Cosmos 954 was a Soviet Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite (RORSAT) with an onboard nuclear reactor. The satellite's reactor core failed to separate and boost into a nuclear-safe orbit, and instead remained onboard in an orbit that decayed until the satellite reentered Earth's atmosphere on January 24, 1978. The satellite crashed in the Northwest Territories, Canada, spreading its radioactive fuel on a path from Great Slave Lake to Baker Lake. In an attempt to recover radioactive material, a search was conducted covering a total of .

Subsequent recovery efforts, named Operation Morning Light, by a joint American-Canadian team swept the area by foot and air until the spring ice breakup in April made further searches impractical. They were ultimately able to recover 12 larger pieces of the satellite. These pieces displayed radioactivity of up to 1.1 sieverts per hour, yet they only comprised an estimated 1% of the fuel. For these recovery efforts, the Canadian Government billed the Soviet Union $6,041,174.70 for actual expenses and additional compensation for future unpredicted expenses; the U.S.S.R. eventually paid the sum of three million Canadian dollars.

External links

• Radiation Geophysics - Operation Morning Light - A personal account A detailed first-hand account of recovering pieces of Cosmos 954; includes pictures.
• Settlement of Claim between Canada and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for Damage Caused by "Cosmos 954" (Released on April 2, 1981)
• Gus W. Weiss "Life and death of Cosmos 954". Studies in Intelligence
• 1978 Cosmos 954 and Operation Morning Light

See also

Liability Convention, regarding impacting artificial satellites