---
tags:
  - Organization
  - Military
  - USA
category: "U.S. Government"
summary: "The Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) is a unit of the United States Air Force responsible for operating and maintaining a global network of sensors to detect nuclear explosions."
start: 1959
location: "Patrick Air Force Base, Cape Canaveral, Florida"
relations:
  - type: participant_in
    with: "[[VELA Satellite]]"
    role: "conducted the readout of Vela 6911"
    start: 1979-09-21
    end: 1979-09-21
    fn: 1
---
The Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) is a unit of the [[United States]] Air Force responsible for operating and maintaining a global network of sensors to detect nuclear explosions. On the evening of September 21, 1979, AFTAC technicians conducted a routine readout of the [[VELA Satellite|Vela satellite]] designated Vela 6911, launched May 23, 1969, at Patrick Air Force Base in [[Cape Canaveral]], [[Florida]]. The readout showed a double-humped signal of the kind associated with a nuclear explosion, from a region the satellite's bhangmeters viewed across the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans.[^1] [[Seymour Hersh]] wrote that this event was probable evidence of a nuclear explosion.[^2]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Richelson, Jeffrey T., ed., "The Vela Incident: Nuclear Test or Meteoroid?" National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 190, May 5, 2006, narrative. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/index.htm
[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 20.