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<p>The Ministry of Defence maintains a Defence Nuclear Emergency Organisation (NEO)
to respond in the unlikely event of an emergency involving the transport of defence
nuclear materials. The NEO organises regular exercises to test the effectiveness of
its emergency response planning and arrangements. These include the Astral series
of exercises, which are designed to be challenging, and thus simulate the extremely
unlikely event of a release of radioactive material from the transport containers.
No radioactive materials are used or released to the environment during the exercises.
The specific exercise objectives do not require assessments or estimates of decontamination,
environmental or other post-incident decontamination costs or of radiological dose
uptakes. The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) undertook the modelling for each Astral
exercise between February 2011 and November 2012.</p><p>I am withholding information
about the physical state, mass quantity, release fraction and total released radioactivity
assumed for these exercises as disclosure would or would be likely to prejudice national
security.</p>
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