There was once a nuclear reactor flying above our heads

Of course, this reactor had stopped working and fell from its orbit, though it did not cause any harm when returning to Earth.

The scary story about a nuclear reactor flying around the Earth

These are SNAP SNAP-10A nuclear reactors - Systems Nuclear Auxiliary Power (roughly translated as auxiliary nuclear power system) - developed under the supervision of the US Nuclear Energy Commission with the item The aim is to study living energy sources for the former stations.

SNAP-10A nuclear reactor and ATLAS Agena D.

The SNAP-10A was launched into space on April 3, 1965 from the Vandenberg Air Base, using ATLAS Agena D missiles . After reaching a height of 1300 km, the SNAP-10A is separated from the missile and moves around the Earth in its orbit and begins to generate electricity from nuclear energy with the expected capacity of 500 watts within a year.

Structure of SNAP-10A reactor.

However, after 43 days of operation, an electrical failure occurred that caused the SNAP-10A to suddenly reach a maximum power of 590 watts and become unstable. Immediately, the emergency system disabled the Plutonium-238 core to turn off the SNAP-10A and the experts calculated that if nothing happened, it would hover above 1300 km in 4000 years!

Even so, in November 1979, SNAP-10A suddenly deviated from its orbit and fell. The cause of this was attributed to collisions with another object, NASA and the US Army collected all the fragments of the SNAP-10A.

Since then, no one mentioned the idea of ​​bringing nuclear reactors to space because thinking about having an atomic bomb flying above our heads every day is scary .