Cosmos 954

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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 January 24, 1978. The satellite crashed near the Great Slave Lake (in the Northwest Territories, Canada), spreading its radioactive fuel over a 124,000 km² (48,000 mile²) area.

Subsequent recovery efforts (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 $15 million, the U.S.S.R. paid less than half of that amount.