The Sky Was Falling

The Sky Was Falling Launched August 1982. Soviet radar-ocean reconnaissance, powered by a uranium-235 reactor. The core was supposed to eject into a high orbit. It didn't. For months, the world tracked Cosmos 1402 falling. On January 23, 1983, the main body burned over the Indian Ocean. The reactor itself re-entered weeks later, dispersing about 110 pounds of enriched uranium into the stratosphere.