The massive slowdown in Russian arms development and production is being watched carefully. Among the “watchers” are intelligence specialists who analyze satellite photos at the National Photographic Interpretation Center at the Washington Navy Yard and at the nearby headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency.
Those photos and other information derived from U.S. spy satellites are the principal means of keeping track of Russian military activities. There certainly are other sources of military-industrial intelligence, but satellites tend to produce what are in many ways the most tangible intelligence—photographs.
Full details of the first U.S. spy satellite, which overflew the Soviet Union from 1960 to 1972, were revealed recently by the CIA.1 Known by the code name Corona, the system has been succeeded by even more effective satellites.
The concept of photographing the Soviet Union s military secrets came shortly after World War II. President Harry S Truman was greatly concerned about two aspects of intelligence collection. First, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had demonstrated that the United States needed an effective, modern attack warning capability. Second, the takeover of Eastern Europe by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin coupled with the traditional secrecy of Russia led Washington leaders to fear further Soviet aggression. In an effort to ascertain what was happening in the Soviet Union, the United States began flying aircraft along the country’s periphery, seeking out electronic signals, but overflights were needed to reveal what was happening inside the Soviet Union.
An early 1950s “overhead” system was camera-carrying balloons, which were launched from Western Europe, to be recovered in the western Pacific. Hundreds were launched; few—if any—were successful. More practical was the use of manned aircraft for overflights. Flights into Soviet Arctic areas were made by U.S. Air Force planes, flying mainly from Alaska. These flights were halted by President Truman when the Korean War began in June 1950.
But intelligence on interior Soviet targets was needed, and the British were asked to help. Apparently, the first deep-penetration flights over the Soviet Union were by Air Force RB-45 Tornado photo planes with British markings flown by British fliers. These were night flights, the first on 19-20 April 1952, with three RB-45 aircraft seeking to record radar targets for U.S. bombers. These flights were detected by the Soviets, who tried unsuccessfully to intercept them. A second British-piloted, three-plane RB-45 mission was flown the night of 29-30 April 1954. The British were then also asked to use their new Canberra aircraft to undertake a long-range photo mission over the missile test facility at Kapustan Yar, on the Volga River. That Canberra was damaged by antiaircraft gunfire, although the plane landed safely in Iran.2
But these flights were interim operations until the “ultimate” spy plane could be developed—the U-2, produced by the Lockheed “Skunk Works” under the aegis of the CIA. Work on the U-2 had begun about 1953. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had approved the production of 30 U-2 aircraft specifically to overfly Soviet territory at altitudes of some 70,000 feet, primarily to collect intelligence about bomber programs.
The first U-2 overflight mission was over Moscow on 4 July 1956. The following year a U-2 was reported to have looked down at the first Soviet ICBM on its launcher at Tyuratam, east of the Aral Sea. There were 24 U-2 overflights of the U.S.S.R. between 1956 and 1960, probably all tracked by Soviet radar. They came to an abrupt end on 1 May 1960, when a U-2B flown by CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down by an SA-2 surface-to-air missile over Sverdlovsk in central Russia.
The Powers’ flight occurred 14 days before the scheduled conference of major nation leaders in Paris. As a result of the incident, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev demanded an apology at the conference from President Eisenhower, causing the collapse of the meeting and a worsening of U.S.-Soviet relations. After this incident U-2s were not used over the Soviet Union, but they continued to be flown over areas of the world of interest to the United States and its allies.3
Loss of the U-2 prevented the follow-on spy planes—the A-12 Oxcart and SR-71 Blackbird—from being used over the Soviet Union, but both were used extensively over other areas.
The successor to the U-2 as an overhead system was Corona. When the first U-2 began flying over the Soviet Union the plane was anticipated to have an operational life of only a year or two, based on expected Soviet political pressure for the United States to stop such flights. (Although the Soviets did file a protest within days of the first U-2 flight, U.S. leaders decided to continue the flights as long as possible because of their great intelligence value.)
In 1956, the U.S. Air Force began development of Weapon System (WS) 1 I7L, a strategic reconnaissance satellite, as successor to the U-2.4 The concept had its origins in a 1946 study by the Rand Corp. into the feasibility of orbiting artificial satellites. Developments in ballistic missiles (to boost a satellite into orbit), long-range cameras, and techniques for aircraft to snatch film canisters being parachuted down from satellites led to the Corona program. The final decision to produce Corona was made eight weeks after the Soviets orbited Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite, on 4 October 1957.
The first version of Corona had the Keyhole or KH-1 camera system. Beginning in February 1959 and extending through June 1960, an even dozen launches were attempted, with eight satellites carrying cameras. All were failures and no film canisters were retrieved from orbit.
Learning from these failures, the Air Force-CIA-industry team intensified its efforts. Finally, on 18 August 1960, the 13th Corona satellite was orbited and successfully photographed portions of the Soviet Union. The film canister was snatched with its parachute by an Air Force plane the following day. That one mission provided more photographic coverage—3,000 feet of film showing 1.6 million square miles of Soviet territory—than all 24 U-2 spy plane missions over the Soviet Union.
Under the code name Talent Keyhole, the 1960 target list for photographs of the Soviet Union was: (1) strategic/ballistic missiles, (2) heavy bombers, and (3) nuclear energy activities, principally Soviet ICBM deployments. The list was expanded as more satellites and improved cameras and film became available, permitting satellites to carry out multiday missions. The photos became invaluable in U.S. strategic assessments and planning, as well as technical evaluations of Soviet ships, aircraft, and other combat systems; production and transportation capabilities; and myriad other aspects of military activity.
From August 1963 on, many of the Corona satellites had a piggyback ferret package installed. This equipment could collect electronic signals emitted by Soviet radars. The information collected was beamed to U.S. listening posts. Thus, the satellites were valuable even after their film was exhausted.
The final Corona mission was flown in May 1972. A total of 101 successful or partially successful KH missions were flown; 25 missions failed. (A partially successful mission could be where one of two cameras failed or where only one of two film canisters was recovered.) The final Corona series, the KH-4B had a mission life of 19 days and carried 32,000 feet of film, parachuted to earth in two packets.
The principal Corona targets were in the Soviet Union, but China also was extensively covered, as were portions of Southwest Asia and the Middle East. A few flights photographed areas of the United States, for calibration purposes.
In one of his first public statements after being appointed Director of Central Intelligence, Dr. John M. Deutch hailed the Corona system as an example of an effective decision-making process by government, of industry-government cooperation, and the significance of intelligence collection.5 Corona, he noted, “profoundly altered the course of the Cold War.”
Today, more advanced satellites than the Corona series, with multiple sensors and supplemented by a variety of reconnaissance planes, are carrying out worldwide reconnaissance. These systems are a key to future U.S. military effectiveness.
1 The first Corona spy photographs were unveiled by Vice President Albert Gore on 24 February 1995 at CIA headquarters; extensive details were revealed at an unclassified CIA conference on 23-24 May 1995 in Washington, D.C. A considerable amount of material on the Corona Project previously was published by Jeffrey T. Richelson and William E. Burrows.
2 The Canberra was procured by the U.S. Air Force as the B-57, which was used for a number of missions, including strategic reconnaissance.
3 Several U-2s were transferred to Nationalist China (Taiwan), which flew reconnaissance flights over mainland China.
4 This history is based on Kenneth E. Greer, “CORONA, The first photographic reconnaissance satellite,” Studies in Intelligence, Supplement 17 (Spring 1973), pp. 1-37. This is a CIA publication.
5 J. M. Deutch, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 23 May 1995.