Mission type | Imagery intelligence | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Operator | National Reconnaissance Office | ||||||
Spacecraft properties | |||||||
Manufacturer |
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Launch mass | 4100 kg (on orbit) | ||||||
Dimensions | 14.75 m × 1.52 m (48.4 ft × 5.0 ft) | ||||||
Start of mission | |||||||
Rocket | Titan III | ||||||
Launch site | Vandenberg Air Force Base, SLC-4E | ||||||
Contractor | Martin Marietta | ||||||
Orbital parameters | |||||||
Reference system | Sun-synchronous orbit | ||||||
Regime | Low Earth orbit | ||||||
Perigee altitude | 135 km (84 mi) | ||||||
Apogee altitude | 305 km (190 mi) | ||||||
Inclination | 110.5° | ||||||
Main telescope | |||||||
Type | Aspheric reflector with five-element Ross corrector | ||||||
Diameter | 1.1 m (3 ft 7 in) | ||||||
Focal length | 4.46 m (14.6 ft) | ||||||
Focal ratio | f/4.09 | ||||||
Wavelengths | visible light, Near-infrared | ||||||
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The KH-8 (BYEMAN codename Gambit-3) [1] was a long-lived series of reconnaissance satellites of the "Key Hole" (KH) series used by the United States from July 1966 to April 1984, [2] and also known as Low Altitude Surveillance Platform. [3] The satellite ejected "film-bucket" canisters of photographic film that were retrieved as they descended through the atmosphere by parachute. Ground resolution of the mature satellite system was better than 4 inches (0.10 m). [4] There were 54 launch attempts of the 3,000 kilogram satellites, all from Vandenberg Air Force Base, on variants of the Titan III rocket. Three launches failed to achieve orbit. The first one was satellite #5 on April 26, 1967, which fell into the Pacific Ocean after the Titan second stage developed low thrust. The second was satellite #35 on May 20, 1972, which suffered an Agena pneumatic regulator failure and reentered the atmosphere. A few months later, pieces of the satellite turned up in England and the US managed to arrange for their hasty return. The third failure was satellite #39 on June 26, 1973, which suffered a stuck Agena fuel valve. The Bell 8096 engine failed to start and the satellite burned up in the atmosphere. The KH-8 was manufactured by Lockheed. The camera system/satellite was manufactured by Eastman Kodak's A&O Division in Rochester, New York.
The Gambit codename was also used by the satellite's predecessor, the KH-7 Gambit.
Gambit 3 satellites were the same width as the Gambit 1 models, but also slightly longer – reaching about 29 feet (8.8 m) in length. They carried 12,241 feet (3,731 meters) of film and were designed for longer missions of up to 31 days. [5]
While Gambit was primarily designed and operated as a surveillance satellite, capturing high definition images of specific targets at low orbital altitudes, a single Gambit Block 3 mission was operated in 'dual-mode', orbiting first at a higher altitude to capture wide-area search imagery before lowering its perigee to capture normal surveillance imagery. The first film return capsule failed to separate correctly due to a new pyro mechanism failing to perform correctly. The contingency release mechanism separated the film bucket and parachute from its return capsule, and left the film bucket stranded in orbit. In September 2002, the film bucket re-entered over the South Atlantic into deep water. As the film bucket lacked its protective heatshield or the parachute needed to slow its descent, no attempt was made to recover it. [6]
The Camera Optics Module of KH-8 consists of four cameras.
The main camera of KH-8B (introduced in 1971) with a focal length of 175.6 in (4.46 m) is a single strip camera, designed to gather high-resolution images of ground targets. In the strip camera the ground image is reflected by a steerable flat mirror to a 1.21 m (48 in) diameter stationary concave primary mirror. The primary mirror reflects the light through an opening in the flat mirror and through a Ross corrector. At periapsis altitude of 75 nautical miles (139 km), the main camera imaged a 6.3 km wide ground swath on a 8.811 in (223.8 mm) wide moving portion of film through a small slit aperture, resulting in an image scale of 28 meter / millimeter. [7] [8] The Astro-Position Terrain Camera (APTC) contains three cameras: a 75mm focal length terrain frame camera, and two 90mm focal length stellar cameras. The terrain frame camera takes exposures of Earth in direction of the vehicle roll position for attitude determination. The stellar cameras observed in 180 degree opposite directions and took images of star fields. [7]
The films used by GAMBIT were provided by Eastman Kodak, and evolved through a series of successively higher definition films, starting with Type 3404 with a resolving power of 50 to 100 line pairs per mm. [9] Subsequent films used were Type 1414 high-definition film, SO-217 high-definition fine-grain film, and a series of films with silver-halide crystals of very uniform size and shape. The size of silver-halide crystals decreased from 1,550 angstrom in film Type SO-315, to 1,200 angstrom in SO-312, and ultimately to 900 angstrom in SO-409. [4] Under optimal conditions GAMBIT would thus have been able to record ground features as small as 0.28 to 0.56 m (0.92 to 1.84 ft) using the Eastman Kodak Type 3404 film. Using a film with a resolving power equivalent to the Kodak's Type 3409 film of 320 to 630 line pairs per mm, GAMBIT would have been able to record ground features as small as 5 cm to 10 cm (2" to 4"). [10] The initial September 2011 release of "The Gambit Story" quotes "The mature system produced examples of imagery better than four inches ground-resolution distance". This number was again redacted in a later release. [4] Five to ten centimeters corresponds to the resolution limit imposed by atmospheric turbulence as derived by Fried [11] and, independently, Evvard [12] in the mid-1960s; remarkably, GAMBIT had reached a physical limit on resolution only a few years after the US launched its first reconnaissance satellite. GAMBIT was also able to record objects in orbit. The capability was developed to photograph Soviet spacecraft, but was first used to aid NASA engineers designing repairs for the damaged Skylab space station in 1973. [13] [14]
Name | Block [15] | Launch Date | Alt. Name | NSSDC ID No. | Launch Vehicle | Orbit | Decay date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
KH8-1 | I | 1966-07-29 | OPS-3014 | 1966-069A | Titan IIIB | 158.0 km × 250.0 km, i=94.1° | 1966-08-06 [16] |
KH8-2 | I | 1966-09-28 | OPS-4096 | 1966-086A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-3 | I | 1966-12-14 | OPS-8968 | 1966-113A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-4 | I | 1967-02-24 | OPS-4204 | 1967-016A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-5 | I | 1967-04-26 | OPS-4243 | 1967-F04, 1967-003X | Titan IIIB | no stable orbit | 1967-04-26 |
KH8-6 | I | 1967-06-20 | OPS-4282 | 1967-064A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-7 | I | 1967-08-16 | OPS-4886 | 1967-079A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-8 | I | 1967-09-19 | OPS-4941 | 1967-090A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-9 | I | 1967-10-25 | OPS-4995 | 1967-103A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-10 | I | 1967-12-05 | OPS-5000 | 1967-121A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-11 | I | 1968-01-18 | OPS-5028 | 1968-005A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-12 | I | 1968-03-13 | OPS-5057 | 1968-018A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-13 | I | 1968-04-17 | OPS-5105 | 1968-031A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-14 | I | 1968-06-05 | OPS-5138 | 1968-047A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-15 | I | 1968-08-06 | OPS-5187 | 1968-064A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-16 | I | 1968-09-10 | OPS-5247 | 1968-074A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-17 | I | 1968-11-06 | OPS-5296 | 1968-099A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-18 | I | 1968-12-04 | OPS-6518 | 1968-108A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-19 | I | 1969-01-22 | OPS-7585 | 1969-007A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-20 | I | 1969-03-04 | OPS-4248 | 1969-019A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-21 | I | 1969-04-15 | OPS-5310 | 1969-039A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-22 | I | 1969-06-03 | OPS-1077 | 1969-050A | Titan IIIB | ||
KH8-23 | II | 1969-08-23 | OPS-7807 | 1969-074A | Titan 23B | ||
KH8-24 | II | 1969-10-24 | OPS-8455 | 1969-095A | Titan 23B | ||
KH8-25 | II | 1970-01-14 | OPS-6531 | 1970-002A | Titan 23B | ||
KH8-26 | II | 1970-04-15 | OPS-2863 | 1970-031A | Titan 23B | ||
KH8-27 | II | 1970-06-25 | OPS-6820 | 1970-048A | Titan 23B | ||
KH8-28 | II | 1970-08-18 | OPS-7874 | 1970-061A | Titan 23B | ||
KH8-29 | II | 1970-10-23 | OPS-7568 | 1970-090A | Titan 23B | ||
KH8-30 | II | 1971-01-21 | OPS-7776 | 1971-005A | Titan 23B | 139.0 km × 418.0 km, i=110.8° | 1971-02-09 [17] |
KH8-31 | II | 1971-04-22 | OPS-7899 | 1971-033A | Titan 23B | 132.0 km × 401.0 km, i=110.9° | 1971-05-13 [18] |
KH8-32 | II | 1971-08-12 | OPS-8607 | 1971-070A | Titan 24B | 137.0 km × 424.0 km, i=111.0° | 1971-09-03 [19] |
KH8-33 | II | 1971-10-23 | OPS-7616 | 1971-092A | Titan 24B | 134.0 km × 416.0 km, i=110.9° | 1971-11-17 [20] |
KH8-34 | II | 1972-03-17 | OPS-1678 | 1972-016A | Titan 24B | 131.0 km × 409.0 km, i=111.0° | 1972-04-11 [21] |
KH8-35 | II | 1972-05-20 | OPS-6574 | 1972-F03 | Titan 24B | failed to reach orbit | |
KH8-36 | II | 1972-09-01 | OPS-8888 | 1972-068A | Titan 24B | 140.0 km × 380.0 km, i=110.5° | 1972-09-30 [22] |
KH8-37 | III | 1972-12-21 | OPS-3978 | 1972-103A | Titan 24B | 139.0 km × 378.0 km, i=110.5° | 1973-01-23 [23] |
KH8-38 | III | 1973-05-16 | OPS-2093 | 1973-028A | Titan 24B | 139.0 km × 399.0 km, i=110.5° | 1973-06-13 [24] |
KH8-39 | III | 1973-06-26 | OPS-4018 | 1973-F04 | Titan 24B | failed to reach orbit | (mix-up with KH8-38 in NSSDC) |
KH8-40 | III | 1973-09-27 | OPS-6275 | 1973-068A | Titan 24B | 131.0 km × 385.0 km, i=110.5° | 1973-10-29 [25] |
KH8-41 | III | 1974-02-13 | OPS-6889 | 1974-007A | Titan 24B | 134.0 km × 393.0 km, i=110.4° | 1974-03-17 [26] |
KH8-42 | III | 1974-06-06 | OPS-1776 | 1974-042A | Titan 24B | 136.0 km × 394.0 km, i=110.5° | 1974-07-24 [27] |
KH8-43 | III | 1974-08-14 | OPS-3004 | 1974-065A | Titan 24B | 135.0 km × 402.0 km, i=110.5° | 1974-09-29 [28] |
KH8-44 | III | 1975-04-18 | OPS-4883 | 1975-032A | Titan 24B | 134.0 km × 401.0 km, i=110.5° | 1975-06-05 [29] |
KH8-45 | III | 1975-10-09 | OPS-5499 | 1975-098A | Titan 24B | 125.0 km × 356.0 km, i=96.4° | 1975-11-30 [30] |
KH8-46 | III | 1976-03-22 | OPS-7600 | 1976-027A | Titan 24B | 125.0 km × 347.0 km, i=96.4° | 1976-05-18 [31] |
KH8-47 | III | 1976-09-15 | OPS-8533 | 1976-094A | Titan 24B | 135.0 km × 330.0 km, i=96.4° | 1976-11-05 [32] |
KH8-48 | IV | 1977-03-13 | OPS-4915 | 1977-019A | Titan 24B | 124.0 km × 348.0 km, i=96.4° | 1977-05-26 [33] |
KH8-49 | IV | 1977-09-23 | OPS-7471 | 1977-094A | Titan 24B | 125.0 km × 352.0 km, i=96.5° | 1977-12-08 [34] |
KH8-50 | IV | 1979-05-28 | OPS-7164 | 1979-044A | Titan 24B | 124.0 km × 305.0 km, i=96.4° | 1979-08-26 [35] |
KH8-51 | IV | 1981-02-28 | OPS-1166 | 1981-019A | Titan 24B | 138.0 km × 336.0 km, i=96.4° | 1981-06-20 [36] |
KH8-52 | IV | 1982-01-21 | OPS-2849 | 1982-006A | Titan 24B | 630.0 km × 641.0 km, i=97.4° | 1982-05-23 [37] |
KH8-53 | IV | 1983-04-15 | OPS-2925 | 1983-032A | Titan 24B | 124.0 km × 254.0 km, i=96.5° | 1983-08-21 [38] |
KH8-54 | IV | 1984-04-17 | OPS-8424 | 1984-039A | Titan 24B | 127.0 km × 235.0 km, i=96.4° | 1984-08-13 [39] |
(NSSDC ID Numbers: See COSPAR)
In May 1973 Gambit KH8-38 was used to observe the crippled Skylab space station, as part of the preparation for repairing it by the Skylab 2 mission. [14]
The total cost of the 54 flight KH-8 program from FY1964 to FY1985, without non-recurring costs, was US$2.3 billion in respective year dollars. [15]
The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five uncrewed lunar orbiter missions launched by the United States from 1966 through 1967. Intended to help select Apollo landing sites by mapping the Moon's surface, they provided the first photographs from lunar orbit and photographed both the Moon and Earth.
Imagery intelligence (IMINT), pronounced as either as Im-Int or I-Mint, is an intelligence gathering discipline wherein imagery is analyzed to identify information of intelligence value. Imagery used for defense intelligence purposes is generally collected via satellite imagery or aerial photography.
The Corona program was a series of American strategic reconnaissance satellites produced and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Directorate of Science & Technology with substantial assistance from the U.S. Air Force. The CORONA satellites were used for photographic surveillance of the Soviet Union (USSR), China, and other areas beginning in June 1959 and ending in May 1972.
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is a member of the United States Intelligence Community and an agency of the United States Department of Defense which designs, builds, launches, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the U.S. federal government, and provides satellite intelligence to several government agencies, particularly signals intelligence (SIGINT) to the NSA, imagery intelligence (IMINT) to the NGA, and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) to the DIA. The NRO announced in 2023 that it plans within the following decade to quadruple the number of satellites it operates and increase the number of signals and images it delivers by a factor of ten.
KH-5 ARGON was a series of reconnaissance satellites produced by the United States from February 1961 to August 1964. The KH-5 operated similarly to the CORONA series of satellites, as it ejected a canister of photographic film. At least 12 missions were attempted, but at least 7 resulted in failure. The satellite was manufactured by Lockheed. Launches used Thor-Agena launch vehicles flying from Vandenberg Air Force Base, with the payload being integrated into the Agena.
BYEMAN codenamed LANYARD, the KH-6 was the unsuccessful first attempt to develop and deploy a very high-resolution optical reconnaissance satellite by the United States National Reconnaissance Office. Launches and launch attempts spanned the period from March to July 1963. The project was quickly put together to get imagery of a site near Leningrad suspected of having anti-ballistic missiles. The satellite carried Itek's "E-5" camera developed for the SAMOS program, which had been cancelled. The camera had a focal length of 1.67 m and could discern objects on the ground 1.8 m in size. The ground swath of the camera was 14 km × 74 km. The satellite weighed 1,500 kg (3,300 lb), and had a single re-entry vehicle in which exposed film was returned to earth for a mid-air aircraft recovery. The KH-6 was manufactured by Lockheed Martin and launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Thor-Agena D launch vehicles.
BYEMAN codenamed GAMBIT, the KH-7 was a reconnaissance satellite used by the United States from July 1963 to June 1967. Like the older CORONA system, it acquired imagery intelligence by taking photographs and returning the undeveloped film to earth. It achieved a typical ground-resolution of 0.61 m to 0.91 m. Though most of the imagery from the KH-7 satellites was declassified in 2002, details of the satellite program remained classified until 2011.
The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) was part of the United States Air Force (USAF) human spaceflight program in the 1960s. The project was developed from early USAF concepts of crewed space stations as reconnaissance satellites, and was a successor to the canceled Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar military reconnaissance space plane. Plans for the MOL evolved into a single-use laboratory, for which crews would be launched on 30-day missions, and return to Earth using a Gemini B spacecraft derived from NASA's Gemini spacecraft and launched with the laboratory.
The KH-11 KENNEN is a type of reconnaissance satellite first launched by the American National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in December 1976. Manufactured by Lockheed in Sunnyvale, California, the KH-11 was the first American spy satellite to use electro-optical digital imaging, and so offer real-time optical observations.
The SAMOS or SAMOS-E program was a relatively short-lived series of reconnaissance satellites for the United States in the early 1960s, also used as a cover for the initial development of the KH-7 GAMBIT system. Reconnaissance was performed with film cameras and television surveillance from polar low Earth orbits with film canister returns and transmittals over the United States. SAMOS was first launched in 1960 from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Satellite images are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell images by licensing them to governments and businesses such as Apple Maps and Google Maps.
Lockheed Martin Space is one of the four major business divisions of Lockheed Martin. It has its headquarters in Littleton, Colorado, with additional sites in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; Sunnyvale, California; Santa Cruz, California; Huntsville, Alabama; and elsewhere in the United States and United Kingdom. The division currently employs about 20,000 people, and its most notable products are commercial and military satellites, space probes, missile defense systems, NASA's Orion spacecraft, and the Space Shuttle external tank.
KH-9, commonly known as Big Bird or KeyHole-9, was a series of photographic reconnaissance satellites launched by the United States between 1971 and 1986. Of twenty launch attempts by the National Reconnaissance Office, all but one were successful. Photographic film aboard the KH-9 was sent back to Earth in recoverable film return capsules for processing and interpretation. The highest ground resolution achieved by the main cameras of the satellite was 2 ft (0.61 m), though another source says "images in the "better-than-one-foot" category" for the last "Gambit" missions.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit. Data collected by LRO have been described as essential for planning NASA's future human and robotic missions to the Moon. Its detailed mapping program is identifying safe landing sites, locating potential resources on the Moon, characterizing the radiation environment, and demonstrating new technologies.
Discoverer 11, also known as Corona 9008, was an American optical reconnaissance satellite launched on 15 Apr 1960 at 20:30:37 GMT. The eighth of ten operational flights of the Corona KH-1 spy satellite series, it successfully employed the first space-worthy camera film; however, Discoverer's film return capsule was lost during reentry on 16 Apr when the satellite's spin motors exploded.
Discoverer 17, also known as Corona 9012, was an American optical reconnaissance satellite launched on 12 November 1960 at 20:38:00 GMT. It was the second of ten Corona KH-2 satellites, based on the Agena-B.
Discoverer 18, also known as Corona 9013, was an American optical reconnaissance satellite launched on 7 December 1960 at 20:24:00 GMT. It was the first successful, and the third of ten total Corona KH-2 satellites, based on the Agena-B.
UPWARD was the code name, within the National Reconnaissance Office's Byeman Control System, for assistance given to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Apollo program. The camera designed to survey the lunar surface was a modification of the GAMBIT design and utilized a 1.5-inch (38 mm) focal length camera for a terrain mapping apparatus. This camera system was present on both the CORONA and GAMBIT survey systems.
Discoverer 8, also known as Corona 9005, was an American optical reconnaissance satellite launched on 20 November 1959 at 19:25:24 GMT, the fifth of ten operational flights of the Corona KH-1 spy satellite series. Overburn by the carrier rocket placed the satellite in a higher apogee, more eccentric orbit than planned, the camera failed to operate, and the film return capsule was lost on reentry after separation from the main satellite on 21 November.