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38-479: Known locally as " Black Mountains " due to its brownish landscape , it is expanded between the township of Rabwah and the metropolitan city of Sargodha . The highest peak of the Kirana Hills are measured at the 1,050 ft (320 m) with average peaks at highest peak is about 600 feet (180 m). The Kirana Hills is a series of bedrock hills that were named after a small village that once resided before

76-469: A dark grayish brown, with a yellowish cast. Bistre has also been used to name colors resembling the pigment, typically shades of brown . The first recorded use of bistre as a color name in English was in 1727; another name for the color bistre is soot brown . Among other colors, bistre is the name of a very dark shade of grayish brown (the version shown on the immediate right). At right

114-471: Is displayed the color bistre brown , a medium brownish tone of the color bistre , also known as soot brown . This is the tone of bistre that most closely matches the color sample in the 1930 book A Dictionary of Color by Maerz and Paul. This tone of bistre is the color of the ink that was used by the Old Masters for their drawings. The normalized color coordinates for bistre brown are identical to

152-526: Is in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa . The Pakistani government released a tender for the remediation works at the Kirana Hills opened the parts of the site for public tourism in 1995. The Pakistan Air Force Radar Station for monitoring the airspace of Pakistan is still active with its unit Sq-No. 4091. In spite of its clean-up, the Kirana Base is still in commissioned as a principle nuclear installation site for

190-438: Is quickly overtaken by the expanding atmospheric shock wave composed of ionised gas. Although it emits a considerable amount of light itself it is opaque and prevents the far brighter fireball from shining through. As the shock wave expands, it cools down becoming more transparent allowing the much hotter and brighter fireball to become visible again. No single natural phenomenon is known to produce this signature, although there

228-677: The Ministry of Defense (MoD) acquired the Kirana Hills as a defense site for the Pakistan Air Force . The Pakistan Air Force established a radar station with the commissioning of the No. 4091 Squadron at the Kirana Hills, which is still in commission at the Kirana Hills. The Kirana Hills forms a larger part of the Mushaf Air Force Base in Sargodha, which falls into its area of command. In 1978–79,

266-580: The Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers acquired the range for the possible test sites and began its boring operations for the tunnels measuring 100 to 150 feet (30 to 46 m) in length, as a potential for nuclear test sites. According to Pakistani admissions, there have been forty-six short tunnels that were bored, with Special Development Works (SDW) constructing the two horizontal and three vertical underground line of sight sites to withheld 24–40 kilotonnes of TNT (100–170 TJ) of energy blast from

304-514: The Vela Hotel element of Project Vela by the United States to detect nuclear detonations and monitor Soviet Union compliance with the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty . Vela started out as a small budget research program in 1959. It ended 26 years later as a successful, cost-effective military space system, which also provided scientific data on natural sources of space radiation. In the 1970s,

342-602: The Air Force claimed them to be the world's longest operating satellites. They remained in orbit until their orbits decayed at the end of 1992. The original Vela satellites were equipped with 12 external X-ray detectors and 18 internal neutron and gamma-ray detectors. They were equipped with solar panels generating 90 watts. The Advanced Vela satellites were additionally equipped with two non-imaging silicon photodiode sensors called bhangmeters which monitored light levels over sub-millisecond intervals. They could determine

380-468: The American detection from its satellites fixated on the region. The army engineers also worked on relocating the wildlife, specifically the wild boars , to stay out of the weapon-testing tunnels before the diagnosticians housed the tunnels. The tunnels at the Kirana Hills are composed of multiple cables , line-of-sight screen boxes, oscillators, computers, and other diagnostics equipments were installed by

418-493: The Kirana Hills is known to be a steppe with heavy grassland besides the Rocky Mountains. The Pakistan Meteorological Department reported its weather conditions to be extreme with the highest have been recorded to 50 °C (122 °F) in the summer while the minimum temperature recorded is as low as freezing point 0 °C (32 °F) in the winter. Its environs are heavily infested with wild boars . In 1970,

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456-509: The Pakistan Air Force, according to the Indian intelligence analysts. Bistre This is an accepted version of this page Bistre (or bister ) is a pigment made from soot . Historically, beechwood was burned to produce the soot, which was boiled and diluted with water. Many Old Masters used bistre as the ink for their wash paintings . Bistre's appearance is generally of

494-545: The Pakistani scientific investigations, the rocks are mainly hardened shales and slates with minor amount of quartzites which contained with layers of hematite , thin bands of rhyolites , tuff and diabase . In 1970s, the Geological Survey of Pakistan conducted a survey to find uranium ores and began the mining of uranium after its geologists confirmed the deposits of uranium ores at the Kirana Hills. The landform of

532-579: The Vela program. On 22 September 1979 the Vela 5B satellite (also known as Vela 10 and IRON 6911 ) detected the characteristic double flash of an atmospheric nuclear explosion near the Prince Edward Islands . Still unsatisfactorily explained, this event has become known as the Vela incident . President Jimmy Carter initially deemed the event to be evidence of a joint Israeli and South African nuclear test , though

570-611: The color bistre. Spanish bistre is the color that is called bistre (the Spanish word for "bistre" is the same as the English word) in the Guía de coloraciones ( Guide to colorations ) by Rosa Gallego and Juan Carlos Sanz, a color dictionary published in 2005 that is widely popular in the Hispanophone realm. Vela satellites Vela was the name of a group of satellites developed as

608-561: The color names drab , sand dune , and mode beige , which were first recorded as color names in English, respectively, in 1686, 1925, and 1928. At right is displayed the color French bistre , which is the tone of bistre called bistre in the Pourpre.com color list, a color list widely popular in France . For pictures of bistre colored postage stamps , see the French Misplaced Pages article on

646-399: The existence of gamma-ray bursts , now recognised as the most violent events in the universe. The scintillation X-ray detector (XC) aboard Vela 5A and its twin Vela 5B consisted of two 1 mm thick NaI(Tl) crystals mounted on photomultiplier tubes and covered by a 0.13 mm thick beryllium window. Electronic thresholds provided two energy channels, 3–12 keV and 6–12 keV. In addition to

684-514: The last satellite to be shut down was Vehicle 9 in 1984, which had been launched in 1969 and had lasted nearly 15 years. The Vela series began with the launch of Vela 1A and 1B on 17 October 1963, a flight also marking the maiden voyage of the Atlas-Agena SLV-3 vehicle. The second pair of satellites launched on 17 July 1964, and the third on 20 July 1965. The last launch miscarried slightly when one Atlas vernier engine shut down at liftoff, while

722-415: The location of a nuclear explosion to within about 3,000 miles. Atmospheric nuclear explosions produce a unique signature, often called a "double-humped curve": a short and intense flash lasting around 1 millisecond, followed by a second much more prolonged and less intense emission of light taking a fraction of a second to several seconds to build up. The effect occurs because the surface of the early fireball

760-527: The matter particularly urgent, the team at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory , led by Ray Klebesadel , filed the data away for investigation. As additional Vela satellites were launched with better instruments, the Los Alamos team continued to find inexplicable gamma-ray bursts in their data. By analyzing the different arrival times of the bursts as detected by different satellites, the team

798-431: The national laboratories' diagnostics teams. First diagnostics test on a working nuclear weapon device was reportedly designed in vintage style, which had the push-button to create an electronic circuit. The push-button mechanism, however, was replaced with laser activation system after the error was discovered during the trigger testing. The HMX and PBX explosives were prepared for number of subcritical experiments by

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836-454: The now-declassified report of a scientific panel he subsequently appointed while seeking reelection concluded that it was probably not the event of a nuclear explosion. In 2018, a new study confirmed that it is highly likely that it was a nuclear test, conducted by Israel. An alternative explanation involves a magnetospheric event affecting the instruments. An earlier incident occurred when an intense solar storm on 4 August 1972 triggered

874-742: The nuclear detection mission was taken over by the Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites. In the late 1980s, it was augmented by the Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. The program is now called the Integrated Operational NuDet (Nuclear Detonation) Detection System ( IONDS ). Twelve satellites were built, six of the Vela Hotel design and six of the Advanced Vela design. The Vela Hotel series

912-550: The nuclear explosive devices at the Kirana base to validate the viability of the nuclear weapons before conducting nuclear testing. The subcritical physics experiments proved crucial in understanding and preparing the physical package to evolved into a weapon pits to be delivered by the Pakistan Air Force's combat aircraft stationed at the Sargodha Air Force Base. Boring and tunnel operations were carried out at night to avoid

950-687: The nuclear weapons. At one of its tunnels the Chinese M-11 missiles were once housed before the United States Intelligence found out, and moved the missiles for further testings at an unknown locations by the Air Force. The Kirana-I was the codename for the 24 subcritical physical experiments on nuclear weapon designs that took place under the leadership of the Pakistan Air Force with the Pakistan's national defense laboratories between 1983–95. The first subcritical experiment on physics package

988-594: The other vernier operated at above-normal thrust levels. This resulted in a slightly lower than normal inclination for the satellites, however the mission was carried out successfully. The problem was traced to a malfunction of the vernier LOX poppet valve. Subsequent Vela satellites were switched to the Titan IIIC booster due to their increased weight and complexity. Three more sets were launched on 28 April 1967, 23 May 1969, and 8 April 1970. The last pair of Vela satellites operated until 1985, when they were finally shut down;

1026-685: The previous Vela 5 satellites, the Vela 6 nuclear test detection satellites were part of a program run jointly by the Advanced Research Projects of the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, managed by the U.S. Air Force. The twin spacecraft, Vela 6A and 6B, were launched on 8 April 1970. Data from the Vela 6 satellites were used to look for correlations between gamma-ray bursts and X-ray events. At least two good candidates were found, GB720514 and GB740723. The X-ray detectors failed on Vela 6B on 27 January 1972 and on Vela 6A on 12 March 1972. Some controversy still surrounds

1064-680: The rest of its parent mountains ranges; the rocks are noticeably black in formation . The highest peak at the Kirana Hills is measured exactly at 1,050 ft (320 m) by the British surveyors from the level of the plain in 1913. The average height in the Kirana Hills are recorded at 600 ft (180 m) by the Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) in their studies of hydrology reports in 1967. The Kirana Hills are expanded and scattered over an area of about 100 sq mi (260 km) and about 12 mi (19 km) in length. According to

1102-564: The villagers moved to the township of Rabwah (now Chanab Nagar) and the planned city of Sargodha . The Kirana Hills is an extensive rocky mountain range located in the Sargodha District , and about 80 mi (130 km) in distance from the Salt Range . In 1913, the British geologists conducted extensive investigations on the rock formations in the Kirana Hills, which are different from

1140-571: The weapon-testing laboratories. This first subcritical physics experiment was carried out on 11 March 1983. In 1995, the Pakistan Air Force took over the host responsibilities for the nation's military nuclear weapons program. With the Clinton administration continuously monitoring the region, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) moved the subcritical experiments to unknown location in Kala Chitta Range , which

1178-476: The x-ray Nova announcement indicated above the XC Detector aboard Vela 5A and 5B also discovered and announced the first X-ray burst ever reported. The announcement of this discovery predated the initial announcement of the discovery of gamma-ray bursts by 2 years. In front of each crystal was a slat collimator providing a full width at half maximum (FWHM) aperture of c. 6.1 × 6.1 degrees. The effective detector area

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1216-404: Was able to determine rough estimates for the sky positions of sixteen bursts and definitively rule out a terrestrial or solar origin. Contrary to popular belief, the data was never classified. After thorough analysis, the findings were published in 1973 as an Astrophysical Journal article entitled "Observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts of Cosmic Origin". This alerted the astronomical community to

1254-538: Was about one-third of the distance to the Moon . The first Vela Hotel pair was launched on 17 October 1963, one week after the Partial Test Ban Treaty went into effect, and the last in 1965. They had a design life of six months, but were only actually shut down after five years. Advanced Vela pairs were launched in 1967, 1969, and 1970. They had a nominal design life of 18 months, later changed to seven years. However,

1292-476: Was c. 26 cm . The detectors scanned a great circle every 60 seconds, and covered the whole sky every 56 hours. Sensitivity to celestial sources was severely limited by the high intrinsic detector background, equivalent to about 80% of the signal from the Crab Nebula , one of the brightest sources in the sky at these wavelengths. The Vela 5B satellite X-ray detector remained functional for over ten years. Like

1330-469: Was carried out on 11 March 1983 but the subcritical experiments are not true full-scale nuclear weapon testing. The Pakistan Institution of Nuclear Science & Technology (Pinstech), Metallurgical Laboratories (ML), and the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) conducted various investigations and studies on dynamical properties of materials, radiation effects, and secondary weapon assessments for

1368-409: Was required for these instruments, and these larger satellites consumed 120 watts generated from solar panels. Serendipitously , the Vela satellites were the first devices ever to detect cosmic gamma ray bursts . On 2 July 1967, at 14:19 UTC, the Vela 4 and Vela 3 satellites detected a flash of gamma radiation unlike any known nuclear weapons signature. Uncertain what had happened but not considering

1406-509: Was speculation that the Velas could record exceptionally rare natural double events, such as a meteoroid strike on the spacecraft that produces a bright flash or triggering on a lightning superbolt in the Earth's atmosphere, as may have occurred in the Vela incident . They were also equipped with sensors which could detect the electromagnetic pulse from an atmospheric explosion. Additional power

1444-472: Was to detect nuclear tests in space, while the Advanced Vela series was to detect not only nuclear explosions in space but also in the atmosphere. All spacecraft were manufactured by TRW and launched in pairs, either on an Atlas – Agena or Titan III -C boosters. They were placed in orbits of 118,000 km (73,000 miles) to avoid particle radiation trapped in the Van Allen radiation belts . Their apogee

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