MIT researcher proposes a way to detect nuclear weapons in space | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Skip to content ↓
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Search websites, locations, and people
See More Results
Suggestions or feedback?
Enter keywords to search for news articles:
Submit
Browse By
Topics
View All →
Explore:
Machine learning
Sustainability
Startups
Black holes
Classes and programs
Departments
View All →
Explore:
Aeronautics and Astronautics
Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Architecture
Political Science
Mechanical Engineering
Centers, Labs, & Programs
View All →
Explore:
Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
Media Lab
Lincoln Laboratory
Schools
School of Architecture + Planning
School of Engineering
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Sloan School of Management
School of Science
MIT Schwarzman College of Computing
View all news coverage of MIT in the media →
Listen to audio content from MIT News →
Subscribe to MIT newsletter →
Close
Breadcrumb
MIT News
MIT researcher proposes a way to detect nuclear weapons in space
MIT researcher proposes a way to detect nuclear weapons in space
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty bans nuclear weapons in space, but there’s currently no way to verify that satellites aren’t carrying them.
Zach Winn<br>MIT News
Publication Date:
July 8, 2026
Press Inquiries
Press Contact:
Abby
Abazorius
Email:<br>abbya@mit.edu
Phone:<br>617-253-2709
MIT News Office
Media Download
↓ Download Image
Caption:
MIT Professor Areg Danagoulian is proposing a way to determine if a satellite contains a nuclear weapon.
Credits:
Credit: MIT News; iStock
*Terms of Use:
Images for download on the MIT News office website are made available to non-commercial entities, press and the general public under a<br>Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license.<br>You may not alter the images provided, other than to crop them to size. A credit line must be used when reproducing images; if one is not provided<br>below, credit the images to "MIT."
Close
Caption:
MIT Professor Areg Danagoulian is proposing a way to determine if a satellite contains a nuclear weapon.
Credits:
Credit: MIT News; iStock
Previous image<br>Next image
In 2024, a U.S. government official warned that Russia could be developing a new satellite designed to carry nuclear weapons into space. The statement followed the launch of a suspicious Russian satellite into low-Earth orbit in 2022, just a few weeks before the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.<br>A nuclear detonation in low-Earth orbit — the region about 100 miles to 1,200 miles above Earth’s surface — would release trillions of highly energetic electrons that would destroy many of the satellites in space, disrupting telecommunications networks, GPS, space-based internet, and more.<br>The 1967 Outer Space Treaty bans the placement of nuclear weapons in space, but there’s currently no way to verify satellites don’t contain nuclear weapons. In fact, no verification methods have even been proposed in unclassified, peer-reviewed literature.<br>Now, MIT Professor Areg Danagoulian is proposing a way to determine if a satellite orbiting Earth contains a nuclear weapon. In a new paper published in Nature, Danagoulian describes his idea for a satellite-based sensor system that could orbit close by a suspect satellite and detect neutrons generated by high-energy protons colliding with radioactive material.<br>In the paper, Danagoulian calculates that a sensor system the size of a large encyclopedia could detect a nuclear weapon with 99 percent accuracy if it orbited within 4,000 meters of the suspect satellite for about a week. He also estimates that the detection time could be cut to a matter of hours if multiple satellite sensors were used or the sensor satellite was able to get within 1,000 meters of the suspect satellite.<br>“If we eventually have some verification mechanisms for the Outer Space Treaty, that will put pressure on countries to respect the treaty or disclose what they are doing, because they know if they try to violate it, we will find out,” Danagoulian says. “I very much hope this will turn into a real system, or proof-of-concept system, but the goal right now is to get national labs to use this work for their own research, and to get policymakers to seriously consider this technology as a potential part of national technical means.”<br>Protecting space<br>In 1962, the U.S. detonated a 1.4-megaton thermonuclear warhead in space, which unintentionally destroyed many of the early satellites of the era. The blast released enormous volumes of highly energized electrons, and many became trapped in Earth’s magnetic field, where they damage any electronics in their path.<br>“When you have a nuclear detonation in outer space, basically the whole body of the bomb becomes ionized, and nearly every single electron in the weapon’s mass becomes free,”...