Moruroa South Airport

Military Decommissioning. The airport's sole purpose was to support the French nuclear weapons testing program. With the conclusion of the tests and France's signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, the entire military base on Moruroa was decommissioned. This auxiliary airstrip was no longer needed and was abandoned as part of the site's demilitarization and remediation process.

The site is completely abandoned and derelict. Satellite imagery shows the runway is still visible but is unmaintained, heavily weathered, and partially overgrown with vegetation, rendering it unusable. The entire Moruroa Atoll is a restricted military zone under the guardianship of the French Ministry of Armed Forces. Access is strictly prohibited due to significant residual radiological contamination, particularly plutonium isotopes in the lagoon sediments and soil. The French government conducts periodic radiological and geomechanical surveillance missions on the atoll, but these use the maintained main airport (NTMR), not the abandoned southern strip.

Moruroa South Airport was a secondary, auxiliary airstrip on the southern rim of the atoll, distinct from the main Moruroa Airport (NTMR/MRR) on the northeastern side. Its significance is entirely tied to its role within the French nuclear testing program, which ran from 1966 to 1996. While the main airport handled large transport aircraft (like the DC-8 and C-160 Transall) bringing personnel and heavy equipment from outside the territory, this smaller southern strip likely handled light aircraft (e.g., Britten-Norman Islander) and helicopters. Its operations would have focused on intra-atoll logistics: transporting scientists, technicians, and specialized equipment between various monitoring stations and operational sites scattered across the atoll's motus (islets) in preparation for and analysis of the 193 nuclear tests conducted at Moruroa and the nearby Fangataufa atoll.

Zero. There are absolutely no plans or prospects for reopening this airport. The atoll is a permanent exclusion zone with no civilian population, no economic activity, and no foreseeable future use other than as a monitored post-nuclear test site. The long-term radioactive contamination makes the area unsafe for resettlement or any form of commercial or public development. The French state's commitment is to long-term monitoring, not redevelopment.