NucSat · Satellites and nuclear information. Production, communication and reception of nuclear-related information generated with satellites.

Satellites and nuclear information. Production, communication and reception of nuclear-related information generated with satellites.

The goal of the project was to understand how information about nuclear disasters is produced, analysed, rendered evident, disseminated and consumed from Earth-orbiting satellites, and how it contributes to frame public opinion. It aimed at clarifying the processes that transform satellite raw data into knowledge about nuclear accidents, focusing on Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011)*. Opening the black box of satellite data production, circulation and use has contributed to alert us to how knowledge from space is generated as it is transformed into information that is used to advance multiple intellectual, institutional and policy-related objectives. The investigation was structured around 2 research goals: 1) Analysing the chain of production and circulation of satellite-based information related to these accidents; 2) Analysing the impact of satellite-based information in framing public meanings of nuclear energy and its risks. The investigation reached the following conclusions: - Using SPOT’s data to communicate the Chernobyl meltdown was crucial to transform the accident from a nuclear to an environmental disaster. - Cold War secrecy dynamics between URSS and USA enabled French authorities to promote the satellite at the international community as an independent, neutral means of assessing what was happening at the nuclear plant. - Private media companies were central in disseminating Chernobyl’s SPOT data worldwide and in establishing a global market of environmental data for journalistic private benefit. - Commercial SPOT’s imagery prompted a debate on who had the right to access, interpret and reproduce satellite data: national intelligence, civilian technical experts, scientists, the media. - SPOT’s data barely contributed to the rise and consolidation of anti-nuclear movements in France. SPOT’s data success in being associated with environmental and not nuclear-related narratives, made it very difficult to be considered as nuclear-relevant. *The Covid situation had an important impact for research activities. I took the decision to focus only on the Chernobyl case study.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union