Project West Ford

At the height of the Cold War, all international communications were either sent through submarine communications cables or bounced off the natural ionosphere. The United States military was concerned that the Soviets might cut those cables, forcing the unpredictable ionosphere to be the only means of communication with overseas forces.[1]

To mitigate the potential threat, Walter E. Morrow started Project Needles at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1958. The goal of the project was to place a ring of 480,000,000[3][4] copper dipole antennas in orbit to facilitate global radio communication. The dipoles collectively provided passive support to Project Westford's parabolic dish (located at the Haystack Observatory in the town of Westford) to communicate with distant sites.

The needles used in the experiment were 1.78 centimetres (0.70 in) long and 25.4 micrometres (1.00 thou) [1961] or 17.8 micrometres (0.70 thou) [1963] in diameter.[5][6] The length was chosen because it was half the wavelength of the 8 GHz signal used in the study.[1] The needles were placed in medium Earth orbit at an altitude of between 3,500 and 3,800 kilometres (2,200–2,400 mi) at inclinations of 96 and 87 degrees.

Westford dipole dispenser exhibit at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

A first attempt was launched on 21 October 1961,[6] during which the needles failed to disperse. The project was eventually successful with the 9 May 1963[6] launch, with radio transmissions carried by the manufactured ring. However, the technology was ultimately shelved, partially due to the development of the modern communications satellite and partially due to protests from other scientists.[1][2]

British radio astronomers, optical astronomers, and the Royal Astronomical Society protested the experiment.[7][8][9] The Soviet newspaper Pravda also joined the protests under the headline "U.S.A. Dirties Space".[10] The International Academy of Astronautics regards the experiment as the worst deliberate release of space debris.[11]

At the time, the issue was raised in the United Nations where the then United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson defended the project.[12] Stevenson studied the published journal articles on Project West Ford. Using what he learned on the subject and citing the articles he had read, he successfully allayed the fears of most UN ambassadors from other countries. He and the articles explained that sunlight pressure would cause the dipoles to only remain in orbit for a short period of approximately three years. The international protest ultimately resulted in a consultation provision included in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.[1][7]

Although the dispersed needles in the second experiment removed themselves from orbit within a few years,[4] some of the dipoles that had not deployed correctly remained in clumps, contributing a small amount of the orbital debris tracked by NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office.[13][14] Their numbers have been diminishing over time as they occasionally re-enter. As of April 2023, 44 clumps of needles larger than 10 cm were still known to be in orbit.[15][1][16]