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88-794: Following the launch of Corona satellites in the 1960s, the US National Foreign Intelligence Program determined that there was a need for calibration under the Controlled Range Network. Working with the Arizona Real Estate Office, the US Army Map Service was directed to lease land for office space in Casa Grande, Arizona . Land was leased in 100-by-100-foot (30 by 30 m) parcels, with access to

176-464: A polyester -based film stock that was more durable in Earth orbit. The amount of film carried by the satellites varied over time. Initially, each satellite carried 8,000 ft (2,400 m) of film for each camera, for a total of 16,000 ft (4,900 m) of film. But a reduction in the thickness of the film stock allowed more film to be carried. In the fifth generation, the amount of film carried

264-618: A 189 km (117 mi) altitude. The Air Force designated this mission number 4001. Aerospace Corporation recommended that, during GAMBIT's first flights, the Orbital Control Vehicle (OCV) should remain attached to the Agena. This was a proven successful process for other Agena tests; and whereas the OCV was not. This decision limited GAMBIT's functionality, meaning that photographs could only be taken of targets directly below

352-477: A 24 in (610 mm) focal length camera. Manufactured by Eastman Kodak , the film was initially 0.0003 in (7.6 μm) thick, with a resolution of 170 lines per mm (0.04 inch) of film. The contrast was 2-to-1. (By comparison, the best aerial photography film produced in World War II could produce just 50 lines per mm (1250 per inch) of film). The acetate -based film was later replaced with

440-399: A 70° arc perpendicular to the direction of the orbit. A panoramic lens was chosen because it could obtain a wider image. Although the best resolution was only obtained in the center of the image, this could be overcome by having the camera sweep automatically ("reciprocate") back and forth across 70° of arc. The lens on the camera was constantly rotating, to counteract the blurring effect of

528-543: A battery explosion. GAMBIT 4019 did not return any imagery either. Eventually, it was determined that the culprit was an extra structure added to the SLC-4W umbilical tower that sent resonant vibration through the Atlas-Agena stack at liftoff, jarring random components in the booster and/or spacecraft loose. The KH-7 GAMBIT was an overall success, even with some failures; thus providing National Reconnaissance Office and

616-524: A biological package (four black mice in this case) failed to achieve orbit when its Agena crashed into the Pacific Ocean . The pressure to orbit a photographic surveillance satellite to succeed the Lockheed U-2 was so great that operational, camera-equipped KH-1 launches began 25 June 1959 with the (unsuccessful) launching of Discoverer 4 , despite there not having been a successful test of

704-457: A cleaner internal environment. Although improvements were made to reduce the corona, the final solution was to load the film canisters with a full load of film and then feed the unexposed film through the camera onto the take-up reel with no exposure. This unexposed film was then processed and inspected for corona. If none was found or the corona observed was within acceptable levels, the canisters were certified for use and loaded with fresh film for

792-594: A higher orbit, and lengthen the mission time even if low perigees were used. For use during unexpected crises, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) kept a CORONA in "R-7" status, meaning ready for launch in seven days. By the summer of 1965, NRO was able to maintain CORONA for launch within one day. Nine of the KH-4A and KH-4B missions included ELINT subsatellites, which were launched into

880-578: A higher orbit. Some P-11 reconnaissance satellites were launched from KH-4A. At least two launches of Discoverer were used to test satellites for the Missile Defense Alarm System (MIDAS), an early missile-launch-detection program that used infrared cameras to detect the heat signature of launch vehicles launching to orbit. The last launch under the Discoverer cover name was Discoverer 38 on 26 February 1962. Its bucket

968-558: A launch mission. CORONA satellites were allegedly calibrated using the calibration targets located outside of Casa Grande, Arizona . The targets consisted of concrete arrows located in and to the south of the city, and may have helped to calibrate the cameras of the satellites. These claims about the purpose of the targets, perpetuated by online forums and featured in National Geographic and NPR articles, have since been disputed, with aerial photogrammetry proposed as

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1056-542: A missing experimental CORONA satellite capsule ( Discoverer 2 ) that inadvertently landed near Spitzbergen on 13 April 1959. While Soviet agents may have recovered the vehicle, it is more likely that the capsule landed in water and sank. KH-7 Gambit BYEMAN codenamed GAMBIT , the KH-7 ( Air Force Program 206 ) was a reconnaissance satellite used by the United States from July 1963 to June 1967. Like

1144-446: A monkey passenger. Many test monkeys were lost during ground tests of the capsule's life support system. The Discoverer cover proved to be cumbersome, inviting scrutiny from the scientific community. Discoverer 37 , launched 13 January 1962, was the last CORONA mission to bear the Discoverer name. Subsequent CORONA missions were simply classified as "Department of Defense satellite launches". The first series of CORONA satellites were

1232-410: A more likely purpose for them. Film was retrieved from orbit via a reentry capsule (nicknamed "film bucket"), designed by General Electric , which separated from the satellite and fell to Earth . After the fierce heat of reentry was over, the heat shield surrounding the vehicle was jettisoned at 60,000 ft (18 km) and parachutes deployed. The capsule was intended to be caught in mid-air by

1320-481: A passing airplane towing an airborne claw which would then winch it aboard, or it could land at sea. A salt plug in the base would dissolve after two days, allowing the capsule to sink if it was not picked up by the United States Navy . After Reuters reported on a reentry vehicle's accidental landing and discovery by Venezuelan farmers in mid-1964, capsules were no longer labeled "SECRET" but offered

1408-733: A recommendation by the Lewis Spaceflight Center in Cleveland, Ohio that Atlas and Agena switch to one standard configuration for both NASA and Air Force launches, with uniform testing and checkout procedures, as well as improved materials and fabrication processes for the various hardware components in the boosters. The Agena D, a standardized Agena B, arrived first, with the uprated Atlas SLV-3 taking another year to fly. The first eight GAMBIT flown still used custom-modified Atlas D ICBM cores, with GAMBIT 4010 in August 1964 being

1496-523: A result of Executive order 12951, the same order which declassified CORONA , and copies of the films were transferred to the U.S. Geological Survey 's Earth Resources Observation Systems office. Approximately 100 frames covering the state of Israel remain classified. In early 1964, the CIA toyed with the idea of using GAMBIT to photograph military installations in Cuba , but this was dismissed as unworkable as

1584-406: A reward in eight languages for aerial footage return to the United States . Beginning with flight number 69, a two-capsule system was employed. This also allowed the satellite to go into passive (or "zombie") mode, shutting down for as many as 21 days before taking images again. Beginning in 1963, another improvement was "Lifeboat", a battery-powered system that allowed for ejection and recovery of

1672-403: A road. Large concrete Maltese crosses in the ground, each 60 feet (18 m) in width, were in place by 1967. The crosses were arranged in a 16-by-16-mile (26 by 26 km) grid. The cross-shaped patterns were used to calibrate aerial photography equipment for aircraft. The Corona satellite program used a different "tri-bar" calibration pattern. The majority of the targets were abandoned when

1760-454: A single General Electric Satellite Return Vehicle (SRV). The SRV was equipped with a small onboard solid-fuel retro motor to deorbit the payload at the end of the mission. Recovery of the capsule was done in mid-air by a specially equipped aircraft. There were three camera-less test launches in the first half of 1959, none of them entirely successful. Discoverer 1 was a test vehicle carrying no SRV nor camera. Launched on 28 February 1959, it

1848-428: A small slit aperture. The initial ground resolution of the satellite was 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in), but improved to 0.6 m (2 ft 0 in) by 1966. Each satellite weighed about 2,000 kg (4,400 lb), and returned a single film bucket per mission. The camera and film transport system were manufactured by Eastman Kodak Company . The index camera is a copy of cameras systems previously used in

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1936-428: A stellar camera, and an index camera. In the strip camera the ground image is reflected by a steerable flat mirror to a 1.21 m (4 ft 0 in) diameter stationary concave primary mirror. The primary mirror reflects the light through an opening in the flat mirror and through a Ross corrector . It took images of a 6.3° wide ground swath by exposing a 22 cm (8.7 in) wide moving portion of film through

2024-825: A team of scientists from the Australian National University to locate and explore ancient habitation sites, pottery factories, megalithic tombs, and Palaeolithic archaeological remains in northern Syria . Similarly, scientists at Harvard have used the imagery to identify prehistoric traveling routes in Mesopotamia . The U.S. Geological Survey hosts more than 860,000 images of the Earth’s surface from between 1960 and 1972 from CORONA, ARGON, and LANYARD programs. The 1963 thriller novel Ice Station Zebra and its 1968 film adaptation were inspired, in part, by news accounts from 17 April 1959, about

2112-491: Is credited with having significantly improved the success rate of the program. It was noted that the GAMBIT flights through the first half of 1964 had been mostly successful, but a string of malfunctions occurred starting in the second half of the year and continuing through the first half of 1965. These included the two above-mentioned launch failures plus GAMBIT 4013 which did not return any imagery and GAMBIT 4014 which suffered

2200-728: The Itek Corporation . A 12 in (30 cm), f/5 triplet lens was designed for the cameras. Each lens was 7 in (18 cm) in diameter. They were quite similar to the Tessar lenses developed in Germany by Carl Zeiss AG . The cameras themselves were initially 5 ft (1.5 m) long, but later extended to 9 ft (2.7 m) in length. Beginning with the KH-4 satellites, these lenses were replaced with Petzval f/3.5 lens. The lenses were panoramic, and moved through

2288-713: The Palo Alto plant of the Hiller Helicopter Corporation for the production. At this facility, the rocket's second stage Agena, the cameras, film cassettes, and re-entry capsule were assembled and tested before shipment to Vandenberg Air Force Base . In 1969, assembly duties were relocated to the Lockheed facilities in Sunnyvale, California . (The NRO was worried that, as CORONA was phased out, skilled technicians worried about their jobs would quit

2376-779: The 1960s: the Orbital (or Orbiting) Control Vehicle (OCV), the Data Collection Module (DCM), and the Recovery Section (RS). For the KH-7, the DCM is also called the Camera Optics Module (COM), and is integrated in the OCV, which has a length of 5.5 m (18 ft) and a diameter of 1.52 m (5 ft 0 in). The Camera Optics Module of KH-7 consists of three cameras: a single strip camera,

2464-488: The Agena did an unexplained roll during the boost phase. Even with OCV system problems, the film canister was able to return some imagery. A variety of problems occurred with many of the remaining missions including poor or no imagery. Many of these difficulties were caused by the unreliable wire recording system carried by the GAMBITs (tape recorders were not yet in widespread use in the mid-1960s). Two satellites ended up in

2552-413: The Agena propulsion system shut down. Examination of factory records for the Agena found that a pair of metal screws from a little-used terminal connector had broken off and disappeared to parts unknown; it was speculated that they landed somewhere as to cause a short. Telemetry data indicated otherwise entirely normal performance of all Agena systems. The other failure was 4020, launched on 12 July 1965 when

2640-731: The Air Force and ARPA spent a combined sum of US$ 132.3 million in FY1959 (inflation adjusted US$ 1.38 billion in 2024) and US$ 101.2 million in FY1960 (inflation adjusted US$ 1.04 billion in 2024). According to John N. McMahon , the total cost of the CORONA program amounted to $ US850 million. The procurement and maintenance of the CORONA satellites were managed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which used cover arrangements lasting from April 1958 to 1969 to get access to

2728-560: The Atlas programmer accidentally issued simultaneous SECO and BECO commands, the resultant propulsion system shutdown sending the launch vehicle into the Pacific Ocean some 1,090 km (680 mi) downrange. The latter was the first flight witnessed by newly arrived Brig. Gen John L. Martin who replaced Maj. Gen Robert Greer as head of the KH-7 program. Martin cracked down and began demanding higher workmanship and quality standards. He

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2816-737: The CORONA concrete crosses myth * [1] Corona (satellite) 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. In 1957,

2904-518: The CORONA satellites, and also by two contemporary programs ( ARGON and KH-6 LANYARD ) were declassified under an Executive Order signed by President Bill Clinton . The further review by photo experts of the "obsolete broad-area film-return systems other than CORONA " mandated by President Clinton's order led to the declassification in 2002 of the photos from the KH-7 and the KH-9 low-resolution cameras. The declassified imagery has since been used by

2992-413: The GAMBIT. Secrecy surrounding the program was strict and knowledge of GAMBIT limited only to those directly involved in the program. While the early CORONA and SAMOS flights had been merely billed to the public as scientific missions, it became increasingly difficult to explain why they failed to return any scientific data. In late 1961, President John F. Kennedy ordered a veil of secrecy placed around

3080-687: The KH-1 series before Discoverer 13 (10 August 1960), which managed a fully successful capsule recovery for the first time. This was the first recovery of a man-made object from space, beating the Soviet Korabl Sputnik 2 by nine days. Discoverer 13 is now on display in the "Milestones of Flight" hall in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Two days after the 18 August 1960 launch of Discoverer 14, its film bucket

3168-475: The KH-4 and KH-6 satellites, and takes exposures of Earth in direction of the vehicle roll position for attitude determination. The stellar camera takes images of star fields with a reseau grid being superimposed on the image plane. The S/I camera was provided by Itek , and horizon sensors were provided by Barnes Engineering Co . The primary contractor for the Orbital Control Vehicle and

3256-519: The Keyhole 1 (KH-1) satellites based on the Agena-A upper stage , which offered housing and an engine that provided attitude control in orbit. The KH-1 payload included the C (for CORONA) single panoramic camera built by Fairchild Camera and Instrument with a f/5.0 aperture and 61 cm (24 in) focal length. It had a ground resolution of 12.9 m (42 ft). Film was returned from orbit by

3344-401: The Pacific Ocean. The first of them was 4012, launched on October 8, 1964. The Agena engine shut down after 1.5 seconds of operation and the GAMBIT did not attain orbit. An investigation of the failure found that an electrical short occurred in an engine relay box, resulting in a cutoff signal being issued 0.4 seconds after ignition. As soon as the engine arming command was stopped at 1.5 seconds,

3432-548: The President with quality intelligence collection. Following KH-7 projects had greatly improved major upgrades in the spacecraft and its camera systems. The total cost of the 38 flight KH-7 program from FY1963 to FY1967, without non-recurring costs, and excluding five GAMBIT cameras sold to NASA, was US$ 651.4 million in 1963 dollars (inflation adjusted US$ 6.48 billion present day). Non-recurring costs for industrial facilities, development, and one-time support amounted to 24.3% of

3520-521: The Recovery Vehicle was General Electric . Films were to be retrieved mid-air by a C-130 Hercules specially outfitted for that purpose. All KH-7 satellites were launched from Point Arguello , which became part of Vandenberg Air Force Base in July 1964. KH-7 satellites flew 38 missions, numbered 4001-4038, of which 34 returned film, and of these, 30 returned usable imagery. Mission duration

3608-642: The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 , the first artificial Earth satellite. Officially, Sputnik was launched to correspond with the International Geophysical Year, a solar period that the International Council of Scientific Unions declared would be ideal for the launching of artificial satellites to study Earth and the solar system. However, the launch led to public concern about the perceived technological gap between

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3696-457: The Soviets would have 140–200 ICBMs deployed by 1961. A month after the flight of Discoverer 14, that estimate was refined to just 10–25. Additionally, CORONA increased the pace at which intelligence could be received, with satellites providing monthly coverage from the start. Photographs were more easily assessed by analysts and political leaders than covert agent reports, improving not just

3784-648: The West and the Soviet Union. The unanticipated success of the mission precipitated the Sputnik Crisis , and prompted President Dwight D. Eisenhower to authorize the Corona program, a top priority reconnaissance program managed jointly by the Air Force and the CIA. Satellites were developed to photograph denied areas from space, provide information about Soviet missile capability and replace risky U-2 reconnaissance flights over Soviet territory. CORONA started under

3872-422: The amount of intelligence but its accessibility. The KH-1 series ended with Discoverer 15 (13 September 1960), whose capsule successfully deorbited but sank into the Pacific Ocean and was not recovered. In 1963, the KH-4 system was introduced with dual cameras and the program made completely secret by then president, John Kennedy. The Discoverer label was dropped and all launches became classified. Because of

3960-527: The art to the point where follow-on larger systems could be developed and flown successfully. The report also stated that Gambit had provided the intelligence community with the first high-resolution satellite photography of denied areas, the intelligence value of which was considered "extremely high". In particular, its overall success stood in sharp contrast to the two first-generation photoreconnaissance programs, Corona , which suffered far too many malfunctions to achieve any consistent success, and SAMOS , which

4048-449: The attitude stabilizing thrusters which had been incorporated from the beginning of the program. CORONA orbited in very low orbits to enhance resolution of its camera system. But at perigee (the lowest point in the orbit), CORONA endured drag from the atmosphere of Earth . In time, this could cause its orbit to decay and force the satellite to re-enter the atmosphere prematurely. The new maneuvering rockets were designed to boost CORONA into

4136-610: The booster used for SAMOS. After the improved KH-8 GAMBIT-3 satellite was developed during 1965, operations shifted to the larger Titan IIIB launch vehicle. Each GAMBIT-1 satellite was about 15 ft (4.6 m) long, 5 ft (1.5 m) wide, weighed about 1,154 lb (523 kg), and carried about 3,000 ft (910 m) of film. A feasibility study for the Geodetic Orbital Photographic Satellite System reveals three subsystems for U.S. optical reconnaissance satellites in

4224-431: The camera in a drum. This "rotator camera" (or drum) moved back and forth, eliminating the need to move the camera itself on a reciprocating mechanism. The drum permitted the use of up to two filters and as many as four different exposure slits, greatly improving the variability of images that CORONA could take. The first cameras could resolve images on the ground down to 40 ft (12 m) in diameter . Improvements in

4312-412: The cameras were crushed in by impact with the ground and had their lenses destroyed. The pad itself was undamaged except for a steel beam cracked by exposure to the super-chilled LOX, which was repaired in two days. Fortunately, the satellite on the booster was not the same one planned for the actual launch and the payload shroud had also remained in one piece, preventing any unauthorized parties from seeing

4400-539: The capsule in case power failed. The film was processed at Eastman Kodak's Hawkeye facility in Rochester, New York . The CORONA film bucket was later adapted for the KH-7 GAMBIT satellites, which took higher resolution photos. CORONA were launched by a Thor-Agena rocket, which used a Thor first stage and an Agena as the second stage of the rocket lifting the CORONA into orbit. The first satellites in

4488-407: The conclusion of the program, the National Reconnaissance Office concluded that the GAMBIT program was considered highly successful in that it produced the first high-resolution satellite photography, 69.4% of the images having a resolution under 3 ft (0.91 m); its record of successful launches, orbits, and recoveries far surpassed the records of earlier systems; and it advanced the state of

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4576-492: The design, development, and operation of CORONA. For their role in creating the first space-based Earth photographic observation systems, they were awarded the Charles Stark Draper Prize in 2005. Walter Gize, of Palo Alto, was the program design senior electrical engineer for 'power' requirements. The CORONA program was officially classified top secret until 1992. On 22 February 1995, the photos taken by

4664-471: The first three generations of cameras.) As American space launches were not classified until late 1961, the first CORONA satellites were cloaked with disinformation as being part of a space technology development program called Discoverer . To the public, Discoverer missions were scientific and engineering missions, the film-return capsules being used to return biological specimens. To facilitate this deception, several CORONA capsules were built to house

4752-467: The first use of the SLV-3. Afterwards, all GAMBIT used SLV-3s aside from 4013, which used the last old-style Atlas remaining in the inventory. In early 1963, the GAMBIT program began with failures. On 11 May 1963, the first GAMBIT satellite sat atop Atlas-Agena 190D on SLC-4W at Vandenberg Air Force Base awaiting launch. An air bubble formed while loading LOX into the booster and as soon as propellant filling

4840-554: The image electronically. The image was then transmitted via telemetry to ground stations . The Samos E-1 and Samos E-2 satellite programs used this system, but they were not able to take very many pictures and then relay them to the ground stations each day. Two later versions of the Samos program, such as the E-5 and the E-6, used the bucket-return approach pioneered with CORONA, but neither of

4928-482: The imaging system were rapid, and the KH-3 missions could see objects 10 ft (3.0 m) in diameter. Later missions would be able to resolve objects just 5 ft (1.5 m) in diameter. 3 ft (0.91 m) resolution was found to be the optimum resolution for quality of image and field of view. The initial CORONA missions suffered from mysterious border fogging and bright streaks which appeared irregularly on

5016-415: The increased satellite mass, the basic Thor-Agena vehicle’s capabilities were augmented by the addition of three Castor solid-fueled strap-on motors. On 28 February 1963, the first Thrust Augmented Thor lifted from Vandenberg Air Force Base at Launch Complex 75 carrying the first KH-4 satellite. The launch of the new and unproven booster went awry as one SRB failed to ignite. Eventually the dead weight of

5104-484: The latter Samos series were successful. The CORONA satellites were designated KH-1 , KH-2 , KH-3 , KH-4 , KH-4A and KH-4B . KH stood for " Key Hole " or "Keyhole" (Code number 1010), with the name being an analogy to the act of spying into a person's room by peering through their door's keyhole. The incrementing number indicated changes in the surveillance instrumentation, such as the change from single- panoramic to double-panoramic cameras . The "KH" naming system

5192-422: The life-support unit for biological passengers. This proved to be a moot point by this time as the link between the Discoverer series and living payloads had been established by the attempted flight of Discoverer 3. The three subsequent Discoverers were successfully orbited, but all of their cameras failed when the film snapped during loading. Ground tests determined that the acetate -based film became brittle in

5280-551: The location has been redeveloped. The Casa Grande Calibration Targets pictured in the image gallery are two of the few remaining ones in the Sonoran Desert . The first one is located on the southeast corner of South Montgomery and West Cornman Roads. The second one is located on the northeast corner of West Cornman Road and Carmel Boulevard. 32°45′46″N 111°44′19″W  /  32.76265°N 111.73853°W  / 32.76265; -111.73853 Candy CORN: analyzing

5368-714: The name "Discoverer" as part of the WS-117L satellite reconnaissance and protection program of the U.S. Air Force in 1956. The WS-117L was based on recommendations and designs from the RAND Corporation . The primary goal of the program was to develop a film-return photographic satellite to replace the U-2 spyplane in surveilling the Sino-Soviet Bloc, determining the disposition and speed of production of Soviet missiles and long-range bombers assets. The CORONA program

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5456-437: 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 2 ft (0.61 m) to 3 ft (0.91 m). Though most of the imagery from the KH-7 satellites was declassified in 2002, details of the satellite program (and the satellite's construction) remained classified until 2011. In its summary report following

5544-401: The photoreconnaissance program and by GAMBIT's debut in 1963, DoD announcements described no details other than the launching of a "classified payload". The Agena was sent back to Lockheed for repairs and a different Atlas (vehicle 201D) was used, and the first successful GAMBIT mission was launched on 12 July 1963. The launch vehicle performed perfectly and inserted GAMBIT into polar orbit with

5632-475: The program ended in 1972. By the late-1970s, the US Army Map Service considered the targets to be obsolete for their use as the land on which they were situated had subsided because of groundwater extraction . Land lessees were then given the option of having the targets removed and dumped near Eloy, Arizona . As of 2013, at least 143 targets remain in place, unless they have been removed because

5720-399: The program orbited at altitudes 100 mi (160 km) above the surface of the Earth, although later missions orbited even lower at 75 mi (121 km). Originally, CORONA satellites were designed to spin along their main axis so that the satellite would remain stable. Cameras would take photographs only when pointed at the Earth. The Itek camera company, however, proposed to stabilize

5808-474: The program—leaving CORONA without staff. The move to Sunnyvale ensured that enough skilled staff would be available.) The decisions regarding what to photograph were made by the CORONA Target Program. CORONA satellites were placed into near-polar orbits. This software, run by an on-board computer, was programmed to operate the cameras based on the intelligence targets to be imaged, the weather,

5896-567: The returned film. Eventually, a team of scientists and engineers from the project and from academia (among them Luis Alvarez , Sidney Beldner, Malvin Ruderman , Arthur Glines, and Sidney Drell ) determined that electrostatic discharges (called corona discharges ) caused by some of the components of the cameras were exposing the film. Corrective measures included better grounding of the components, improved film rollers that did not generate static electricity, improved temperature controls, and

5984-448: The satellite along all three axes—keeping the cameras permanently pointed at the earth. Beginning with the KH-3 version of the satellite, a horizon camera took images of several key stars. A sensor used the satellite's side thruster rockets to align the rocket with these "index stars", so that it was correctly aligned with the Earth and the cameras pointed in the right direction. Beginning in 1967, two horizon cameras were used. This system

6072-488: The satellite moving over the planet. The first CORONA satellites had a single camera, but a two-camera system was quickly implemented. The front camera was tilted 15° aft, and the rear camera tilted 15° forward, so that a stereoscopic image could be obtained. Later in the program, the satellite employed three cameras. The third camera was employed to take "index" photographs of the objects being stereographically filmed. The J-3 camera system, first deployed in 1967, placed

6160-546: The satellite's operational status, and what images the cameras had already captured. Ground control for CORONA satellites was initially conducted from Stanford Industrial Park , an industrial park on Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, California . It was later moved to Sunnyvale Air Force Base near Sunnyvale, California . Minoru S. "Sam" Araki  [ de ] , Francis J. Madden  [ de ] , Edward A. Miller  [ de ] , James W. Plummer , and Don H. Schoessler  [ de ] were responsible for

6248-490: The satellites were primarily designed with higher-latitude Soviet territory in mind and because it would mean wasting an entire satellite on the Latin America-Caribbean area which had little else of interest to U.S. intelligence services. It was decided that U-2 spyplane flights were adequate to provide coverage of Cuban activity. Mission 4009 included an ELINT P-11 subsatellite for radar monitoring, which

6336-517: The strap-on motor dragged the Thor off its flight path, leading to a Range Safety destruct. It was suspected that a technician had not attached an umbilical on the SRB properly. Although some failures continued to occur during the next few years, the reliability rate of the program significantly improved with KH-4. Maneuvering rockets were also added to the satellite beginning in 1963. These were different from

6424-502: The vacuum of space, something that had not been discovered even in high altitude, low pressure testing. The Eastman Kodak Company was tasked with creating a more resilient replacement. Kodak developed a technique of coating a high-resolution emulsion on a type of polyester from DuPont . Not only was the resulting polyester-based film resistant to vacuum brittling, it weighed half as much as the prior acetate-based film. There were four more partially successful and unsuccessful missions in

6512-557: The vehicle. Once the successful photographic phase of the mission 4002 was completed, the OCV and the Agena were separated and the reentry vehicle would come down into the ocean northwest of Hawaii . The re-entry vehicle was caught in mid-air with a C-130 Hercules aircraft using a modified version of the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system . The film canister was then immediately transported to Eastman Kodak 's Hawkeye facility in Rochester, New York for processing. The developed results

6600-409: Was 1 to 8 days. KH-7 satellites logged a total of almost 170 operational days in orbit. A high-resolution instrument, the KH-7 took detailed pictures of "hot spots" and most of its photographs are of Chinese and Soviet nuclear and missile installations, with smaller amounts of coverage of cities and harbors. Most of the imagery from this camera, amounting to 19,000 images, was declassified in 2002 as

6688-458: Was also used to produce maps and charts for the Department of Defense and other U.S. government mapping programs. The CORONA project was pushed forward rapidly following the shooting down of a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union on 1 May 1960. CORONA ultimately encompassed eight separate but overlapping series of satellites (dubbed "Keyhole" or KH ), launched from 1959 to 1972. CORONA

6776-403: Was complemented and ultimately succeeded by the higher resolution KH-7 Gambit and KH-8 Gambit 3 series of satellites. An alternative concurrent program to the CORONA program was SAMOS . That program included several types of satellite which used a different photographic method. This involved capturing an image on photographic film, developing the film aboard the satellite and then scanning

6864-449: Was doubled to 16,000 ft (4,900 m) of film for each camera for a total of 32,000 ft (9,800 m) of film. This was accomplished by a reduction in film thickness and with additional film capsules. Most of the film shot was black and white. Infrared film was used on mission 1104, and color film on missions 1105 and 1008. Color film proved to have lower resolution, and so was never used again. The cameras were manufactured by

6952-508: Was essentially a complete failure with all satellites either being lost in launch mishaps or returning no usable imagery. GAMBIT emerged in 1962 as an alternative to the less-than-successful CORONA and the completely failed SAMOS, although CORONA was not cancelled and in fact continued operating alongside the newer program into the early 1970s. While CORONA used the Thor-Agena launch vehicle family, GAMBIT would be launched on Atlas-Agena ,

7040-496: Was first used in 1962 with KH-4, the earlier numbers being applied retroactively. Below is a list of CORONA launches, as compiled by the United States Geological Survey. This table lists government's designation of each type of satellite (C, C-prime, J-1, etc.), the resolution of the camera, and a description of the camera system. (The stray "quote marks" are part of the original designations of

7128-765: Was known as the Dual Improved Stellar Index Camera (DISIC). The United States Air Force credits the Sunnyvale Air Force Station (now Onizuka Air Force Station ) as being the "birthplace of the CORONA program". In May 1958, the Department of Defense directed the transfer of the WS-117L program to Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). In FY1958, WS-117L was funded by the USAF at a level of US$ 108.2 million (inflation adjusted US$ 1.14 billion in 2024). For DISCOVERER,

7216-414: Was launched into a higher orbit. (NSSDC ID Numbers: See COSPAR ) GAMBIT marked the first use of next-generation launch vehicle systems as Convair and Lockheed, the builders of the Atlas-Agena booster, began introducing improved, standardized launchers to replace the multitude of customized variants used up to 1963, which caused endless mix ups, poor reliability, and mission failures. This followed

7304-486: Was sent to US Air Force imagery research analysts in Washington, DC . GAMBIT mission 4003, was launched on 25 October 1963. The film canister was again ejected successfully after the photographic phase and the capsule recovered by an aircraft. Other tests were carried out with the OCV. GAMBIT mission 4004 was launched and its film canister recovered on 18 December 1963. Missions 4005 through 4007 were also successful. In May 1964, mission 4008 suffered major problems when

7392-467: Was stopped, the bubble damaged the fill/drain valve. This quickly caused both the LOX and helium pressure gas to escape from the tank, depressurizing the Atlas's balloon skin and causing the entire launch vehicle to crumple to the ground. The RP-1 tank ruptured and spilled its contents onto the pad. There was no fire or explosion, but the Agena sustained minor damage and the satellite a considerable amount as

7480-475: Was successfully recovered in midair during the 65th orbit (the 13th recovery of a bucket; the ninth one in midair). Following this last use of the Discoverer name, the remaining launches of CORONA satellites were entirely TOP SECRET . The last CORONA launch was on 25 May 1972. The project ended when CORONA was replaced by the KH-9 Hexagon program. The CORONA satellites used special 70 mm film with

7568-411: Was successfully retrieved in the Pacific Ocean by a Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar transport plane . This was the first successful return of a payload from orbit, occurring just one day before the launch of Korabl-Sputnik 2 , a biosatellite that took into orbit the two Soviet space dogs, Belka and Strelka , and safely returned them to Earth . The impact of CORONA on American intelligence gathering

7656-450: Was the first man-made object put into a polar orbit, but only sporadically returned telemetry . Discoverer 2 (14 April 1959) carried a recovery capsule for the first time but no camera. The main bus performed well, but the capsule recovery failed, the SRV coming down over Spitzbergen rather than Hawaii . The capsule was never found. Discoverer 3 (3 June 1959), the first Discoverer to carry

7744-646: Was tremendous. With the success of Discoverer 14 , which returned 16 lb (7.3 kg) of film and provided more coverage of the Soviet Union than all preceding U2 flights, for the first time the United States had a clear picture of the USSR's strategic nuclear capabilities. Before CORONA, the National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) of CIA were highly uncertain and strongly debated. Six months before Discoverer 14, an NIE predicted that

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