The_Info_Web/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Air Force Technical Applications Center.md

tags	category	summary	start	location	relations
Organization Military USA	U.S. Government	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.	1959	Patrick Air Force Base, Cape Canaveral, Florida	type with role start end fn participant_in VELA Satellite conducted the readout of Vela 6911 1979-09-21 1979-09-21 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 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

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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. ↩︎