Even before the elimination of the Emu Field test site, the British asked the Australian government for a new site for the construction of a new experimental field designed to test nuclear charges and their components. At the same time, based on the experience gained during the tests on the Monte Bello Islands and at the Emu Field site, great attention was paid to the placement of personnel, the convenience of delivering goods and materials to the landfill, as well as the deployment of a laboratory and research base. An important role was played by remoteness from densely populated areas, climatic factors and the direction of the wind rose (this should have minimized the impact of radiation on the population).
Construction of a new large-scale nuclear test site at Maralinga, about 180 km south of Emu Field, began in May 1955. This area, due to the harsh climatic conditions, was very poorly populated, but along the southern coast of Australia, through the desert lands towards Adelaide, the largest city in South Australia, there were several good roads. It was about 150 km from the Maralinga settlement to the coast of the Great Australian Bay, and some of the equipment and materials, if necessary, could be unloaded on the shore and delivered to the landfill by road.
After the resettlement of the aborigines in the vicinity of Maralinga, large-scale construction began. As in Emu Field, the first thing here was erected a capital runway with a length of 2.4 km. Until the mid-1980s, it was the longest airstrip in South Australia. The concrete runway at Maralinga is still in good condition and can handle the heaviest aircraft. The main experimental field for nuclear tests was located approximately 25 km north of the airfield.
A village with capital buildings was built 4 km west of the airfield, where more than 3,000 people lived. From the very beginning, much attention was paid to the living conditions and leisure of the personnel serving the landfill.
After it was possible to transfer the bulk of the workers from temporary tents, the village has its own stadium and an outdoor pool. Which was a great luxury for a nuclear test site on the edge of the desert.
Although Britain formally had its own atomic bombs in the mid-1950s, the British military was uncertain about their practical effectiveness and reliability. Unlike the USA and the USSR, the British did not have the opportunity to test them from real carriers; test explosions were carried out stationary: under water or on metal towers. In this regard, a test cycle of four explosions, known as Operation Buffalo, was devoted to testing the atomic bombs that were put into service.
The first nuclear explosion scorched the desert at the Maralinga test site on September 27, 1956. A prototype of the free-fall atomic bomb, called the Red Beard in the British rainbow code, was detonated on a metal tower. The test itself was codenamed "Lonely Tree". The power of the explosion, according to the updated data, was 12.9 kt. The radioactive cloud formed as a result of the explosion rose to an altitude of more than 11,000 m. In addition to the south of Australia, an increase in the radioactive background was recorded in the eastern and northeastern regions.
Compared to the first British atomic bomb "Blue Danube", tested on September 27, the prototype of the "Red Beard" bomb was structurally much more perfect. The improved system of power supply, initialization and protection made it possible to get rid of the unreliable lead-acid batteries used in the Blue Danube. Instead of bulky barometric sensors, a radio altimeter was used, and a contact fuse was used as a backup. The implosive core was mixed and consisted of Plutonium-239 and Uranus-235. A charge of this type was considered safer and made it possible to more efficiently use fissile materials. The bomb was 3, 66 m long and weighed about 800 kg. There were two serial modifications of the bomb: Mk.1 - 15 kt and Mk.2 - 25 kt.
A fivefold decrease in mass compared to the first British atomic bomb, the Blue Danube, allowed the use of the Red Beard from tactical carriers. Tests carried out on September 27 confirmed the design's operability, but refinement and additional testing of the bomb continued until 1961.
By the mid-1950s, it became clear that the US leadership's stake on the "nuclear blackmail" of the USSR had not worked. The Soviet Union began to create a nuclear missile potential, which largely devalued American superiority in long-range bombers and nuclear bombs. In addition, in the event of a large-scale conflict, the Soviet Army had real chances to defeat NATO forces in Europe. In this regard, first the Americans, and then the British, attended to the creation of nuclear landmines, which were to be preemptively laid on the path of the movement of Soviet tank wedges.
To assess the effectiveness of a nuclear mine and destruction on the ground, produced with a small burial of the charge, on October 4, 1956, an explosion with a capacity of 1.4 kt was made in Maralinga, which received the code designation "Marko".
As a prototype of a nuclear land mine, the "stuffing" of the "Blue Danube" atomic bomb was used, which was produced in two versions: 12 and 40 kt. At the same time, the charge power was reduced by about 10 times in comparison with the 12 kt modification, but the explosion turned out to be very "dirty". After the explosion of the device, buried about 1 m and lined with concrete blocks, a crater with a diameter of about 40 m and a depth of 11 m was formed.
40 minutes after the explosion, dosimetrists in tanks lined with lead sheets moved to the smoking crater. Various military equipment was installed within a radius of 460 to 1200 m. Despite the very high level of radiation, a few hours after the nuclear test, the evacuation of the surviving equipment and its decontamination began.
The crater formed after the explosion in 1967 was filled up with radioactive debris collected in the area. At the burial site, a metal plate was installed with an inscription warning about the danger of radiation.
Nevertheless, the radioactive background in the immediate vicinity of the ground test site is still very different from its natural value. Apparently, this is due to the fact that the fission ratio of the plutonium-uranium charge was very low and the fissile materials were in contact with the ground.
Another "mushroom cloud" rose over the experimental field of Maralinga on October 11, 1956. As part of the Kite test, the Blue Danube atomic bomb was dropped from the Vickers Valiant B.1 bomber. This was the first real test drop of a British atomic bomb from a carrier aircraft.
As in the case of the Marco test, the British did not risk testing the Blue Danube bomb with a capacity of 40 kt for safety reasons, and the energy release of the charge was reduced to 3 kt. Unlike a ground explosion of lower power, the Kite nuclear test did not cause a large radiation contamination of the area in the vicinity of the test site. The cloud formed after the explosion rose to a great height and was blown away by the wind in the northwest direction.
The "hot" tests of nuclear weapons continued on October 22, 1956. A tactical atomic bomb "Red Beard" Mk.1 was detonated on a metal tower 34 m high during a test under the code designation "Detachment". At the same time, the charge power was reduced from 15 kt to 10 kt.
Test "Detachment" was the last in a series of explosions of the "Buffalo" program, the purpose of which was the practical development of atomic bombs, prior to their mass adoption. The next cycle of three nuclear tests, codenamed "Antlers", was intended to test new warheads and "nuclear lighters" used to initiate a thermonuclear reaction.
On September 14, 1957, a test was carried out known as the Taj. A charge with a TNT equivalent of 0.9 kt was detonated on a metal tower. Apparently, in the course of this experiment, the possibility of creating a miniature atomic warhead intended for use in portable backpack mines and in artillery shells was being worked out. However, the test was deemed unsuccessful. Cobalt granules were used as an "indicator" for assessing the neutron flux formed during the detonation of an implosive plutonium nucleus. Subsequently, critics of the British nuclear program, on the basis of this fact, announced the development of a "cobalt bomb", which is designed for long-term radiation contamination of the area.
On September 25, 1957, as part of the Biak test, the Indigo Hammer warhead was tested for use on Bloodhound anti-aircraft missiles and thermonuclear warheads as a primary reaction source. A 6 kt charge was traditionally detonated on a metal tower.
The latest "hot test", known as the Taranaki, was the most powerful in Maralinga. An implosive nuclear explosive device based on a plutonium-uranium core was developed to initiate a thermonuclear reaction in megaton warheads.
A charge with a capacity of 27 kt was suspended under a tethered balloon and detonated at an altitude of 300 m. Although in terms of energy release it surpassed all nuclear explosions carried out at the Maralinga test site before, the radiation contamination from the Taranaki test was relatively small. A few months later, when the short-lived radioactive isotopes decayed, the test site was deemed suitable for conducting tests designed to ensure the safety of nuclear warheads.
The active work of the Maralinga test site continued until 1963. The outbursts of nuclear explosions here no longer scorched the desert, but experiments with radioactive materials continued on the experimental field. So, before 1962, 321 tests were carried out, known collectively as the Times. In a series of experiments, Plutonium-239 was studied under explosive compression. Such tests were necessary to work out the optimal design of nuclear charges and detonation devices. The goal of 94 tests, known as Kittens, was to develop a neutron initiator that, when a nuclear charge was detonated, would dramatically increase the neutron yield, which in turn would increase the fraction of fissile material that entered the chain reaction. As part of Operation Rat in the period from 1956 to 1962, experts investigated the behavior of Uranus-235 during the initiation of a chain reaction. The Fox research program studied the behavior of the components of atomic bombs under conditions typical of a plane crash. To do this, simulators of serial and promising aviation nuclear munitions, containing an insufficient amount of fissile material for a chain reaction, but otherwise fully reproducing real products, were subjected to shock loads and placed in burning kerosene for several hours. In total, about 600 experiments with radioactive substances were carried out at the test site. During these experiments, hundreds of kilograms of Uranium-235, Uranium-238, Plutonium-239, Polonium-210, Actinium-227 and Beryllium got into the environment.
Only at the site used for the Taranaki test, 22 kg of plutonium were dispersed during the Fox tests. As a result, the area was contaminated many times more than after a nuclear explosion. Since as a result of wind erosion there was a real threat of the spread of radiation to other areas, the Australian authorities demanded that the danger be removed. The first attempt at eliminating the consequences of the test, known as Operation Brumby, was made by the British in 1967. Then it was possible to collect the most radiating debris and bury them in the crater formed after the explosion of "Marko".
About 830 tons of contaminated material, including 20 kilograms of plutonium, were buried in 21 pits at the Taranaki test site. Around the most radioactive areas of the terrain, mesh fences with warning signs have appeared. Attempts were also made to remove the soil in places most contaminated with plutonium, but due to difficult conditions, high radiation background and the need for large financial investments, the work could not be fully completed.
In the mid-1980s, the Australians surveyed the landfill and the surrounding areas. It turned out that the scale of radiation pollution is much greater than previously thought and the area is not suitable for habitation. In 1996, the Australian government allocated $ 108 million for a project to clean up the Maralinga nuclear test site. Some of the most hazardous waste previously buried in conventional pits was dug up and reburied in concrete wells sealed with massive steel covers. In order to prevent the spread of radioactive dust, a special electric furnace was installed at the test site, in which the radioactive soil removed from the surface was fused with glass. This made it possible to bury radioactive materials in uninsulated pits. In total, more than 350,000 m³ of soil, debris and debris were processed and buried in 11 pits. Officially, the bulk of the decontamination and reclamation work was completed in 2000.
In Australia, at the test sites of Monte Bello, Emu Field and Maralinga, a total of 12 nuclear charges were detonated. Although the power of the explosions was relatively small, after most of the atomic tests, a sharp increase in the radioactive background was recorded at a considerable distance from the test sites. A characteristic feature of British nuclear tests was the wide participation of large contingents of troops in them. Around 16,000 Australian civilians and military personnel and 22,000 British military personnel were involved in testing nuclear weapons.
The Australian aborigines became involuntary guinea pigs. British and Australian authorities have long denied a link between nuclear testing and high mortality among Aboriginal people, but studies have shown that the bones of local residents who roamed in areas adjacent to the test site are high in radioactive Strontium-90. In the mid-1990s, the Australian government nevertheless recognized the negative effects of radiation on aboriginal health and entered into an agreement with the Trjarutja tribe to pay compensation in the amount of $ 13.5 million.
In 2009, the land on which the landfill was located was officially transferred to the original owners. Since 2014, the territory of the former Maralinga nuclear test site, with the exception of nuclear burial grounds, has been open for free visits by everyone.
Currently, the owners of the land where the test site was located actively advertise "nuclear tourism". Tourists arrive mainly by small private jets. Restored buildings in the residential village and newly built campings are used to accommodate visitors. There is a museum that tells about the history of the landfill, and a new hotel is under construction. There is a water tower at the top of the hill.
When visiting the experimental field, where the tests were carried out directly, tourists are not recommended to collect souvenirs on their own. Pieces of "atomic glass" - sand sintered under the influence of high temperature, are offered as souvenirs for little money. Over the years that have passed since the tests, it has ceased to be radioactive and does not pose a danger.
