In 1962, the world was shaken by the Cuban missile crisis, the echoes of which were heard in all corners of the globe. Then humanity was on the verge of a full-scale nuclear war with all the consequences of such a conflict. As a result, the war was averted, but the USA and the USSR did not stop working on creating new means of destroying each other. In the United States, in the period from 1962 to 1975, work was underway on the classified project "Program 437", the purpose of which was to create anti-satellite weapons and full-fledged nuclear "killer-satellites" missiles.
According to The National Interest, at least 6 satellites became victims of American anti-satellite missiles based on the PGM-17 Thor medium-range ballistic missile: American satellites Traac, Transit 4B, Injun I, Telstar I, British satellite Ariel I and Soviet satellite "Cosmos-5". All of these satellites were affected by the Starfish Prime tests. At the same time, the greatest resonance in those years was caused by the failure of the Telstar I satellite, which was responsible for the transmission of television pictures between the United States and Europe. The satellite is believed to have been a victim of nuclear tests conducted by the United States in outer space. On February 21, 1963, this space satellite was completely out of order.
It should be noted that in the United States, projects for the possible destruction of satellites in low-earth orbit were launched already in 1957 and were directly related to the successful launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik-1, by the USSR. The first attempts to destroy a satellite with a rocket launched from an aircraft were made by the US military in the second half of 1959. On September 3, a rocket was launched from a B-58 aircraft, the target of which was the Discoverer 5 satellite. This launch turned out to be an emergency. On October 13, 1959, the Bold Orion rocket, which was launched from a B-47 bomber, passed only 6.4 kilometers from the Explorer 6 satellite at an altitude of 251 kilometers. The US military recognized this launch as successful.
It should be noted that the Soviet Union did not stand aside and also developed its own programs in the field of anti-satellite weapons. Work on the creation of such systems in the USSR started in the early 1960s, when it became finally clear that not only rockets flying from space, but also reconnaissance, navigation, meteorological satellites, as well as satellites in the Earth's orbit, pose a threat to the security of the state. ties, which are full-fledged military objects, the destruction of which became justified in the event of the outbreak of full-scale hostilities.
Launch of the Thor medium-range ballistic missile
But at the same time, the United States went much further on this issue, considering the possibility of destroying enemy satellites using full-fledged ballistic missiles equipped with thermonuclear warheads. A similar missile was created and tested by the United States as early as 1962 as part of the Dominic project, when, in a short time from 1962 to 1963, the Americans conducted a series of nuclear tests, which consisted of 105 explosions. Including a series of high-altitude nuclear tests under the project codenamed "Operation Fishbow". It was within the framework of this project that the Tor anti-satellite missile was tested, which successfully detonated a thermonuclear munition in near-earth space at an altitude of about 400 kilometers.
The Dominic project was carried out at the time of the greatest aggravation of relations between the USA and the USSR. The aggravation of relations even before the famous "Caribbean Crisis" was facilitated by an attempt by the American administration to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro in Cuba, for this in April 1961 the United States conducted an operation in the Bay of Pigs. In response, on August 30, 1961, Nikita Khrushchev announced the end of the three-year moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. A new round of the arms race began, in the United States, John F. Kennedy authorized the conduct of Operation Dominic, which will forever go down in history as the largest nuclear test program ever conducted in the United States.
Program 437 was initiated by the US Air Force in February 1962 and was approved by US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The program was aimed at developing weapons capable of dealing with enemy space objects. The development of astronautics turned orbiting observation and communication satellites into strategically important military objects that could have a significant impact on the course of hostilities. In these conditions, the means of combating them became increasingly important on both sides of the Atlantic.
Nuclear explosion at an altitude of 96,300 meters as part of Operation Dominic
The Americans considered the Tor missile as a means of anti-satellite warfare. The PGM-17 Thor is the first medium-range ballistic missile that entered service in the United States in 1958. It was a single-stage liquid-propellant rocket, the engine of which was fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen. The cylindrical body of the rocket narrowed rather smoothly towards the top, which gave the "Torah", according to the staff, a resemblance to a milk bottle. The PGM-17 Thor medium-range ballistic missile had a launch weight of 49.8 tons and a maximum flight range of 2,400 km. To protect against adverse weather conditions, the rocket had to be stored horizontally in special unreinforced ground shelters. Before launch, the rocket was raised to a vertical position and refueled. The total rocket preparation time for launch was about 10 minutes.
Within the framework of the 437 Program, the Tor rocket was viewed as a means of destroying various space objects. At the same time, the rocket was distinguished by a rather powerful warhead - 1, 44 megatons. In tests called Starfish, the initial launch of the Thor anti-satellite missile was to take place on June 20, 1962. However, just a minute after launch, a malfunction of the rocket engine led to the loss of the rocket and the nuclear device. At the same time, the debris of the rocket and the resulting radioactive debris fell on Johnston Atoll and led to the radiation contamination of the area.
A second attempt was scheduled for July 9, 1962, and was successful. Launched with a Thor rocket, a nuclear warhead with a W49 charge with a capacity of 1.44 megatons exploded at an altitude of 400 kilometers in near-earth space over Johnston Atoll, located in the Pacific Ocean. The almost complete absence of air at this altitude prevented the formation of the usual cloud in the form of a nuclear mushroom. At the same time, with such a high-altitude explosion, other interesting effects were recorded. At a distance of about 1,500 kilometers from the explosion - in Hawaii, under the influence of a strong electromagnetic pulse, televisions, radios, three hundred street lamps and other electrical appliances were out of order. At the same time, a bright glow could be observed in the sky throughout the region for more than 7 minutes. He was seen and managed to be filmed from the island of Samoa, which was located at a distance of 3200 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion.
The charged particles formed as a result of the nuclear explosion were picked up by the Earth's magnetosphere, as a result of which their concentration in the radiation belt of the planet increased by 2-3 orders of magnitude. The impact of the radiation belt led to a very rapid degradation of the electronics and solar panels of several artificial earth satellites, among which was the first commercial American telecommunications satellite Telstar 1. It was launched the day after the nuclear tests - July 10. It is believed that he was fully affected by their consequences. It ceased its work in December 1962, at the beginning of January it was possible to restore its work, but on February 21 of the same year, the satellite finally went out of order, remaining in earth orbit. At the same time, the Pentagon received the information that a high-altitude nuclear explosion could disable space objects with enthusiasm, since the United States had a way to destroy Soviet satellites.
As noted in the publication "The National Interest", the satellite "Cosmos-5" became one of the victims of the American Thor rocket. This Soviet research satellite, belonging to the Kosmos series of spacecraft, was launched on May 28, 1962 from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome from the Mayak-2 launch complex by the Kosmos 63S1 launch vehicle. The satellite was equipped with equipment designed to study the radiation situation in near-Earth space, as well as to study auroras and obtain information about the formation of the ionosphere. The Americans believe that this satellite became another victim of the Thor rocket tests in near-earth space, having experienced the same problems as the Telstar I telecommunications satellite. The Kosmos 5 satellite ceased to exist on May 2, 1963.
In 1964, an anti-satellite system based on a Thor ballistic missile with a thermonuclear warhead was officially put into service under the designation PGM-17A (the proposed renaming into PIM-17A for some unknown reason was never officially approved). The first missiles went on alert in August 1964. These missiles were able to intercept any orbital object located at an altitude of 1400 kilometers and at a distance of up to 2400 kilometers. The radius of destruction in the explosion of a megaton warhead guaranteed the instant destruction of artificial satellites by thermal and radiation exposure at a distance of up to 8 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. The launch sites were Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii. The 10th Aerospace Defense Squadron was formed in the US Air Force specifically to control anti-satellite missiles and conduct a number of non-nuclear tests. Despite the fact that the Americans were convinced that heavy nuclear warheads were not the best means of dealing with LEO satellites, the Thor missiles on Johnston Atoll remained on alert in constant readiness for launch until 1975.
It is quite obvious that the development of Program 437 was hampered by a number of circumstances, including risk. The United States understood perfectly well that a nuclear strike on satellites could be perceived by the Soviet Union as the beginning of hostilities, which would entail a retaliatory strike from Moscow. There was also always a risk that such an attack, if it did not cause an all-out nuclear war, would lead to unintended consequences, that is, the accidental destruction or temporary incapacitation of allied satellites, as happened during the Starfish Prime tests. The wear and tear of the missiles themselves, which have reached the end of their service life, also played a role in the closure of the program. The lack of funding also played an important role, at this time a huge part of the American military budget was spent on the war in Vietnam. Therefore, in 1975, the Pentagon finally closed Program 437. The fact that on August 5, 1963 the USSR, the USA and Great Britain signed a joint treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, outer space and under water also played a role.
At the same time, no one refused to develop non-nuclear anti-satellite systems. So in the USA in 1977-1988, work was actively carried out within the framework of the ASAT program (an abbreviation for AntiSatellite). Work was underway to create a new generation of anti-satellite weapons based on a kinetic interceptor and a carrier aircraft. In 1984-1985, flight tests of an air-launched anti-satellite missile were carried out: of the five launches carried out then, only in one case an interceptor rocket was able to hit a space target. However, this is a completely different story.
