Civil Radar Observation Satellites for IAEA Safeguards

It is well recognized that both the U.S.A. and the former U.S.S.R. used some of their space assets in support of their strategic forces. A byproduct of this was the use of observation satellites for monitoring the compliance with the terms of their bilateral arms control treaties. Thus, monitoring from space formed a vital element of the U.S. and Russian national technical means of verification of their bilateral agreements. However, not all nations have access to such capabilities, even though they are parties to several important multilateral arms control treaties. Moreover, neither the U.S.A. nor Russia have been willing to share widely either the technology or the information obtained by their national technical means. This may give an impetus for the development of a multilateral technical means of verification. In this process, the commercial remotesensing satellites could play an important role.