Abstract
Beginning with the Teak nuclear test in 1958, Los Alamos has a long history of participation in active experiments in space. The last pertinent nuclear tests were the five explosions as part of the Dominic series in 1962. The Partial Test Ban Treaty signed in August 1963 prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground. Beginning with the “Apple” thermite barium release in June 1968 Los Alamos has participated in nearly 100 non-nuclear experiments in space, the last being the NASA-sponsored “AA-2” strontium and europium doped barium thermite releases in the Arecibo beam in July of 1992. The rationale for these experiments ranged from studying basic plasma processes such as gradient- driven structuring and velocity-space instabilities to illuminating the convection of plasmas in the ionosphere and polar cap to ionospheric depletion experiments to the B.E.A.R. 1-MeV neutral particle beam test in 1989. This report reviews the objectives, techniques and diagnostics of Los Alamos participation in active experiments in space.
Highlights
A request to give a talk at the “Active Experiments in Space: Past, Present and Future” conference in Santa Fe in September 2017 motivated the research behind this report
At Los Alamos active experiments have been somewhat of a stepchild to all the wonderful discoveries made by LANL satellites beginning with the VELA satellites
When we learned that Jim Heppner from Goddard Space Flight Center planned the CAMEO (Chemically Active Materials Ejected from Orbit) releases we suggested that we could track the barium from the lower forty-eight
Summary
Received: 24 September 2018 Accepted: 30 November 2018 Published: 18 December 2018. Alamos Participation in Active Experiments in Space. Los Alamos has a long history of participation in active experiments in space beginning with the Teak nuclear test in 1958. Los Alamos has participated in nearly 100 non-nuclear experiments in space, the last being the NASA-sponsored strontium and europium doped barium thermite releases in the Arecibo beam in July of 1992. The rationale for these experiments ranged from studying basic plasma processes such as gradient- driven structuring and velocity-space instabilities to illuminating the convection of plasmas in the ionosphere and polar cap to ionospheric depletion experiments to the B.E.A.R. 1-MeV neutral particle beam (NPB) test in 1989.
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