Original vintage Cold War-era 1964 Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc (TRW) Space Technology Laboratories advertisement for its nuclear explosion detection space satellites, "Nuclear Vigil...Since October 1963, a nuclear space patrol has protected the Free World from clandestine atomic tests.  Two pair of Nuclear Detection Satellites, built for Air Force-ARPA by TRW Space Technology Laboratories, keep vigil 60,000 miles out from earth.  They can 'see' and report any nuclear explosions within 10 million miles."
 
Dimensions: Approx. 8 inches wide by 11 inches high. 
 
The U.S. Air Force’s Nuclear Explosion Detection System
Vela was the name of a group of reconnaissance satellites developed as the Vela Hotel element of Project Vela by the United States to detect nuclear detonations and monitor Soviet Union compliance with the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty.  Find an in-depth article on the Vela system written by Los Alamos National Laboratory, "Cold War Watchmen," here.
 
Vela started out as a small budget research program in 1959.  It ended 26 years later as a successful, cost-effective military space system, which also provided scientific data on natural sources of space radiation.  In the 1970s, the nuclear detection mission was taken over by the Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites, and subsequently in the late 1980s, it was augmented by the Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites.  The program is now called the Integrated Operational NuDet (Nuclear Detonation) Detection System (IONDS).
 
12 satellites were built, six of the Vela Hotel design and six of the Advanced Vela design.  The Vela Hotel series was to detect nuclear tests in space, while the Advanced Vela series was to detect not only nuclear explosions in space but also in the atmosphere.
 
All spacecraft were manufactured by TRW and launched in pairs, either on an Atlas-Agena or Titan III-C boosters.  They were placed in orbits of 118,000 km (73,000 miles) to avoid particle radiation trapped in the Van Allen radiation belts.  Their apogee was about one-third of the distance to the Moon.
 
The first Vela Hotel pair was launched on 17 October 1963, one week after the Partial Test Ban Treaty went into effect, and the last in 1965.  They had a design life of six months, but were only actually shut down after five years.  Advanced Vela pairs were launched in 1967, 1969, and 1970, and had a nominal design life of 18 months, later changed to seven years.  The last satellite to be shut down was Vehicle 9 in 1984, after nearly 15 years in orbit.
 
The Vela series began with the launch of Vela 1A and 1B on 17 October 1963, a flight also marking the maiden voyage of the Atlas-Agena SLV-3 vehicle.  The second pair of satellites launched in 1964, and the third in 1965.
 
Subsequent Vela satellites were switched to the Titan IIIC booster due to their increased weight and complexity.  Three more sets were launched in 1967, 1969, and 1970.  The last pair of Vela satellites operated until 1985, when they were finally shut down; the Air Force claimed them to be the world's longest operating satellites.  They remained in orbit until their orbits decayed at the end of 1992.
 
The “Vela” Incident and “Bell Island Boom”
Some controversy still surrounds the Vela program.  On 22 September 1979. the Vela 5B satellite (also known as Vela 10 and IRON 6911) detected the characteristic double flash of an atmospheric nuclear explosion near the Prince Edward Islands.  Still unsatisfactorily explained, this event has become known as the Vela Incident.
 
President Jimmy Carter initially deemed the event to be evidence of a joint Israeli and South African nuclear test, though the now-declassified report of a scientific panel he subsequently appointed while seeking reelection concluded that it was probably not the event of a nuclear explosion. In 2018, a new study confirmed that it is highly likely that it was a nuclear test, conducted by Israel. An alternative explanation involves a magnetospheric event affecting the instruments.
 
TRW Inc.
TRW Inc., or Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc., was an American corporation involved in a variety of businesses, mainly aerospace, electronics, automotive, and credit reporting.  The company was founded in 1901 and lasted for just over a century until being acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2002.
 
TRW Inc. was active in the development of American missile systems and spacecraft, most notably, the early development of the ICBM program under the leadership of the Teapot Committee led by John von Neumann.  TRW also pioneered systems engineering, creating the ubiquitous N2 chart and the modern functional flow block diagram.  It served as the primary source of systems engineering for the United States Air Force ballistic missile programs.
 
TRW spawned a variety of corporations, including Pacific Semiconductors, The Aerospace Corporation, Bunker-Ramo and Experian.  TRW was instrumental in the development of American spacecraft during the Space Race, including Pioneer 1, Pioneer 10, and Apollo. TRW also played a significant role in the defense industry, leading the development of the United States' first ICBM and later the Titan missile. The corporation was listed as #57 on the 1986 Fortune 500 list, and had 122,258 employees in 2000.
 
In the late 1980s, TRW experienced a significant turndown in its defense operations following the end of the Cold War as defense spending leveled off, but continued to maintain a stable stance in the market.  In February 2002, Northrop Grumman launched a $5.9 billion hostile bid for TRW. Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, and General Dynamics all contended for the company with Northrop's increased bid of $7.8 billion, which was ultimately accepted on July 1, 2002.
 
Soon afterward, the automotive assets of LucasVarity and TRW's automotive group were sold to The Blackstone Group as TRW Automotive.  The TRW headquarters building was demolished in 2023.  
 
TRW in the Media
Christopher John Boyce was a TRW employee convicted of selling security secrets to the Soviet Union in Mexico City in the mid-1970s.  Boyce and his accomplice, Andrew Daulton Lee, were the subjects of the best-selling 1979 Robert Lindsey book "The Falcon and the Snowman," and the 1985 film of the same title.
 
In Hollywood, representatives from TRW’s Space Technology Laboratories (STL) present their ICBM expertise to Don and Pete in Mad Men Season 2 episode "The Jet Set."  Meanwhile, in Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 episode "Operation -- Annihilate!" (13 April 1967) was filmed on the then-TRW campus (now Northrop Grumman's Space Park) in Redondo Beach, California.  The two sets of stairs shown are those leading to the cafeteria of TRW’s Building S.  William Shatner had previously filmed at the TRW campus for the Outer Limits episode "Cold Hands, Warm Heart."  
 
Finally, the TRW building is supposedly one of the credit company buildings demolished in the 1999 film Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.  However, there is no TRW building in Delaware, where the demolition purportedly happens.