ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident, Detection and Monitoringthe Soviet Union. Over 20 million curies of radioactivematerial were lofted into the atmosphere by the Chernobylexplosion and ensuing fire. Some of this material sifteddown over nearby towns and countryside, while the restwas spread over Europe by winds, exposing 10 to 20million people to significant fallout. The number of deathscaused immediately by the accident was in the dozens, butthe number of deaths caused in the long term by radiationinducedcancer and other health damage will never beprecisely known. Although initially dismissed by expertsin the West as exaggerations, reports of 30-to-100-foldincreases in thyroid-cancer rates among children in Belarus,northern Ukraine, and parts of the Russian Federationhave recently been confirmed.Nevertheless, the accident could have been worse.Total ”meltdown,“ in which the molten uranium of theruined core would have coalesced into a single superheatedmass and melted its way down to the groundwater belowthe plant, causing a violent steam explosion and dispersingeven larger quantities of radioactive material, didnot occur.The role of satellite imagery. The Chernobyl accidentoccurred on April 26, 1986, but the Soviet government didnot acknowledge the event until April 28 and denied theextent of the disaster for some days thereafter. However,the West quickly had definite knowledge of the accident’soccurrence. Radiation was detected in Sweden the dayafter the explosion and was soon being monitored byaircraft equipped with radiation-detection devices, includingthe U.S. Air Force’s 55th Weather ReconnaissanceSquadron. Also, Soviet communications were monitoredby a geostationary U.S. military satellite called the Vortex,and both military and civilian Earth-imaging satelliteswere soon in position to image the site. Because of Sovietreluctance to admit observers or release videos, photographs,or accurate announcements about the accident,and because downwind radiation measurements couldgive no specific information about what was happening atChernobyl, much news attention in the West focused onthe satellite photographs.The United States’ KH-11 spy satellite provided highresolutionimages of Chernobyl to the U.S. government onthe afternoon of Tuesday, April 29th, three days after theinitial explosion. The KH-11, also known as the Keyholesatellite, was the latest in the KH series of spy satellitesthat the U.S. began launching in the 1960s, primarily tospy on military activity in the Soviet Union. The KH-11(whose capabilities were still secret in 1986) could resolvedetails on the ground down to 4–6 inches (10–15 cm)across. (It has since been replaced by the KH-12 satellite,with a resolution of 2.45 inches [6 cm].) U.S. officials were,therefore, soon as well informed about the Chernobylaccident as vertical views could make them. These imageswere not, however, released to the public; instead, theEncyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and SecurityU.S. government’s knowledge was filtered to the mediathrough announcements.The first civilian satellite to image the accident sitewas the United States’ LANDSAT, which follows a polarorbit 260 to 570 miles (420 to 912 km) high and takestelescopic pictures of the Earth as it passes beneath. Thefirst LANDSAT (for land-sensing satellite) was launchedby the U.S. in 1972, and a series of LANDSATs have beenlaunched as technology has improved. (The seventhLANDSAT in the series is in orbit as of 2003.) LANDSATimages first became available to TV news media on Wednesday,May 3, 1986, only one day after KH-11 imagesbecame available to the government. The resolution of theLANDSAT images was comparatively poor, however, beingon the order of tens of meters, rather than of centimeters.Nevertheless, they gave visual access to the layout ofthe reactor complex and cooling pond. Infrared LANDSATimaging showed both the fire in Unit No. 4 and the chillingof the pond, which indicated that the three remainingreactors in the complex had been shut down.Several days after the accident, a French satellitenamed SPOT (for System Probetoire d’Observation de laTerre) was able to provide higher-resolution images tonews media. These images were also seen throughoutEurope and the United States; on May 1, 1986, for example,ABC news broadcast SPOT infrared photos that showeda plume of hot air trailing from the reactor building.However, it is doubtful that these nonmilitary satelliteimages were of any substantive benefit. Despite warningsfrom professional photo interpreters, announcers on theCBS and NBC television networks announced that theLANDSAT images revealed two reactors on fire, a claimthat had to be retracted. Little actual news was derivedfrom the LANDSAT or SPOT images. They served tolessen the sense of mystery surrounding the Chernobyldisaster, but did not supply any specific information thatwas not already available from other sources. Theyconfirmed—but also, through misinterpretation by amateuranalysts, confused—reports already received fromofficial sources.The KH-11 satellite data, on the other hand, wereprobably of some utility. They at least gave U.S. officialsindependent information about the scope of the disaster.However, there was little the West could do with thisknowledge. The accident was inside Soviet territory andthe response to it was entirely a Soviet affair. Completecover-up of the event would have been impossible evenwithout spy-satellite imagery, due to the detection ofradiation downwind.Nevertheless, the role of satellite imaging during theChernobyl accident shows that large-scale disasters canno longer be denied, whether as a whole or in detail, bynational governments, given the imaging capabilities ofboth military and nonmilitary satellites. The basic story ofChernobyl, unlike that of the blowup at Chelyabinsk-65,was public property from the beginning.187