only possible ...
Alleged spare bomb casings from South Africa's nuclear weapon programme. Their purpose is disputed. [131] South Africa produced six nuclear weapons in the 1980s, but dismantled them in the early 1990s. In 1979, there was a detection of a putative covert nuclear test in the Indian Ocean, called the Vela incident. It has long been speculated that ...
South Africa: South Africa was embarked on creating nuclear weapons when the apartheid government decided to cancel the program short of the first test. [5] Vastrap Field: The intended site for South Africa's first nuclear tests.
If this flash detection was actually a nuclear test, a popular theory favored in the diary of then sitting American President Jimmy Carter, is that it resulted from a covert joint South African and Israeli nuclear test of an advanced highly miniaturized Israeli artillery shell sized device which was unintentionally detectable by satellite ...
The Koeberg nuclear power station is the only nuclear power station in South Africa and contains two uranium pressurized water reactors based on a design by Framatome of France. The station is located 30 km north of Cape Town. The plant is owned and operated by the country's national electricity supplier, Eskom.
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 ]
About 1800 km southwest of Cape Town, South Africa, USS Norton Sound launched three modified X-17A missiles armed with 1.7 kt W-25 nuclear warheads into the upper atmosphere, where high altitude nuclear explosions occurred. Due to the South Atlantic Anomaly, the Van Allen radiation belt is closer to the