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Using GPS To Detect Secret Nuclear Tests
Harperdog writes "This article details how GPS can help detect secret nuclear tests, giving the US more reason to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Here's a quote about the 2009 North Korea test: 'At the time, however, the May 25 bomb also sent a different signature, this one into the atmosphere. It did not release radioactive gas or dust, as would be the case for a bomb detonated on the Earth's surface. Rather, it released a shockwave — a bubble of disturbed air that spread out from the test site across the planet and high into the ionosphere. ... We quickly gathered data from 11 GPS receivers — six belonging to the South Korean GPS network and five belonging to the International GNSS Service and scattered around Eastern Asia. The data indicated a sudden spike in atmospheric electron density just after the underground test.'"
This work actually measured Total Electron Content, not electron density (a related, but different, phenomenon).
Maps of vertical and slant atmospheric electron density over the U.S. are here.
The US GPS constellation (NAVSTAR) has photodetectors to detect the distinctive flash of an above-ground nuclear test, among other detectors.
Not useful for an underground test, but a little known function nonetheless.
Im sure they have their eyes over Iran to see if such anomalies rise up. It is likely they'll will also do an underground nuclear test... and then blame it on an earthquake, as the nuclear sites do lye close to fault lines...
Here's a quote about the 2009 North Korea test: 'At the time, however, the May 25 bomb also sent a different signature, this one into the atmosphere. It did not release radioactive gas or dust, as would be the case for a bomb detonated on the Earth's surface. Rather, it released a shockwave
Kim Jong-Il's reaction
We can already detect nuclear explosions anywhere on earth within seconds using seismographic equipment.
AFTAC's been doing it for decades.
http://www.afisr.af.mil/units/aftac/index.asp
I still have not heard any definitive proof that it was not a large about conventional explosives. There are many examples of conventional explosions large enough in the past, such as the Texas City explosion or the Lochnagar mine during WWI.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Doesn't this sound like overkill and/or reduncancy?
There must be more efficient ways, e.g. Twitter...
http://mashable.com/2011/08/25/animated-map-twitter-earthquake/
Yes, Twitter of all hyped crap.
This is going to drive the 'truthers' crazy. Obviously the average person does not have access to GPS satellites, or the expertise in physics to understand the science happening here. They will equate it to 'the government' claiming that 'the enemy' has super weapons. Perhaps this is a fake-out to make us think North Korea is going to blow us up. Perhaps it's impossible to detect underground nuclear tests from space. Perhaps these tests go on all the time and they just don't tell us. You can't trust anyone these days. =)
Not a failed nuke test which was played down by US and allies?
I am confused as to what this has to do with the Test Ban Treaty. The primary argument against the Test Ban Treaty is that it does not allow for the testing of new designs of nuclear weapons. It, also, does not allow for the testing of existing stockpiles to see if they are still functional.
It has been U.S. policy from the beginning to maintain a nuclear stockpile that can function as a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons by any and all others that have them. If the U.S. does not know whether or not their weapons are functional, why would anyone believe that they have the means to retaliate?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
When the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was formalized in 1996, the United States was among nine nations that did not ratify it. In part, US officials objected that technologies of the time were not reliable enough to ensure accurate detection of secret nuclear tests.
How do I set up my Nuvi to detect bomb blasts?
It has nothing, but the poster has an axe to grind. I'm thoroughly sick of those "that evil nucular stuff will doom us" crowd.
Nukes, and even more, nuclear power plants, are dangerous but efficient. And that vile ban treaty is what destroyed the most promising project for interstellar travel.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
> It has been U.S. policy from the beginning to maintain a nuclear stockpile that can function as a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons by any and all others that have them.
To be fair, it was US policy at the beginning to build the bomb and win the second world war.
Any policies about stockpiles as a deterrent came later--I would guess the instant the Russians set off an A-bomb.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Thank you. That makes the summary much more sensible.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
In the specific case of North Korea, the argument for CTBT is nonexistent. I would argue that a country with roughly $10 worth of foreign trade per annum (of course, that's the LEGAL trade, excepting the ILLEGAL trade in weapons and arms technology that would obviously not be affected--and it's not illegal for the Norks to sell, it's mostly illegal for the rest of the world to buy!), that is willing to impose depredations on its civilian population that make the Dark Ages look like a stay at a Hedonism resort and whose major "sponsor" is terrified by the prospect of a massive refugee problem if it gets markedly worse, is not subject to effective international sanctions. (Indeed, the existing sanctions on North Korea are among the most severe imposed against any post-WW II state, and look how well they worked.) Even if the Norks were signatories of such a treaty, what would any rational person suggest would compel their compliance? A sternly-worded editorial in the New York Times?
As they say in the observation sciences. Its known that the position of ionosphere, humidity, atmospheric charge, etc. can affect GPS signal timing slightly. In turn these erors can be inverted (tomographically) to give maps of these phenomena.
One of the important aspects of deterrence, true nuclear deterrence, is that there's no bluffing. No witholding of information that might allow your enemies to say "naah, they're bluffing, they can't do that." or "naah, they're bluffing, their weapons are too old and won't work." Your enemy has to really believe that you can do what you say you can do. As an example, one of the unofficial reasons, I believe, why the U.S. decided to conduct underground nuclear tests on (under?) Amchitka Island in the Aleutian Island Chain, despite it's nearness to major fault lines, bad weather conditions and remoteness. Being closer to the USSR than Nevada is, it made it easier for Soviet scientists to make accurate measurements of the size of the detonations. Being able to perform tests makes it possible to demonstrate to an enemy that the U.S. does indeed have weapons that are as big as we say and go off when we want them to.
It wouldn't be the only time the U.S. disclosed critical nuclear information to the Soviets. About the same time, give or take a few years, the U.S. declassified details of how several of it's nuclear weapon safety devices worked. The story I heard for why was that the U.S. had, somehow, discovered that Soviet nuclear weapons systems didn't have much in the way of safety devices to prevent accidental detonation - and possibly cause an accidental war. So releasing the info was another kind of deterrence.
GPS satellites contain a package called NDS or Nuclear detonation Detection System. They have since the very first launch of the very first satellite. I know this because I was in the USAF and worked the ground station for NDS starting with Block 1 GPS satellites when they were just early test platforms to prove the GPS technology. So, this is absolutely nothing new to me. Sincerely, Symnron Get Moose and Squirrel!
Interestingly AFTAC has been monitoring nuclear weapons testing worldwide since long before 1996 and had/has the means to measure them very accurately. Too bad the USA didn't look to its own technology(/sarcasm). Get Moose and Squirrel!
GPS has had that capability pretty much since the beginning:
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/getting-into-gps.html
GPS satellites don't just help you stay found. All GPS satellites since 1980 carry NUDET sensors. No, this isn't some high-tech pornography-detection system. NUDET is an acronym for NUclear DETonation; GPS satellites have sensors to detect nuclear-weapon explosions, assess the threat of nuclear attack, and help evaluate nuclear strike damage.
I guess this is the part of that complicated "how science is done" cartoon where they realize it's already been done.
"Why is HAARP such an attractive target for conspiracy theorists? HAARP is a gigantic, high-energy, Pentagon-funded gizmo located in the remote Alaskan wilderness that plays around with the Earth’s ionosphere, but whose purpose seems deeply mysterious to the scientifically uninformed."
It has nothing, but the poster has an axe to grind. I'm thoroughly sick of those "that evil nucular stuff will doom us" crowd.
Nukes, and even more, nuclear power plants, are dangerous but efficient. And that vile ban treaty is what destroyed the most promising project for interstellar travel.
Oh? Can you guarantee the security of a nuclear waste facility for 100,000 years (i.e. 10 times longer than recorded history)?
It's completely unethical to push such an imperative onto future generations when we have no system set up to manage the waste products. "Let 'em sit at the reactor sites indefinitely" isn't a system, it's a pathetic joke.
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The article is describing how you can use the receivers to determine ionospheric and other disturbances by measuring the rate of deviation in radio frequency reception. GPS and ionoshperic modeling is common in GPS to determine how much interference is affecting the timing, and so you can then measure an "approximate additional" disturbance. These are all things any civilian who is a math geek can theoretically do.
What is being described here, AFTAC and NUDET, are onlyp performed by military organizations. On GPS there are two bands for civilian use, since the beginning, which is L1 and L2. The above techniques use those (L1 and 2). NUDET payload, which is a tertiary mission of GPS, has many sensors which then send the data via L3 to AFTAC. It's been about 15 years since I was a GPS satellite operator, so there may be additional sensors, but at the Block 1, 2 and 2A generations, you had optical (BDP), X-ray (BDX), and dosimeters (BDD), to name a few. The satellite in view will accumulate the data, and then cross-link them to every GPS satellite in view. Those satellites will downlink via L3. The logic is that no matter which satellite in the 24 constellation, through cross linking at least one will then send it to Shreiver AFB where AFTAC is located (actually was inside the 2 SOPS GPS ops MOD during the 90s). The NUDET data is entirely for Test Ban Treaty enforcement and not early warning. So this is why I laughed after the N. Korea test when the official stance was, "We don't know." I promise you from all the sensors we have, space, ground and sea based, we know exceptionally precisely what, where and how big it was. We just won't release it, giving the enemy a glimpse into our capabilities. Those from a political and military stand point that have a need to know, do.
Can someone explain to me why North Korea is allowed to test nuclear bombs in full view of the planet but trillions were spent on wiping out a mere hint of WMDs in Iraq?