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On January 27, 1951, the first atmospheric nuclear test was detonated at the NTS, code-named “Able.” A total of 100 atmospheric tests were conducted at the NTS until July 1962. All atmospheric testing was banned on August 5, 1963, when the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed in Moscow, giving birth to the age of underground testing.
The first atmospheric test was conducted at the site's Frenchman Flat area by the United States Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) on January 27, 1951. About 928 nuclear tests were conducted here through 1994, when the United States stopped its underground nuclear testing.
Between 1951 and 1962, 126 atmospheric tests of atomic weapons were conducted within the Test Site's boundaries. Subsidence craters from underground nuclear testing. In 2010, the NTS is renamed the Nevada National Security Site.
Nevada Test Site (NTS), nuclear testing site operated by the U.S. Department of Energy and located in Nye County, Nevada, that saw a total of 928 nuclear explosive tests between January 1951 and September 1992. The site—containing 28 areas in total—is located 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Las.
- Justin Kautz
Date Established: 1950.
Nuclear Testing. On January 27, 1951, nuclear testing at the NTS officially began with the detonation of Shot Able, a 1-kiloton bomb, as part of Operation Ranger. Between 1951 and 1992, the U.S. government conducted a total of 928 nuclear tests here. Out of these tests 100 were atmospheric, and 828 were underground.
The site was chosen for weapons testing in December 1950 by President Harry S. Truman and originally named the Nevada Proving Ground. The first test of a nuclear weapon was carried out at the site in January 1951 when a B-50 bomber dropped a bomb for the first of five tests in "Operation Ranger."
