Golden Dome, President Donald Trump’s proposed U.S. missile defense shield, is built around the idea that thousands of satellites could detect, track and help defeat ballistic missiles before they land on United States soil. But what if the first missile launched in a conflict was never intended to hit the ground at all? What if its purpose was simply to detonate in orbit, and that detonation was nuclear?
Could a single nuclear explosion in space gravely damage the satellite infrastructure Golden Dome depends on, and, in doing so, create a dangerous temptation for adversaries looking to exploit a perceived weakness in America’s missile defense architecture? The U.S. has already carried out a test that revealed what high-altitude nuclear detonations can do to space assets—and the results were sobering. In July 1962, the U.S. detonated a 1.4-megaton nuclear device about 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean in a test known as Starfish Prime.
The explosion was part of a broader series of Cold War nuclear experiments designed to understand the effects of high-altitude detonations, and the results surprised even many of the scientists involved. The blast generated a powerful electromagnetic pulse that disrupted electrical systems in Hawaii nearly 900 miles away. Streetlights failed; communications systems malfunctioned.
But the more lasting effects were felt in space, rather than on the ground. The explosion released enormous quantities of high-energy electrons into Earth’s magnetic field. Those charged particles became trapped along magnetic field lines and formed an artificial radiation belt around the planet.
Satellites passing through those regions encountered radiation levels far beyond what their electronics had been designed to withstand, and in the months that followed, several failed. Telstar-1, one of the world’s earliest communications satellites, suffered severe radiation damage; Ariel-1, the United Kingdom’s first satellite, also failed prematurely. The performance of others was substantially reduced or their working lives cut short.
Western armed forces depend on satellites for precision targeting, surveillance, command and control, and missile warning. That is why these concerns about Golden Dome matter. A nuclear detonation in low earth orbit could expose these vital satellites to intense radiation across large regions of space.
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