CIA. On August 22 Kistiakowsky briefed Richard Bissell, the CIA’s
CORONA director, on the recommendations. The following day he
briefed Defense Secretary Gates on the plan, which Gates endorsed.
Meanwhile, as this reconnaissance satellite reorganization was being
hammered out, CORONA achieved success. A test capsule from
Discoverer XIII containing an American flag was successfully recovered
after reentry on August 12, 1960. The capsule from Discoverer XIV con-
taining the first images of the Earth taken from space was recovered a few
days later, on August 18, 1960.

At 8:15 a.m. on August 24, 1960, shortly before the NSC meeting was
to start, James Killian, Edwin Land, George Kistiakowsky, and National
Security Advisor Gordon Gray met with President Eisenhower. They
briefed him on the first satellite reconnaissance photos returned from
space only a few days before. To avoid provoking the Soviets, Eisenhower
decided that no reconnaissance satellite photos ever should be made pub-
lic. Subsequently, NSC members discussed Kistiakowsky’s recommenda-
tion for a new Air Force office to direct and control the SAMOS program;
both Secretary Gates and President Eisenhower gave their approval. Air
Force Secretary Dudley C. Sharp issued the necessary directives on
August 31, 1960 that established the “Office of Missile and Satellite
Systems.” Air Force Undersecretary Joseph Charyk became the first direc-
tor of the new office, and in this capacity reported to the Secretary of
Defense.

To oversee the analysis of the satellite photos, President Eisenhower
also acted on the recommendations of another intelligence review. The
photo interpretation sections of the Air Force, Navy, and Army were com-
bined with the CIA’s Photographic Intelligence Division to form a single,
civilian-controlled group. The National Photographic Interpretation
Center (NPIC), which would report to the Director of Central Intelligence,
held responsibility for the processing, analysis, and distribution of recon-
naissance photos (both airborne and satellite). Arthur Lundahl, who had
formally headed the CIA division, was named NPIC Director. When John
F. Kennedy became President in January 1961, he endorsed Eisenhower’s
organization of space activities, now divided into civil, military, and
reconnaissance missions. The new Defense Secretary, Robert S.
McNamara, asked Charyk to remain as Air Force Undersecretary and as
the first Director of the renamed National Reconnaissance Office (NRO),
the existence of which remained a state secret. Three decades would pass
before the NRO would be officially acknowledged. Under the Kennedy
Administration the words “SAMOS” and “Discoverer” disappeared from
public statements and the U.S. government no longer acknowledged satel-
lites were used for reconnaissance—a policy that remained in effect until
1978.

CORONA operations continued behind a veil of secrecy. Originally
intended as a short-term, interim effort, CORONA’s intelligence achieve-

14


on July 12, 1961 and it performed well for several orbits, but, before it
could detect a missile launch, it suffered a power failure. MIDAS 4 fol-
lowed on October 21; it reached orbit but could not be stabilized. Most of
its systems operated for a week before a power failure occurred. Although
press accounts claimed that MIDAS 4 detected a Titan II launch, this was
erroneous.

Despite these setbacks, the Air Force pressed for a go-ahead for an
operational system. In September of 1961, Harold Brown, Director of

4 -
. an — WS =

Launch of a MIDAS satellite from Cape Canaveral. The MIDAS served as the
test bed for the DSP satellites that followed.

35



The Shuttle Operations Planning Center also was cancelled in 1987,
owing to a change in Shuttle payload policy. President Ronald Reagan
announced that Shuttle no longer would be used for all American satellite
launches. In future, it would carry only research payloads or payloads
specifically requiring the presence of men in space. And because the back-
log of military payloads awaiting launch, caused by the Shuttle grounding,
military Shuttle flights only would continue for a short while longer.
Because Payload Specialists would not be flown on board the early mis-
sions once Shuttle flights resumed, the MSE program also was terminated.

Expendable launch vehicles returned to favor. The purchase of more
heavier-lift Titan IVs was authorized, and, on May 9, 1986, Air Force
Headquarters ordered procurement of an improved Medium Launch
Vehicle. On January 21, 1987, McDonnell Douglas’ Delta II proposal was
selected. In addition, surplus Titan II ICBMs were modified for use as
space boosters. Finally, General Dynamics began development of
advanced versions of the Atlas Centaur—the Atlas I and II. It would be the
late 1980s and early 1990s, however, before they would be ready to launch
payloads into orbit. In the meantime, NASA’s Shuttle flights resumed with
STS-26 on September 29, 1988. The next flight, STS-27 (December 2-6,
1988) was the first post-Challenger military Shuttle flight, followed by
STS-28 (August 8-13, 1989). Although the payloads on these flights
remained classified, the STS-33 mission (November 22-27, 1989) did
have several unusual features. Up to this point, military Shuttle flights had
crews who were all serving military officers. STS-33’s crew included F.
Story Musgrave and Kathryn C. Thornton, the first and only civilians to
fly on a military Shuttle mission. (Thornton was also the only woman.)
The mission commander was Colonel Frederick D. Gregory, the first
African-American to command a space mission. STS-36 (February 28-
March 4, 1990) and STS-38 (November 15-20, 1990) were the two mili-
tary flights for 1990.

The final two military Shuttle missions marked breaks with the tight
security of earlier flights. STS-44 (November 24-December 1, 1991) was
the first and only satellite deployed by a military Shuttle flight to be
unclassified. The payload was a Defense Support Program (DSP) Early
Warning satellite dubbed “Liberty.” The crew included Gregory and
Musgrave from STS-33. Also on board was Army Chief Warrant Officer
Tom Hennen, the first military Payload Specialist to fly since Payton and
Pailes in 1985. Hennen was not a member of the MSE program, however.
(He was also the first enlisted man to fly into space.) Hennen operated a
manned reconnaissance experiment called Terra Scout. STS-53 marked
the ninth and final military Shuttle flight (December 2-9, 1992). Although
details of the satellite remained classified, the blackout only lasted
through payload deployment. Once this was completed, normal commu-
nications resumed. With the landing of STS-53, the Air Force’s involve-
ment with the Space Shuttle and military manned space flight ended.

31



Brunswick and Cold Lake Alberta in Canada, and Edwards AFB,
California. Not all ten sites were in operation at the same time; most
started operations between 1960 and 1977, while the phase-out of sites
began in 1964. Another 12 Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Baker-
Nunn cameras around the world also provided scientific data to SPA-
DATS.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the NORAD tracking system,
renamed Space Surveillance Network (SSN), underwent a major upgrade.
The old Baker-Nunn cameras were replaced in the early 1980s by the
Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space System (GEODSS). The orig-
inal three sites, at Socorro, New Mexico; Choe Jong San, South Korea;
and Maui, Hawaii, went into operation on March 1, 1983. A fourth site,
on Diego Garcia Island in the Indian Ocean, started operation on January
15, 1987. The South Korean site closed in mid-1993. These cameras could
provide real-time optical tracking data. The last two Baker-Nunn cameras,
at San Vito, Italy and St. Margarets, New Brunswick, closed in 1991 and
1992. (The cameras are now used for scientific research, rather than Air
Force tracking.) A spin-off of GEODSS was the Transportable Optical
System (TOS). TOS was developed by MIT’s Lincoln Laboratories and
used a 21-inch telescope and electronic camera on a modified Nike-Ajax
radar mount. The complete system could be crated and moved in a C-141
transport. Air Force Space Command tested the portable TOS at San Vito,
Italy, between June and December 1991. (The Baker-Nunn camera closed
down at the same time.)

Another recent improvement involved the Deep Space Tracking
System (DSTS). Unlike radar, DSTS used passive receivers which
detected the electronic emissions of a satellite. Direction finding and short
baseline interferometry determined a satellite’s position as a function of
time. DSTS began as an Air Force Systems Command research and devel-
opment program in 1988. The data would update the master catalog of
objects in space, improve coverage in the eastern hemisphere, reduce the
number of “lost” satellites, and monitor satellite maneuvers.

Air Force Space Command’s network of radars was also expanded
and improved. In the 1980s and 1990s the BMEWS radars were upgraded
and three new early warning radars were added to the satellite tracking
network. These were the Pave Paws West, located at Beale AFB,
California, and Pave Paws East, at Otis AFB, Massachusetts, designed to
provide early warning of submarine-launched missiles. The PARCS radar
at Cavalier, North Dakota, originally built as part of the Army’s Safeguard
ABM system, was also used for satellite tracking. A long-standing gap in
coverage was an inability to track some Soviet satellite launches on their
first orbit. To close this gap, the Air Force established the “Pacific
Barrier.” Two of the radars, one at Kwajalein Island and the other at San
Miguel in the Philippines, were in operation by the mid-1980s. A third
radar, at Saipan, was under construction. The Pacific Barrier ran afoul of

40


effort also affected the military WS-117L program. Back in 1955, when
the WS-117L reconnaissance satellite program was beginning, American
civilian scientists proposed that scientific satellites be launched as part of
the upcoming International Geophysical Year (IGY), planned for late
1957-1958. The Technological Capabilities Panel also had urged the U.S.
to launch a small scientific satellite to establish the precedent “freedom of
space,” allowing them and later military satellites to orbit over any coun-
try without prior permission. The intended precedent turned on the mar-
itime legal principle “freedom of the seas,” where ships of all nations have
free passage on the high seas outside territorial waters. In the mid-1950s,
no legal regime existed for outer space, and Administration officials
believed establishing free passage with a civilian satellite would ensure
the legality of passage for subsequent military WS-117L satellites. With
such a precedent, the Soviet Union would be discouraged from attempts
to destroy an overflying satellite.

In March 1955, the various civilian satellite proposals were sent by
design to Donald Quarles, at that time Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Research and Development. Convinced of the importance of freedom of
space to the future of U.S. intelligence, he had privately encouraged the
U.S. National Committee for the IGY to formally propose a scientific
satellite. Its proposal was sent to the National Academy of Sciences, then
back to Quarles for Defense Department review. On May 20, he submit-
ted a proposal to launch an IGY satellite, and the national policy to guide
it and the emerging reconnaissance satellite program, to the National
Security Council (NSC). The satellite’s peaceful purpose was to be
stressed (it was to be a civilian-directed scientific activity), but the under-
lying intent was to establish the principle of freedom of space and the
right of satellite overflight in international law. The NSC agreed on May
26, 1955, and Eisenhower approved the project and the policy the follow-
ing day. Eisenhower announced the IGY satellite on July 29 (a few days
after his return from the Geneva Summit Conference).

A scientific review panel selected the Navy’s Vanguard satellite pro-
posal which used an all-new booster developed from the Viking sounding
rocket. Despite the importance of the principle it was to establish, the
Eisenhower Administration kept its space policy a secret and held
Vanguard to tight funding limits, to avoid interfering with high-priority
ballistic missile programs. Program costs still increased from $20 million
to $100 million by mid-1957. To avoid an international debate over mili-
tary space activity that might jeopardize the principle freedom of space,
government and military officials were prohibited from discussing any
plans for such activities. The civilian Vanguard was to be first into space,
while the WS-117L marked time.

In the summer of 1957, CIA Director Allen Dullas told Quarles, now
Secretary of the Air Force, that the Soviet Union “probably is capable of
launching a satellite in 1957.” Despite this warning, Administration offi-


In August 1987, the Defense Acquisition Board selected three Air
Force SDI projects for further development. Two of these were surveil-
lance systems that involved detection of missile launches and mid-course
correction phases. They were called the Boost Surveillance and Tracking
System (BSTS) and the Space Surveillance and Tracking System (SSTS).
In August-September 1990, BSTS was transferred from SDIO to Air
Force control, and was re-oriented towards a more narrow mission of tac-
tical warning and attack assessment. Plans called for it to replace the exist-
ing DSP early warning satellites. The program was subsequently renamed
the Advanced Warning System (AWS) and later the Follow-on Early
Warning System (FEWS). The SSTS program remained under SDIO con-
trol, but was subject to several changes in structure and concept. Flight
experiments were cancelled, the planned number of satellites scaled back,
and the program’s cost reduced. In July 1990, this program was renamed
“Brilliant Eyes.”

The third program, called the Space-Based Interceptor (SBI), was
designed to consist of hundreds of Earth-orbiting satellite battle stations,
each one equipped with small rockets to destroy Soviet ICBMs. By 1990,
SBI had evolved into the “Brilliant Pebbles” concept. This employed a
similarly large number of highly autonomous satellites, but with their own
targeting systems, reducing the need for separate tracking systems like
BSTS. Hardware tests of the Brilliant Pebbles interceptor were conducted
in a hangar at Edwards AFB in California. During these ground tests, the
satellite supported itself in midair with a rocket engine while other rocket
engines pointed it towards a rocket exhaust plume some distance away.
These tests demonstrated the ability of Brilliant Pebbles’ sensors and com-
puter systems to seek out and lock on a target.

These three systems formed the basis for the first phase of SDI
deployment. Looking to the future, ground and airborne tests of high-
power lasers also were conducted, and laboratory tests of particle beam
weapons were made. Over time, these SDI directed energy weapons pro-
grams were reduced in scope and their emphasis shifted to technology
development. Needless to say, because of the enormous costs projected to
develop and deploy these weapon systems and their ramifications for
altering long-standing defense and space policies going back to the 1950s
and 1960s, the SDI program proved highly controversial. For example,
SDI challenged vital elements of the strategic deterrence policy known as
Mutually Assured Destruction. Part of it, the 1972 ABM Treaty between
the United States and the Soviet Union, denied to each power more than
a limited number of ABM missiles; thus, each side knew that a nuclear
first strike would entail certain retaliation in kind and an end to both coun-
tries. Even testing, much less deployment, of new ABM systems required
changes in the 1972 ABM Treaty. Despite protestations to the contrary
from representatives of the Reagan Administration, SDI appeared to many
as a nuclear first strike initiative: Once America’s orbital battle stations

68


Artist’s concept of the DSCS III satellite in orbit. This spacecraft was
designed for greater flexibility with counter jamming, and it
provided more channels that the DSCS II satellite.

demonstration satellites. During that same year, the House Appropriations
Committee proposed leasing commercial circuits for military use (revisit-
ing McNamara’s proposal of 15 years before), and it eliminated funding
for DSCS III. Nevertheless, the perceived problems involved in joint civil
and military usage remained formidable, and funding was restored in a
House/Senate committee. Following the October 30, 1982 launch of the
first DSCS III satellite, deployment of the complete five-satellite network
moved slowly. The Air Force launched the second and third DSCS III
satellites in the mid-1980s, and the fourth in 1989. Not until the fifth
launch in July 1993 was the full satellite “constellation” deemed opera-
tional.

The DSCS II and III satellites, like the original IDCSP satellites, were
intended for strategic military communications between fixed bases. But
tactical military satellite communications showed a similar growth during
the 1970s and 1980s. The Navy’s Fleet Satellite Communications System
(FLTSATCOM) was a descendant of the 1960s LES satellites and TAC-
SAT I. This program began in 1971, with TRW winning the contract a
year later. The Navy funded the program and had responsibility for pro-
ducing the surface terminals, while the Air Force oversaw development of
the satellites, provided launch and tracking and control services, and used
some of the FLTSATCOM’s capacity. The Navy used one fleet broadcast
channel (which provided 16 multiplexed teletype signals) and nine fleet
relay channels. The Air Force portion claimed one wide-band and 12 nar-
row-band channels. The Air Force launched the first FLTSATCOM into a
geosynchronous orbit on February 9, 1978. Four more followed by August
1981. Of these, one FLTSATCOM was damaged during launch and never
became operational. Three more launches occurred between December

50


system yet built. Weighing 1,690 pounds, it was nine feet in diameter and
stood 25 feet tall. The satellite could provide 40 voice or 700 teletype cir-
cuits to a terminal with a dish only three feet across. Because of funding
limitations, however, only one qualification test article was built. After the
ground tests, that satellite had to be refurbished for launch.

The Air Force launched TACSAT I on February 9, 1969, with a Titan
TIC and it went into a nearly perfect orbit over the Pacific. A month later,
some 20 small terminals were linked together by the satellite. These
included a portable transmitter weighing only 22 pounds and a receiver
weighing only six pounds. The first year tested equipment, which limited
it to civilian use—during the Moon landing in 1969, TACSAT I relayed
live television to commercial stations in Alaska, providing for the first
time in that state live coverage of a national/international event. On July
1, 1970, TACSAT I and LES 6 provided an initial operational capability
for tactical military satellite communications. TACSAT I continued to
operate for nearly four years. By this time, these early programs had set
the stage for a fully operational satellite communication system.

The IDCSP/DSCS I satellites provided an initial operational military
satellite communications system, but it was still far from what had been
envisioned with Advent. In 1964, Defense Department studies of a geo-
synchronous military communication satellite system began in earnest.
These continued through 1967, and in June 1968 the Defense Department
approved start of the Defense Satellite Communications System II (DSCS
Il) program. The Air Force selected TRW as the prime contractor in
March 1969. The firm was to build a qualification model and six flight
satellites, which were to be launched in pairs on board Titan IIICs. These
communication satellites would have both horn antennas for wide-area
coverage and two steerable dish antennas for coverage of small areas. The
first DSCS II pair, launched on November 2, 1971, experienced problems.
Telemetry was received from the first satellite, but attempts to control it at
first proved unsuccessful. No signals were detected from the second satel-
lite, and it was lost in space. It took four days to locate the second satel-
lite and transmit a new set of commands to both satellites, to bring them
under control. In December 1971, both satellites began to rotate. The first
satellite was successfully stabilized, but its antenna system was damaged
in the attempt. Communications margins were reduced but it was still
usable. After long analysis, the second DSCS II satellite was stabilized on
June 8, 1972. Despite that success, it operated for only ten months.

Because of these problems, the DSCS II program underwent a major
redesign. Not until December 13, 1973, did the Air Force launch the sec-
ond pair of DSCS II. A third launch failed on May 20, 1975 owing to a
launch vehicle guidance malfunction. The satellites went into a low orbit
and re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and incinerated after six days. But
with only one DSCS II satellite operational at this time, TRW was
awarded a contract to build six more. The first pair of the new series was

48


orbiting the Earth. Since the DMSP went into operation during the Vietnam
War, these satellites have provided weather data critical to combat operations.

civilian use. The most striking of the early photos was a night composite
photo of the entire United States showing the lights of cities across the
land. The DMSP’s more advanced sensors expanded the capabilities of
civilian forecasters. The data was supplied to the Weather Bureau’s suc-
cessor, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Much of the DMSP data is stored at NOAA’s depository at the University
of Wisconsin.

The DMSP program underwent major advances in the 1970s and
1980s. Block IVA and B satellites used in the 1960s were replaced in the
early 1970s by the Block 5A, B, and C satellites. The Block SC satellite
was about five feet long, weighed 426 pounds, and was launched by the
Thor-Burner II. By the final (unsuccessful) Block SC launch on February
18, 1976, a total of 34 DMSP launches had been made over the previous
decade. At the same time, a new generation of DMSP satellites was under
development. The rectangularly-shaped Block 5D-1 satellite was four feet
across and 19.3 feet long with its solar panel deployed on a boom. The
Block SD satellite weighed about 1,131 pounds (nearly three times that of
the Block 5C), which required using an Atlas as the launch vehicle. The
Block S5D-1 carried 300-pounds of instruments. Although a resolution of

54


use, it transmitted an encrypted signal, the P(Y) code, allowing an accu-
racy of 52 feet. The key for the P(Y) code was changed every day. In civil-
ian use, commercial receivers worked from an unencryped signal that pro-
vided an accuracy in position of 247 feet. If any receiver remained sta-
tionary in the same spot for several hours, however, with repeated inte-
grations much higher accuracies became possible; for example, in the
1990s GPS transformed the business of surveying properties and of mon-
itoring the movement of earth along geologic faults.

The Air Force launched the first three GPS satellites in February, May
and October 1978. This allowed tests using a satellite/ground transmitter
mix located at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. With the launch of
the fourth GPS in December 1978, full-scale testing began. With its 12-
hour orbits, this constellation of GPS satellites were in sight of the Yuma
Proving Ground for about two hours per day. Tests using aircraft, heli-
copters, trucks, jeeps, and even 25-pound backpack receivers were con-
ducted, Subsequent tests with ships at sea were also successfully made.
The Defense Department approved full-scale development of the GPS
system in June 1979.

GPS made possible a tremendous advance in field operations for all
three military services. For example, since the early 18th century soldiers
depended on an available maps and compasses for land navigation. These
often proved nearly useless at night, in a jungle, or in a trackless desert.
More important, directing artillery fire or calling in close air support
required higher accuracies than a compass, map, and wristwatch could
provide. In the Yuma GPS tests, Army forces attained accuracies better
than 30 feet in all three dimensions, and 0.1 feet per second in speed were
achieved in any weather, night or day. The Air Force launched the fifth
GPS satellite in February 1980. But, in all, only 11 Block I GPS research
and development satellites were launched between 1978 and 1985. The
later Block I GPS satellites also carried Vela nuclear detection instru-
ments, taking over some of that mission from other military satellites.
Launches of the operational Block II and IIA satellites began in 1989.

Although originally intended to become fully operational by the late
1980s, the military services delayed funding this space system, favoring
instead other terrestrial commitments. During the Gulf War in late 1990
and early 1991, only fifteen GPS satellites were operating on orbit. Worse
for the military services, they had neglected to purchase military receivers
for most of their aircraft and surface vehicles. Orders were hurriedly
rushed for commercial ones, and the GPS encryption had to be turned off
to permit their use. Nevertheless, the immense advantage that GPS navi-
gation data provided properly equipped Coalition surface and air forces
did convince most, if not all, American military leaders to purchase and
install military receivers on their fighting vehicles. In the war’s aftermath,
the Air Force also moved quickly to launch the remaining satellites needed
for the GPS system to reach its full complement of 24. The Defense

58


booster. Later, a geosynchronous system would be developed. During the
summer of 1962, McNamara accepted these recommendations. The Air
Force was assigned responsibility for the launch vehicles, satellites, and
the communication instruments they would carry, eliminating the split in
responsibility that had caused problems with Advent. The Army would
develop the ground terminals.

: The medium-altitude satellites became known as the Interim (or
Initial) Defense Communications Satellite Program (IDCSP).
Development work was delayed for more than two years, however. The
main problem now was the establishment of the Communications Satellite
Corporation (COMSAT) in early 1963. McNamara thought that the
Defense Department might lease COMSAT circuits to save time and pro-
vide COMSAT with an assured income, but the problems with such dual
use soon became clear. Military and civilian transmission modes were
completely different, requiring separate repeaters on each satellite.
Civilian satellite links would serve large cities where the high traffic vol-
ume assured revenue, while military requirements were unpredictable and
involved remote sites without adequate communications links. The satel-
lite design requirements were also contradictory —COMSAT needed large
numbers of low-power channels, while the military needed fewer, but
more powerful channels. On July 15, 1964, McNamara dropped the idea
of joint usage and authorized development of the IDCSP system.

The IDCSP satellites, three feet in diameter, weighed only 100 pounds
and had no moving parts. Electrical power came from solar cells; there
were no batteries. This meant the satellites would shut down whenever
they were in the Earth’s shadow. Philco-Ford won the prime contract for
the IDCSP satellites, while Hughes Aircraft contracted to build the ground
terminals. The IDCSPs could provide five commercial or eleven tactical
quality two-way voice circuits, or 1,500 teletype circuits. With a design
lifetime of three years, each satellite had a timer which would cut off
power after six years, to prevent cluttering of the radio spectrum.

Originally, the IDCSP satellites were to be launched by Atlas Agena
boosters into 5,000 to 6,000 mile-high orbits. By the fall of 1964, when
the IDCSP satellites entered the final design and production phase,
another possibility appeared. Titan IIIC test flights had been scheduled in
the mid-1960s to carry sand or water ballast. John H. Rubel, Deputy
Director of Defense Research and Engineering, thought this a wasted
opportunity. He urged that the early Titan IIICs carry IDCSP satellites.
This approach would accommodate up to eight satellites per launch and a
higher altitude. Because their design was not easily adaptable to a geo-
synchronous orbit, the satellites were modified to use an 18,200-nautical-
mile orbit. With an orbital period of about 22 hours and 20 minutes, the
IDCSP satellites would drift slowly across the sky.

The first seven IDCSP satellites were successfully launched on June
16, 1966 on board the fourth Titan IIIC flight. Communication tests were

46


booster, maneuver during reentry, and make a controlled runway landing.
Its secondary objectives were testing of military systems and orbital flight.
York said these secondary objectives should only be implemented if they
exerted no adverse effects on the primary objective. The Air Force source
selection board subsequently chose the contractors for this Dyna-Soar
program on November 9, 1959. Boeing would build the one-man aero-
space glider, while the Glenn L. Martin Company would furnish a modi-
fied Titan I ICBM booster. Before development could begin, Joseph
Charyk, who succeeded Horner as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for
Research and Development, ordered a “Phase Alpha” study. This reexam-
ined a range of different configurations to solve the problems of manned
winged reentry. When completed at the end of March 1960, Dyna-Soar
emerged from the study unchanged and the Defense Department released
development funding.

The Air Force completed its plan for the Dyna-Soar test flights in
April 1960. The plan envisioned a total of 20 air-drop tests from a modi-
fied B-52, to begin in July 1963. Starting in November 1963, five
unmanned suborbital launches were to be made from Cape Canaveral, fol-
lowed in November 1964 by the first of 11 manned sub-orbital flights.
These suborbital flights divided Step I into a three-part development
effort. The first part would gain data on orbital flight and test military sys-
tems, including high-resolution photographic, radar, and infrared sensors,
advanced bombing, navigation, and guidance systems, space-to-surface
missiles, and rendezvous systems. The second part envisioned an interim
military system able to conduct reconnaissance and satellite inspection,
while part three was to be the fully operational weapon system. All three
parts, limited to studies, remained only an outline.

Originally a modified Titan I ICBM was selected to boost the Dyna-
Soar to suborbital speeds. By November 1959, this booster seemed barely
adequate for Step I. Moreover, it could not be modified to lift the weights
anticipated to orbital speeds. The Dyna-Soar Program Office proposed
that a Titan IT ICBM be substituted for suborbital flights, while a Titan II
with a modified Centaur third stage be developed for orbital missions. The
cost increase and delays incurred in the change would be minor. Air Force
headquarters, however, did not approve the switch to a Titan II booster
until over a year later, on January 12, 1961.

The Air Force had long wanted to undertake orbital flights with Dyna-
Soar, and in October 1960 Brigadier General M. B. Adams, Deputy
Director of Systems Development at Air Force Headquarters, instructed
ARDC to develop a “stand-by” plan to achieve orbital flight with the Step
I glider as soon as possible. In December 1960, the Dyna-Soar Program
Office proposed using the same booster for both the suborbital and orbital
flights; the program could be accelerated significantly. Although ARDC
headquarters did not approve the “stand-by” plan, it set in motion major
changes in the Dyna-Soar program.

18


Research and Engineering, organized an Ad Hoc group to review MIDAS.
On completion of the review on November 30, 1961, the group identified
three major technical problems associated with MIDAS. First was target
detection—measurements of the Titan II (which was similar to the Soviet
SS-7 ICBM) indicated that the MIDAS might have only marginal sensi-
tivity against large liquid-propellant ICBMs. The group also speculated
that MIDAS “is probably not effective” against smaller solid-propellant
missiles such as Minuteman and Polaris, and expressed doubts that it ever
could be made effective.

The second problem involved concerns that sunlight reflecting from
clouds in the upper atmosphere might cause false alarms. The report said:

As the MIDAS [infrared] equipment scans, highlights in
the illuminated clouds of extent comparable to a missile
plume will appear indistinguishable from a missile .
If the system threshold were low enough, the highlight
would cause a false target ....

Incomplete as these measurements are, data from bal-
loons, U-2 flights, and Discoverer satellites (RM-1 and
RM-2) give a more or less consistent picture which indi-
cates that the false target problem will certainly be a
severe one....

The final difficulty involved system reliability. MIDAS was designed
to operate on orbit for one year, a period much longer than any compara-
bly complex spacecraft had achieved previously. Contractor estimates
indicated a far shorter lifetime—between two weeks and a month. The
Teport concluded, “The existing design of MIDAS is so complicated that
it probably cannot be made reliable enough with the present and foreseen
reliability art to warrant deployment.” Although the Ad Hoc group’s report
considered MIDAS to have a valuable and needed role, questions arose
over the requirement for satellite early warning in the post-1965 time
period. McNamara directed the Secretary of the Air Force to submit an
analysis on the value of early warning and MIDAS’s role. Meanwhile, on
July 31, 1962, the Defense Department reoriented MIDAS to a research
and development effort. Its immediate objective was gathering radiomet-
tic background and target measurement data. In keeping with the secrecy
that now attached to military satellites, the name “MIDAS” was replaced
with “Program 461.”

Two Program 461 launches took place during 1962. An April 9 launch
was successful, but the spacecraft experienced a power failure shortly
after attaining orbit, while another on December 19 ended in another fail-
ure and shower of debris into the ocean—this time the Pacific. Two more
background measurement flights (RM-3 and RM-4) made during the year
provided “irrefutable evidence” that eliminated the concerns over large
target detection and background radiation clutter.

36


November 13, 1984, the first test of the miniature vehicle, using a star as
the target, proved unsuccessful. The third launch represented the first (and
only) actual interception. A fully-developed ASAT missile was launched
on September 13, 1985, and the miniature vehicle struck and destroyed
the P78-1 Solwind satellite as it orbited the Earth at an altitude of 320
miles. Loss of the satellite’s telemetry signals marked the moment of
impact. The final two tests, on August 22 and September 29, 1986, were
directed toward stars.

Originally, the Air Force sought to equip two F—15 squadrons with
ASAT missiles in 1988 stationed at Langley AFB in Virginia, and McCord
AFB in Washington. But the program stirred controversy in Congress,
where it was viewed by many as the start of a space arms race. Congress
imposed restrictions on space testing (the one interception was conducted
between the lapse of one Congressional testing ban and the passage of
another). Test restrictions and budgetary limitations caused Air Force
leaders to cancel the program in March 1988. The Congressional debate
over the Earth-based F-15 ASAT, however, represented only a small part
of a still-larger debate over space-based weapons.

The Strategic Defense Initiative

In the mid-1970s, about the time the F-15-launched ASAT program
started, political and military interest increased in Anti Ballistic Missile
(ABM) systems that might protect the United States from a missile attack
in the event of war. Soviet ICBM forces had grown from a handful of mis-
siles in the early 1960s to 1,500 by the early 1970s, when the SALT I
Treaty limited the number of U.S. and Soviet missiles that could be
deployed. By the end of the 1970s when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan,
many Americans believed the U.S. was in a military decline, while the
Soviets were aggressively expanding their influence. In 1980 Ronald
Reagan was elected President, pledging to increase U.S. military strength.
In 1983 he directed the start of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a
wide-ranging research and development program that could provide
Earth- and space-based ABM systems, and, it was hoped, shield the
United States from attack by ballistic missiles. The effort was managed by
the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) attached to the
Office of the Secretary of Defense. The Air Force had a major role in
SDI's study and test programs.

SDI included improved early warning systems, traditional Earth-
based ABM missiles without nuclear warheads (with destruction of a tar-
get secured through direct impact), and constellations of Earth-orbiting
battle stations. The latter would carry missiles on board designed to home
on and destroy Soviet ICBMs during their boost and mid-course phases.
In the longer term, SDI looked at directed energy weapons which included
Earth-based, airborne, and orbital lasers, as well as particle beam weapons
such as the X-ray laser.

67


I.

Il.

IV.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
Military Space Missions Defined .......................0. 1
Early Aerial Reconnaissance
Military Space Missions Identified, Satellite Work Begun .... . 5

Forging a National Space Policy ..................
Organizing America’s Space Effort .
Project CORONA
The National Reconnaissance Office

Manned Military Space Flight .......................... 15
The X-20 Dyna-Soar
The Manned Orbiting Laboratory .................
Military Space Shuttle Plans and Operations

Military Space Operations, 1958-1991 .................... 32
Missile Early Warning - MIDAS to DSP .................. 32
The SPADATS/SSN Tracking Network . . 39
Nuclear Detection - Vela Hotel to IONDS . 41

Communication Satellites - IDCSP to Milstar.............. 44
Meteorological Satellites - DMSP
Navigation Satellites - The Navstar Global Positioning System 55
Anti-Satellite Systems - SAINT, 437, and the F-15 ASAT... .59

The Strategic Defense Initiative .....................000. 67
Launch Operations, Ground Control, Organization and

Management ............. 0... cece cece cece cece eee e eed 69
The Founding of Space Command....................... 72

Desert Storm, the Air Force and the Military Space Program
in a Changing World ..................0.00.00 ccc ee eee 73


Onizuka AFB in Sunnyvale, California, served as the hub of the world-wide
Air Force spacecraft tracking and control network before 1993. This Air
Force network went into operation in 1960 and was transferred to Space
Command in October 1987.

conducted the launches of NASA’s Mercury and Gemini manned space-
craft that used military boosters. Once a military spacecraft reached orbit,
Air Force controllers on the ground had to monitor its operations, send
commands to the space vehicle, and receive and distribute data from it.
For Department of Defense satellites, the Air Force Satellite Control
Network performed this function. An interim satellite control center was
originally established in Palo Alto, California, in January 1959. By June
1960, a permanent facility had been built at Sunnyvale, California, near
Lockheed’s Missile and Space Division, which built the Agena booster-
satellite. The Air Force ground control center was originally called the
Satellite Test Annex, then, through the 1960s and into the mid-1980s,
Sunnyvale Air Force Station (AFS). A less formal name, the “Blue Cube,”
described the large, multi-story, windowless main building.

Data from the military satellites fed into the Blue Cube via a network
of tracking stations. The original nine sites, built between 1959 and 1961,
were scattered across the world, from the Seychelles Islands in the Indian
Ocean to Thule Air Base in Greenland. Over the years some of the sites
were closed, while others were added. (By the early 1980s, a total of seven

70


were deployed, this country could attack the Soviet Union in the certain
knowledge that a Soviet counterstrike against the United States would fail.
Some characterized SDI as “destabilizing,” militarily useless, and techni-
cally and economically unfeasible. The debate often proved harsh and per-
sonal.

Before these issues could be decided, however, in December 1991 the
Soviet Union ceased to exist—replaced by a much weaker Common-
wealth of Independent States. But other events underscored the political
and military significance of ballistic missile defense just a few months
before the Soviet Union disappeared into the dust bin of history.

IV

Launch Operations, Ground Control, Organization
and Management

If automated defense application satellites are the most visible ele-
ment of the military space program, many people and numerous organi-
zations support and operate them. All American space launches are con-
ducted from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Vandenberg AFB, California.
The Long Range Proving Ground AFB (later Patrick AFB) at Cape
Canaveral was formally established on June 10, 1949 as a guided missile
test facility. Over the years that followed, it saw the first launches of the
Redstone, Atlas, Titan, Thor, and Jupiter missiles. When the U.S. entered
the Space Age, it was the launch site for the early Vanguard and Explorer
IGY satellites, Moon and planetary probes, and all U.S. manned space
flights. Cape Canaveral, in fact, hosted the launch of all American civil
and military spacecraft eastward into low inclination Earth orbits.

Cape Canaveral, however, could not be used to launch satellites into
high-inclination orbits, also called “polar orbits.” Such orbits would
require the rocket booster to overfly populated areas in Florida, Cuba, and
South America. Should a failure occur, falling debris might cause injuries
or deaths. Clearly, a second U.S. launch site was needed. The site selected
on September 1, 1956, was a former Army base called Camp Cooke. On
October 4, 1958, Cooke AFB was formally renamed Vandenberg AFB, in
memory of Air Force Chief of Staff, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg. The
first launch from Vandenberg AFB, of a Thor IRBM, was made on
December 16, 1958. Located on the California coast, a booster could be
launched to the south and west without crossing land. Any Air Force satel-
lites that required polar orbits, such as SAMOS, the early MIDAS, or
DMSPs were launched from Vandenberg AFB.

Air Force crews performed the checkout and launch of all Thor, Atlas,
and Titan military boosters. The 6595th Aerospace Test Wing (ATW) con-
ducted all military launches from Vandenberg AFB, while the 6555th
ATW had that responsibility at Cape Canaveral. Thus, the 6555th ATW

69


|
|
|

nization. The former Air Research and Development Command became
the Air Force Systems Command, while the Air Materiel Command
became the Air Force Logistics Command. This first division of missile
and space activities proved short-lived, and in July 1967, BSD and SSD
were reconsolidated to form the Space and Missile Systems Organization
(SAMSO), which continued to operate until the late 1970s.

In 1960 the Air Force established the Aerospace Corporation as a non-
profit institution (like RAND) to perform systems engineering for and
technical direction of Air Force missile and space contractors. Aerospace
Corporation technical personnel were involved with nearly every military
satellite and missile program. For example, the early MOL experiment
proposals were prepared by the Aerospace Corporation, as were evalua-
tions of the MOL contractor proposals and cost estimates.

The Founding of Space Command

Air Force space activities grew tremendously in scope and importance
between 1958 and 1980. But because no separate operating command for
space projects existed, they remained under the control of the service’s
research and development arm, Air Force Systems Command. After a
period of study, on September 1, 1982, Headquarters USAF established
Air Force Space Command at Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs,
Colorado, to exercise operational control of space systems. The first two
satellite systems assigned to Space Command were the Defense Support
Program missile early warning network and the Defense Meteorological
Satellite Program. In May 1983, Space Command assumed control of all
ground-based early warning radars, and, in January 1984, of the Navstar
GPS as well. (The fourth defense support space mission, communication
satellites, remained the responsibility of the Defense Information Systems
Agency.) A few years later, in October 1987, Space Command acquired
responsibility the Sunnyvale, California, satellite control center, renamed
Onizuka AFB in honor of Lt. Col. Ellison Onizuka, an STS-51C crew
member killed in the Challenger explosion. Beginning in 1989, the
Consolidated Space Operations Center (CSOC) located at Falcon AFB
near Colorado Springs, gradually assumed command and control of mili-
tary satellites in orbit. It became fully operational and was turned over to
Space Command in September 1993. At that time, Onizuka AFB became
a backup control center. Finally, Headquarters USAF transferred all satel-
lite launch operations from Air Force Systems Command to Air Force
Space Command in October 1990.

While Air Force Space Command brought together operational func-
tions, a parallel reorganization at Air Force System Command’s Space
Division combined the research and development activities. In October
1982, the Air Force Space Technology Center (AFSTC, later redesignated
the Phillips Laboratory) was established at Kirtland AFB under the con-
trol of Space Division. It was composed of three existing units—the Air

72


The crew of STS-51C. In the front row, left to right: Loren J. Shriver (Pilot)
and Thomas K. Mattingly II. In the back row are: Gary E. Payton (Payload
Specialist), James F. Buchi and Ellison L. Onizuka (Mission Specialists).
Payton was the first Manned Spaceflight Engineer to make a Shuttle flight.
Onizuka was killed in the Challenger explosion a year later.

launch vehicle was needed, since the Atlas, Titan II, and Thor production
lines had been shut down to ensure a full Shuttle launch schedule. In
February 1984, Aldridge ordered a study of alternative launch options for
Shuttle military payloads. Study participants found the Global Positioning
System (GPS) Block II navigation satellites as the most urgent military
space project requiring expendable launch vehicles.

The first military Shuttle mission, STS-51C, carried a classified pay-
load into orbit on January 24, 1985. On board was the first MSE to fly,
Major Gary Payton. The Shuttle returned to Earth on January 27. This was
followed on October 3, 1985 by the second military Shuttle flight—STS-
51J (which was also the first flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis). Major
William A. Pailes served as the MSE for this mission. When completed on
October 7, the mission became the second and last time an MSE would
travel into space. The year 1986 was to have been an ambitious one for the
Shuttle program, including a first launch into polar orbit from Vandenberg
AFB. But on January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 sec-
onds after lift-off, killing its seven-member crew. Two Titan 34D failures
and the loss of a Delta booster during the same time period grounded the
whole U.S. space program—NASA, commercial, and military.

29



ments became so important that it was extended as an operational project.
During 1960 and 1961 the CORONA satellites carried a series of
improved cameras—the KH-2 and KH-3—which provided higher resolu-
tion of images and improved reliability. A major breakthrough came in
February 1962 with the first launch of a KH-4 camera, which allowed
stereo photos to be taken from orbit. Later CORONA satellites carried two
reentry film capsules. The final camera was the KH-4B, introduced in
September 1967. While the film from the original KH-1 on Discoverer
XIV had a resolution of 35 to 40 feet, the KH-4B had a resolution of 5 to
6 feet. Moreover, satellite lifetime on orbit increased from one day, with
Discoverer XIV, to between 18 and 20 days for the later CORONA satel-
lites. Technical problems became the exception rather than the rule. The
145th and final CORONA satellite was launched on May 25, 1972. Its sec-
ond capsule, recovered on May 31, brought the program to a close.

The establishment of the NRO ended direct Air Force control of satel-
lite reconnaissance. After 1960, Air Force space activities focused on the
launching and tracking of satellites, and conducting the previously defined
military support missions: communications, missile early warning, mete-
orology, navigation, and the detection of nuclear detonations on Earth and
in space.

II
Manned Military Space Flight

Although the Eisenhower Administration had organized U.S. civil and
military space activities, one issue remained: what role would the Air
Force play in U.S. manned space flight? NASA’s manned space flight
activities, approved by the President, derived from its charter to pursue
science and civil applications in space. The Air Force space role, on the
other hand, now was limited to the identified and approved defense sup-
port missions performed by unmanned, automated satellites. How might
manned space flight serve these missions?

The Air Force manned space flight effort grew out of earlier aeronau-
tical research. To understand the aerodynamic unknowns of supersonic
flight, the Army Air Forces after World War II had built an experimental
rocket-powered aircraft, the Bell X-1, designed to reach speeds above
Mach 1 and survive. On October 14, 1947, Capt. Charles E. Yeager piloted
the aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound. Advanced versions of the
X-1 reached speeds in excess of Mach 2 and altitudes of 90,000 feet.
Another of the “X-planes,” the Bell X-2 achieved a speed of Mach 3 and
an altitude of 126,907 feet. At the same time, development work was
underway on the North American X-15. This aircraft was designed to
reach speeds of Mach 6 and altitudes above 60 miles. Aeronautical engi-
neers in the 1950s thought that space would be reached in a series of such

15


Defense Research and Engineering, authorized the Air Force to make a
study of a manned military space station. The study, to be finished by
early 1964, was to focus on the reconnaissance mission with the goal of
assessing the military usefulness of man in space. To define the charac-
teristics of the station, the Air Force was instructed to consider the use of
such programs as the X-15, X-20, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. A few
weeks later, on October 23, members of the X-20 project briefed
McNamara and other Defense Department officials on the status and plans
for that effort. Afterward, McNamara asked project personnel what the Air
Force planned for the X-20 after maneuverable reentry had been demon-
strated. He stated categorically that he could not justify spending $1 bil-
lion for any program in want of an ultimate goal. Until he understood what
manned military space missions might reasonably be conducted, he was
no longer interested in further X-20 spending.

The next day, Harold Brown reportedly offered a manned orbiting lab-
oratory program to the Air Force in exchange for the cancellation of the
X-20 Dyna-Soar. General Curtis E. LeMay, Air Force Chief of Staff,
rejected the offer and ordered a rebuttal to the proposal be prepared. On
November 14, 1963, Brown recommended to McNamara that the X-20 be
cancelled in favor of a military space station program. He proposed two
possible configurations. The larger design used the Apollo Lunar Module
adapter, launched by a Saturn IB, as the station. The ferry vehicle would
be an Apollo Command Module orbited by a Titan IIIC. Brown preferred
the second option—a four-man military station which used the Gemini as
ferry vehicle. Both the station and Gemini spacecraft would be launched
with Titan IIICs. Management of the Gemini program would be trans-
ferred from NASA to the Defense Department by October 1965, with the
first ferry launch in mid-1966, and space station tests underway in mid-
1967. In the long term, a Lifting Body ferry vehicle could be developed to
allow runway landings.

The new military space station plan ran into problems with NASA
officials. They had no objections to a manned military space program, but
they could not support a military space station. Instead, NASA officials
suggested that the Air Force consider a manned laboratory that did not
involve docking, crew transfer, or resupply. On November 30, 1963,
Harold Brown made a new proposal that took into account the NASA
objections. A Gemini and an attached 1,500-cubic-foot laboratory module
would be launched by a Titan IIIC. The laboratory could be operated in
space for 30 days and then abandoned, its two-man crew returning to
Earth. This could develop into the Gemini-based proposal, which Brown
still viewed as the most feasible design.

Despite last-minute efforts to keep it alive and link it with the emerg-
ing military space station program, the X-20’s fate was sealed. On
December 9, 1963, McNamara met with President Johnson, and the
President agreed to cancel the X-20 Dyna-Soar. The following day, on

21



weapons system program was offered to Defense Department officials,
Dyna-Soar probably would be terminated. On January 7, 1959, Deputy
Defense Secretary Quarles approved $10 million for Dyna-Soar, but only
to conduct a research and development program—and not, he stressed, as
any recognition of Dyna-Soar as a space weapons system.

A few months later, on April 13, 1959, Herbert F. York, Director of
Defense Research and Engineering, established Dyna-Soar’s objectives.
He specified its primary goal to be non-orbital flight up to speeds of
22,000 feet per second. Dyna-Soar would be launched by an existing

Artist’s concept of a Dyna-Soar launching.

17


Following the loss of Challenger, the Air Force terminated plans to
use Vandenberg AFB for Shuttle launches. SLC-6 was mothballed and its
equipment transferred to NASA, other Air Force projects, or the Navy.

Defense Support Program early warning satellite “Liberty” as it was deployed
from the STS-44 mission. The DSP satellites provided warning of Iraqi Scud
missile launches during the Gulf War, which allowed civilians to take cover
before the missiles impacted and Patriot missile batteries to engage the
incoming Scuds.

30


opment of an operational reconnaissance satellite. On February 3,
Eisenhower ordered the highest and equal national priority for all ballistic
missiles—the Atlas and Titan ICBMs and Thor and Jupiter IRBMs—and
the WS-117L reconnaissance satellite and Ballistic Missile Early Warning
System (BMEWS) radar network. A few days later he approved develop-
ment of another reconnaissance satellite, code named Project CORONA,
using Thor boosters and film recovery, as proposed by RAND two years
before. This program, like the U-2, was placed under CIA control with the
Air Force a joint venture partner.

Project CORONA

CORONA began with an assessment of overflight reconnaissance sys-
tems conducted by the President’s Board of Consultants on Foreign
Intelligence. On October 24, 1957, it issued a report that concluded the
Air Force WS-117L project, for a variety of reasons, would not become
operational until the early 1960s. With the launch of Sputnik 1 and the
emerging Missile Gap controversy, board members recommended that an
interim photo reconnaissance satellite system could be developed and
flown more quickly. This system would fill the gap between the time the
U_2 ceased to be of service and the time the WS-117L became opera-
tional. Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Quarles and CIA Director
Allen Dulles endorsed the proposal.

Unlike WS-117L, which by now had been identified in the press as a
reconnaissance satellite, this new program was to be managed covertly.
For the first several months, in fact, no written records were kept of meet-
ings and briefings. Eisenhower's final approval of a revised project using
the Itek 24-inch focal length camera in April 1958, it is said, was hand-
written on the back of an envelope. The President approved Richard
Bissell, CIA Special Assistant for Planning and Development who previ-
ously guided the U-2 project, as the head of Project CORONA. His Air
Force counterpart once again would be Brig. Gen. Osmond J. Ritland,
now Vice Commander of the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division.

Original plans called for CORONA to consist of an extremely simple
spin-stabilized satellite, similar to the RAND proposals, that used a reen-
try capsule to return the film and camera to Earth. The Itek Corporation in
early 1958 proposed using a camera patterned after those of the WS-461L.
reconnaissance balloon program. This system returned only the film, but
promised photographs of three times better resolution than those of the
original camera design, but it required that the satellite be stabilized in
space with the camera pointed towards the Earth. While spin-stabilization
was proven, attitude stabilization on all three-axes represented a greater
technological challenge. Bissell agonized before finally deciding to aban-
don the spin-stabilized satellite design in favor of the Itek system.

The Lockheed Missiles and Space Division was to integrate the vari-
ous hardware elements, and to accomplish this effort it received a one-

12


The ground tracking station at Vandenberg AFB. A network of such
Air Force ground stations track, command, and control all U.S.
military satellites as they orbit the Earth.

were in operation.) Controlling the military satellites was a continuous
process. Preparations began about 30 minutes before a satellite passed
over a particular tracking station. Once the pass began, the tracking
antenna would follow the satellite and receive its telemetry signals. When
military communications satellites became operational, data from other
defense application satellites could be relayed through communication
satellites to Sunnyvale AFS in near real time. The data was recorded, then
reviewed, to detect any problems. Commands to the satellites would also
be transmitted during a pass. These ranged from routine “housekeeping”
messages to emergency commands to deal with a subsystem failure. It was
much easier to control satellites in high orbits, such as those at geosyn-
chronous altitude, than low-orbit satellites (90 to 450 nautical miles). The
latter required “great care and feeding” owing to the short time a satellite
remained within view of a ground station.

Management of Air Force space activities underwent a series of
changes during the 1950s and 1960s. The first Air Force organization
responsible for space activity was the Western Development Division,
established in July 1954. At first, WDD was charged only with the Atlas
ICBM. Within eighteen months, its responsibility grew to include the
Titan ICBM, the Thor IRBM, and the WS-117L reconnaissance satellite.
On June 1, 1957, WDD was renamed the Air Force Ballistic Missile
Division (AFBMD) which reflected its expanded role.

As space activities became a larger part of AFBMD’s activities, in
April 1961 the organization was replaced by the Ballistic Systems
Division (BSD) and the Space Systems Division (SSD). This was part of
a wide-ranging change in the Air Force’s research and development orga-

7


A GPS satellite undergoing checkout. The GPS system was critical to the
success of Coalition forces in the 1991 Gulf War. Although built as a
military system, its civilian uses are now widespread.

feet.) Although Transit was widely used by the Navy and commercial
shipping, it could not be used by an aircraft moving at high speed, nor
could it give altitude measurements. An improvement in accuracy to tens
of feet, rather than hundreds, would also greatly increase the system’s use-
fulness. In 1964, both the Air Force and Navy began studies of improved
navigation satellites.

The Air Force concept, called 621B, envisioned 20 satellites in geo-
synchronous orbits. The system could provide world-wide, three-dimen-
sional (latitude, longitude, and altitude) coverage. The Navy system,
called Timation (short for Time Navigation), used 21 to 27 satellites in
eight-hour orbits. Like 621B, the Navy satellites also would carry atomic
clocks to provide the time signals. Two Timation satellites were launched
in 1967 and 1969, while tests of 621B were conducted at the White Sands
Proving Grounds, New Mexico, in 1971 and 1972.

In 1973 Defense Department officials evaluated these two programs
and combined them. Future U.S. military navigation satellites would use
the 621B’s signal structure and format, but be placed in slightly higher
orbits like those planned for Timation, with a 12-hour rather than an eight-
hour period. The Defense Department identified the Air Force as the lead
service to oversee development and operation, and named the program the
Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS). North American Rockwell was
selected as prime contractor to build the instrumented GPS satellites,

56


of the Office of Defense Mobilization on March 27, 1954, he said, “mod-
er weapons had made it easier for a hostile nation with a closed society
to plan an attack in secrecy and thus gain an advantage denied to the
nation with an open society.” He asked Lee A. DuBridge, President of the
California Institute of Technology and Chairman of the Scientific
Advisory Committee, and James R. Killian Jr., President of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to organize a special study
group to consider continental defense, strike forces, and intelligence.
Killian chaired this group, organized in July and first called the “Surprise
Attack Panel,” later the “Technological Capabilities Panel” (TCP). The
TCP operated between August 1954 and January 1955. Its two-volume
final report, “Meeting the Threat of Surprise Attack,” was issued on
February 14, 1955. A separate, Presidential annex prepared by Edwin
Land, President of Polaroid, contained details of a special, unarmed, high-
altitude reconnaissance aircraft that could overfly the Soviet Union.
Back in November 1954, at the urging of Land and Killian, President
Eisenhower had approved development of the plane eventually known to
history as the Lockheed U-2. Knowledge of the U-2 program, conducted
by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Air Force, was very
closely held. Until May 1960 only four people in the White House and
fewer than 400 in the country knew about this project. Eisenhower also
made a political effort to secure international agreement permitting aerial
reconnaissance. At a July 1955 Geneva Four Power Summit Conference,
he proposed that reconnaissance aircraft of the U.S. and Soviet Union

An Air Force U-2 in flight. Between 1956 and 1960, CIA-operated U-2s made
24 overflights of the Soviet Union.


in December 1982. The User Committee also developed plans for phas-
ing-out “obsolete expendable boosters,” such as the Atlas, Delta, and
Titan. Air Force involvement with the Shuttle program, nonetheless,
would be far different than its association with the Dyna-Soar and MOL
programs. Unlike these separate military space programs directed and
controlled by the USAF, military operations for the Shuttle would be lim-
ited to launching satellites and conducting experiments on orbit.

To support military Shuttle operations, the Air Force authorized a new
control center in 1979. The Consolidated Space Operations Center
(CSOC) would consist of two elements. The Satellite Operations Center
(SOC) would handle on-orbit control of instrumented Defense
Department satellites, while the Shuttle Operations and Planning Center
(SOPC) would be used for planning and control of manned military
Shuttle missions. The CSOC would be built at Falcon AFB, near Colorado
Springs, Colorado. Until it was in operation, the Air Force control center
at Sunnyvale and NASA's Johnson Spaceflight Center would be used.

The Shuttle also allowed non-astronauts to go into space. Payload
Specialists would operate experiments and be involved in the deployment
of satellites. They might include scientists, contractor personnel, and, for
Air Force and Defense Department Shuttle missions, military officers. To
supply these military Payload Specialists, the service inaugurated the
Manned Spaceflight Engineer (MSE) program at Los Angeles AFB in
August 1979. The MSE program trained qualified military officers (both
Air Force and Navy) in the design, development, and integration of satel-
lites and experiments to be flown on the Shuttle. The MSEs would
develop plans and operational procedures to be used by NASA astronauts
on military Shuttle missions. These plans included crew activities, pay-
load training for NASA astronauts, Shuttle-satellite integration, and coor-
dinating medical and scientific experiments sponsored by military agen-
cies. During military Shuttle flights, they would also act as Payload
Communicators for the ground control at Sunnyvale and Falcon AFB. As
Payload Specialists, the MSEs underwent Shuttle and zero-G familiariza-
tion and participated in NASA simulator training and operational plan-
ning. In all, 32 MSEs (29 men and three women) were selected and
trained between 1981 and 1986. Unlike the Dyna-Soar and MOL astro-
nauts, however, the names of the MSEs were not made public for some
time.

Air Force use of the man-rated Shuttle remained a point of contro-
versy. One problem was manned space flight history—the Air Force had
put a tremendous amount of effort and money into the Dyna-Soar and
MOL programs, yet had nothing to show for it. The other was control—
NASA ran the Shuttle program; the Air Force, on the other hand, pur-
chased and for the most part controlled disposition of the nation’s expend-
able boosters. As might be expected, technical problems, inadequate fund-
ing, and politics caused years of delay for the Shuttle. After launches

27


of Thors allocated to the program was being cut from sixteen to eight. As
four were needed to keep Program 437 operational (two on alert at
Johnston Island and two in war reserve at Vandenberg AFB), this left only
four Thors for CTLs through FY 1967. The first CTL was conducted on
November 16, 1964, and the second on April 5, 1965. Both were success-
ful. But it would be nearly two years before another one took place. In the
meantime, Program 437 began to shift away from being an operational
anti-satellite system, its resources diverted to support an experimental
satellite inspector.

Early in 1964 work began on adapting Program 437 to undertake the
inspection role originally planned for SAINT. Initially called Program
437X, it was re-named Program 437AP (Alternate Payload). The nuclear
warhead was replaced with a camera payload. The inspection package
could photograph a satellite at altitudes between 100 and about 400 nauti-
cal miles, and out to a maximum slant range from Johnston Island of 800
nautical miles. Once the photo run was completed, the exposed film would
be taken up on cassettes within a recovery capsule, which would be ejected
as the payload re-entered the atmosphere. The capsule would then deploy
a parachute and be retrieved in mid-air by a modified C—130 transport.

The first Program 437AP test launch was made on December 7, 1965,
with an Agena satellite body serving as the target. The lift-off and photo
pass was normal, but during reentry a short circuit prevented capsule sep-
aration, and it was destroyed. The two subsequent Program 437AP test
launches, on January 18 and March 12, 1966, were successful. Col. Merle
M. Zeine, the program director, recommended canceling the planned
fourth test launch and using the payload for an operational mission. Both
Air Force Systems Command and the Air Staff approved. The NORAD
commander requested from the Defense Department permission to con-
duct an operational mission on April 6 to photograph a Soviet satellite. By
this time, however, political sensitivity over even inspecting a Soviet satel-
lite and the chance of an international incident, caused permission to be
denied. (The Program 437 and 437AP test launches, as well as the CTLs,
had all been directed against inactive U.S. satellites.)

Interest in using Program 437AP launches against Soviet satellites
remained widespread among operational commanders in the field and
those in the intelligence community. In late April 1966, Air Defense
Command and Air Force Systems Command tentatively agreed to make
ten Program 437AP launches between 1967 and 1969 in a program called
“Stone Marten.” Harold Brown, now Secretary of the Air Force, wrote in
a memo to McNamara that the intelligence community had requested an
enhanced capability to gather data on Soviet satellites, an area where cur-
rent capability was considered poor, and forecast “the distinct possibility
of a future requirement for its use.”

While future Stone Marten launches were debated, a NASA satellite
served as the target for the first operational Program 437AP launch. On

63


to standby status by the end of the fiscal year. There was, he said, little
likelihood that the system ever would be needed. With its 24-hour alert
status cancelled, the program’s missiles and warheads were removed from
Johnston Island and the launch and ground facilities shut down. Now it
would require 30 days to return Program 437 to operation. If a final fillip
were needed, Hurricane Celeste delivered it on August 19, 1972. High
winds and tides struck the island and damaged the program computers and
other facilities. Local efforts at repair failed, and Program 437 was
removed from service on December 8, 1972. Not until March 20, 1973
was the damage repaired and the program returned to stand-by 30-day
alert status. Although the practical ability of Program 437 to destroy a
Soviet orbital weapon was now minimal, it still represented the only U.S.
anti-satellite system. For this reason, it was retained temporarily. The
Defense Department finally terminated Program 437 on April 1, 1975.
The order, issued on an inauspicious date for program participants,
brought to a close the first operational Air Force anti-satellite program.

Although the Program 437 satellite interceptor program had been
reduced to a “stand-by status” in 1970, Defense Department and Air Force
interest in anti-satellite systems continued. The Soviets, meanwhile, had
developed and tested an anti-satellite (ASAT) interceptor, similar in some
respects to the SAINT concept, which relied on a high-explosive warhead
to destroy a target satellite. Without a counter, Air Force officials argued,
the Soviets now could destroy U.S. satellites without any risk of retalia-
tion in kind. By the early 1970s, the Air Force had begun to reconsider an
air-launched ASAT. This concept, which dated back to the late 1950s,
drew on attempts to intercept a satellite with an air-launched rocket.
During September 1959, a missile was launched from a B-S8 in an
attempt to intercept the Discoverer 5 satellite. The launch ended in failure.
On October 13, 1959, a Bold Orion missile was launched from a B—47 and
passed within four miles of Explorer 6. This represented the first inter-
ception of a satellite.

In 1971, the air-launched ASAT concept re-emerged with a proposal
for Project SPIKE. The concept featured an F—106 interceptor carrying a
Standard Anti-radar Homing Missile with a small second stage and a ter-
minal homing vehicle. The ensemble incorporated a target seeker, horizon
sensors and an on-board computer. The payload could be either a small
nuclear or high-explosive warhead, or a photographic package. Although
SPIKE was not developed, it established the basic design features that
would be used.

In 1975, President Gerald Ford approved the beginning efforts on an
Earth-based F-15-launched ASAT. The anti-satellite rocket in this
instance was about 18 feet long and 20 inches in diameter. Five control
fins provided guidance and stability during launch within the atmosphere.
The solid-propellant rocket’s first stage consisted of a modified SRAM
missile, while the second stage was an Altair III rocket from the Scout

65


Major Doug Pearson launches the ASAT on its way to intercept and
destroy the Solwind satellite.

booster. The missile carried a “miniature vehicle” which would make the
interception. This ASAT missile would be released from the F-15 while
in a steep climb. After the first stage burned out, it would separate and the
second stage would ignite. The guidance system would direct the second
stage to the intercept point. After second stage burnout, the miniature
vehicle would be released and steered to collide with the target satellite by
64 small solid-fuel thrusters. The high-speed impact would blast the tar-
get satellite into a cloud of fragments.

On May 26, 1983, the first of 13 all-up captive flights tested the ASAT
missile’s ability to navigate accurately, the F-15’s ability to fly the launch
profile, and the ability of the range instrumentation to monitor the launch
program. The first launch of the ASAT missile on January 21, 1984, tested
the missile’s ability to fly to a point in space and deploy its miniature vehi-
cle, although a miniature vehicle was not carried in this test. On

66


sance mission remained unannounced. The first MOL test launch, sched-
uled for November 1966 from Patrick AFB, would be an unmanned sub-
orbital test of the heatshield hatch. Subsequently two unmanned launches
of the complete MOL vehicle would take place from Vandenberg AFB, the
first scheduled on April 15, 1969. The first of five manned MOL launches
was scheduled on December 15, 1969. Although no follow-on operational

Artist’s concept of a MOL-Titan IIIC launch. The solid- propellant boosters
have separated and are falling away. The two-man crew in the Gemini space-

craft atop the stack, would transfer to the orbiting laboratory module (beneath
it) for a 30-day mission.

24


DMSP photos helped determine weapons loads and selection of targets. In
more than 44,000 combat missions, DMSP weather data was estimated to
have saved some $250 million in flights that, without it, would have been
recalled.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Donald L. Cromer, Commander of Space Systems
Division during Desert Storm, observed the marked change in attitude
towards military space systems that occurred during this conflict. Before
the Gulf War, he observed, “space people used to be pushed off to the side.
We had to fight for everything. We had neither understanding nor strong
support for all the things that space could do for the Air Force.”
Afterward, everything changed. “Operation Desert Shield and Desert
Storm will be a watershed for recognizing that space is as much a part of
the Air Force and the military infrastructure as airplanes, tanks, and the
ships . . . 7” Cromer said. “All future wars will be planned and executed
with that in mind.” Army General Carl Steiner, Commander of the XVIII
Airborne Corps, put the change in attitude more succinctly: “Space does-
n’t just help . . . , I cannot go to war [today] without space systems.”
Desert Storm proved that pre-positioned military space systems furnished
Coalition forces an immense advantage, one that made possible a swift
victory with an extraordinarily low number of lives lost in combat.

Six months after the end of Desert Storm, the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics disappeared, and, with it after five decades, the central
factor in U.S. military planning. What of the Air Force and the military
space program in a post-Cold War future? The Air Force and indeed the
entire U.S. military establishment began a major reduction in size. In 1990
the Air Force commanded 200 wings; by 1994 this number had declined
to 90. Of thirteen major Air Force commands in 1990, only eight remained
in 1994. With the importance of satellites to modern warfare established
at the turn of the 21st century, however, defense support space systems
fared somewhat better. While overall Defense Department funding
declined twenty-two percent between 1992 and 1994, the budget for mil-
itary spacefaring dipped only eleven percent.

Whether directed to communications, reconnaissance, or early warn-
ing of missile attack, the Air Force and its contractors in the 1950s defined
virtually all defense support space applications in terms of strategic sys-
tems. Desert Storm in 1991 found the military services attempting to
apply these strategic space systems as best they could to meet the tactical
needs of military commanders in the field. Based on the Gulf War experi-
ence, the Defense Department in 1992 established the Combined Imagery
Office (CIO) to speed the dissemination of reconnaissance images. Air
Force Space Command in 1993 established a Space Warfare Center at
Falcon AFB in Colorado to conduct the Air Force Tactical Exploitation of
National Capabilities (TENCAP) program. The TENCAP “Talon” pro-
grams reflect the future shape of Air Force space activities. These include
efforts to demonstrate:

76


Military Space Missions Defined

To conduct this study, the Army Air Forces turned to Project RAND,
then a section of Douglas Aircraft Company, established to provide long-
range technical advice to the service. The resultant study, “Preliminary
Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship” was issued on May
2, 1946, and embraced a wide-ranging examination of satellite technol-
ogy. A “satellite offers an observation aircraft which cannot be brought
down by an enemy .. . ,” the report observed. Other military roles included
the “spotting of the points of impact of bombs launched by us, and the
observation of weather conditions over enemy territory.” The report also
mentioned satellites used for communications, and addressed other, as yet
unforeseen potentialities:

In making the decision as to whether or not to undertake
construction of such a craft now, it is not inappropriate to
view our present situation as similar to that in airplanes
prior to the flight of the Wright brothers. We can see no
more clearly all the utility and implications of spaceships
than the Wright brothers could see fleets of B-29s bomb-
ing Japan and air transports circling the globe.

Other studies followed, and in December 1947 the Air Materiel Command
(AMC) completed a review of the RAND studies. AMC confirmed that
satellites were technically feasible, but proposed further evaluation of
satellite requirements and specifications. A few weeks later, on January
15, 1948, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg claimed for the newly-created Air
Force “logical responsibility for the satellite.”

The uneasy alliance among wartime Allies broke down during 1947
and 1948, when the Soviet Union installed Communist governments
throughout Eastern Europe. In Western Europe, Communist parties sought
to extend Moscow’s control, while in Greece and Turkey, communist
insurgents battled Western-backed governments. In June 1948, the Soviets
sealed off all land routes into West Berlin. For nearly a year, the city had
to be supplied by air. Then, in August 1949, the Soviets tested their first
atomic bomb, bringing to an end the U.S. nuclear monopoly sooner than
had been expected. A few months later, communist forces swept to power
in China. Then, on June 25, 1950, North Korean troops invaded South
Korea, and within days U.S. forces were committed under the United
Nations. In November, Communist Chinese “volunteers” entered the
Korean War.

All the while, the Soviets’ ability to launch nuclear attacks against the
United States increased. In August 1953 the Soviets tested their first


The USAF and the Military Space Program

The United States military space program began at the end of World
War II when a few people realized that space flight was now achievable
and could be employed to military advantage. Science and technology in
the form of advanced radar, jet propulsion, ballistic rockets such as the V-
2, and nuclear energy had dramatically altered the nature of war. Army Air
Forces Commanding General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold wrote in November
1945 that a space ship “is all but practicable today” and could be built
“within the foreseeable future.” The following month the Air Force
Scientific Advisory Group concluded that long-range rockets were techni-
cally feasible and that satellites were a “definite possibility.” The U.S.
Navy also expressed interest in space flight. In November 1945 the Navy
Bureau of Aeronautics produced a satellite report, and, on March 7, 1946
proposed an interservice space program. The idea was presented to the
joint Army-Navy Aeronautical Board on April 9. Major General Curtis E.
LeMay, the Director of Research and Development for the Army Air
Forces, however, viewed space operations as an exclusive Air Force
domain, and he ordered an independent study.

1946 RAND Satellite Rocket


page work statement. CORONA would use a Lockheed Agena upper stage
booster-satellite containing the Itek camera (later called the KH-1 [for
“Keyhole”}), and a General Electric reentry capsule that would return the
exposed film to Earth.

Because the legal question of freedom of space remained open,
Project CORONA was named “Discoverer” to establish a cover. It was
described as a scientific project that conducted biomedical research and
other experiments in space. Discoverer 1 failed at launch on February 28,
1959. But this was only the first in a series of failures. Boosters exploded
during launch, satellites tumbled in orbit, the film, exposed to the harsh
conditions of space, turned brittle and broke, and attempts to separate the
capsules from the Agena and secure reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere at
the proper time and place, seemingly proved futile. As one problem was
solved, another one took its place. Despite a growing string of failures,
Eisenhower’s support of the Air Force-ClIA CORONA team never
wavered.

The National Reconnaissance Office

The United States lost its main source of intelligence on the Soviet
military force structure and capabilities on May 1, 1960, when a U-2 was
shot down deep inside the Soviet Union and its pilot, Francis Gary
Powers, was captured. President Eisenhower publicly admitted he had
authorized the mission, and, in the international crisis that followed,
ordered an end to aerial overflights of the Soviet Union.

With U-2 intelligence gone and reconnaissance satellites not yet oper-
ational, Eisenhower asked his science advisers to conduct two reviews of
USS. intelligence operations. One looked at intelligence organizations,
while the other evaluated the Air Force SAMOS program. Up to this point,
the Air Force had planned and directed the SAMOS program, with the
Strategic Air Command scheduled to control the operational satellite sys-
tem. The U-2 had been run by the civilian-controlled CIA supported by
the Air Force. Presidential Science Adviser George B. Kistiakowsky con-
ducted the SAMOS study with the assistance of two PSAC staff members.
On August 18, 1960, Kistiakowsky met with Air Force Undersecretary
Joseph V. Charyk, Carl F.G. Overhage, Director of MIT’s Lincoln Labora-
tory, and Edwin Land to discuss the findings. SAMOS, they agreed, had
both technical and management problems (the first launch had yet to take
place), and that direction should be removed from the Air Force and trans-
ferred to a new civilian office in the Defense Department. This office
would control program management, policy, plans, priorities, and orbital
operations.

Administration officials judged strategic reconnaissance from space,
like the U-2 aerial overflights, to be a national intelligence resource crit-
ical to the safety of the United States. It should not be controlled by any
single military service or even a single intelligence agency such as the

13



Drawing of the Genetrix reconnaissance balloon payload. The Genetrix mis-
sions were flown in January and February 1956. Owing to extra ballast intended
to lower the flight altitude, and Soviet air defenses, these balloons suffered a
high loss rate and President Dwight Eisenhower terminated the program.

recovered gondolas returned photos. The 13,813 usable photos covered
1,116,449 square miles of the Soviet Union and China (eight percent of
their total area). Because the balloons’ path could not be controlled, how-
ever, much of the photography was of fields and forests, areas of little
intelligence value.

A second series of reconnaissance balloon launches, known as the
WS-461L program, began in July 1958. As designed, these balloons could
fly for nearly a month at altitudes of 100,000 feet. But only three WS-
461L reconnaissance balloons were launched from the aircraft carrier USS
Windham Bay cruising south of Alaska. Because of a late start and an error
in setting the timing release of the gondolas by the military launch crew,
all three balloons descended to Earth inside Poland. An irate President
Eisenhower ordered an end to all further reconnaissance balloon flights.

Fears of a Soviet surprise nuclear attack affected not just Western
leaders. A poll conducted in the mid 1950s indicated that more than half
of all American citizens thought that they were more likely to die in a
nuclear attack than from old age. With each military service demanding
funds to meet every possible contingency, President Eisenhower faced an
intolerable situation. At a meeting with the Science Advisory Committee


Israel with the presumed intent of provoking retaliation by a country
reported to have nuclear weapons. Such unstable behavior was outside the
Cold War experience. The CIA has estimated that by the year 2000, at
least six Third World countries will possess ballistic missiles of varying
Tanges and accuracies.

Post-Desert Storm missile defense planning reflected this threat. In
January 1991, President George Bush redirected the Strategic Defense Ini-
tiative to a more limited goal of defending U.S. territory, forces, and allies
against small-scale ballistic missile attacks. This concept, called Global
Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS), reduced Brilliant Eyes in
size while it continued the Brilliant Pebbles program. On November 10,
1993, the Defense Department cancelled the FEWS early warning satel-
lite and replaced it with a less expensive program of early warning satel-
lites, called the Alert Locate and Report Missiles (ALARM) program. In
short order, however, ALARM was replaced in December 1994 by a DPS
follow-on called the Space-Based Infrared (SBIR) program.

With the end of the Cold War, to save funds and eliminate duplication,
closer ties also have been sought between military and civilian space tech-
nology—between the world of classified space technology applications
and the world of unclassified civilian space science and applications. For
example, the low-altitude military DMSP and its civilian weather satellite
counterpart will be merged. The Defense Department also is reexamining
the issue of leasing circuits in civilian communications satellites, or incor-
porate on civilian satellites some military features, such as anti-jamming
(much as some aircraft belonging to civilian airlines act as a military
reserve airlift force).

Adapting military space technology to civilian and scientific use is not
a new story. The GPS satellites have been adopted in the commercial
world in ways never dreamed of when the program started in the 1970s.
GPS receivers have been installed on board commercial airliners. The
same GPS receivers also allow airlines to make landing approaches in vir-
tually any weather conditions. The GPS is also used by ships; the U.S.
Coast Guard is “correcting” the encrypted GPS signals for broadcast in
some areas. Trucking firms and railroads use the GPS to control and track
the movement of vehicles. The ability to measure very slight movement
allows GPS to be used to measure the stresses building up in earthquake
faults. With the reductions in cost produced by the growth of this indus-
try, GPS receivers are even being offered as an option in new cars. You can
now find your way through the Los Angeles Freeway system as easily as
the U.S. Army found its way across the Iraqi desert. These commercial
applications have become so important that attempts likely will be made
to remove this critical space system from military control.

Other automated military satellites have civil scientific and commer-
cial applications not at first foreseen. The Vela nuclear detection satellites
were the start of X-ray and Gamma-ray astronomy. This was many years

78


On May 4, 1961, Boeing proposed a “Streamlined Program.” This
plan envisioned the elimination of the suborbital flights, the use of avail-
able subsystems, and switching to a Saturn C-1 as the booster. On August
3 and 4, 1961, Dyna-Soar program director Col. Walter L. Moore, Jr.
briefed the Strategic Air Panel, the Systems Review Board, and the Vice
Chief of Staff on the streamlined effort. By eliminating suborbital flights,
the first air drop could be made in mid-1963, the first unmanned orbital
flight in 1964, and the first manned flight in early 1965. This compared
with January 1967 for the first manned orbital flight. Although the Air
Force backed this proposal, exactly which booster would be used
remained an open question. The three leading contenders were the
Phoenix A388 (a new booster design using a solid propellant first stage
and a liquid propellant second stage), the Soltan, a Titan II with two solid
fuel 100-inch strap-on boosters, or NASA’s Saturn C-1 booster. Heavier
payloads such as Dyna-Soar required a booster that could bridge the gap
between the Atlas Agena (at that time the largest Air Force booster) and
NASA’s 1-million-pound-thrust Saturn C-1. A modified version of the
Soltan concept, called the Titan IIIC, was finally selected as the Dyna-
Soar booster. This was a Titan II core with two 120-inch solid rocket
boosters and a Transtage (a small third stage).

Air Force headquarters approved the Streamlined Dyna-Soar Program
on December 11, 1961, tieing it to the Titan IIIC development program.
The new plan envisioned 20 air drops beginning in January 1965 and com-
pleted in October 1965. The first unmanned orbital flight would be made
in November 1965 (on the fourth Titan IIIC test launch), with the second
in February 1966. The first manned launch would be made in May 1966,
with the eighth Titan IIIC flight. All launches would be made from Cape
Canaveral with the landings made at Edwards AFB. The first flights would
be single-orbit missions; a multi-orbit mission would take place in
November 1967.

On February 23, 1962, after a review, Defense Secretary McNamara
directed that Dyna-Soar be reoriented—away from an operational system
and toward an experimental program like those of the earlier X-planes. He
also ordered the military name “Dyna-Soar” replaced with a numerical
designation to reflect its research role. On June 26, 1962, Defense Depart-
ment announced “X-20” as the new designation (although Dyna-Soar con-
tinued to be used by personnel within and outside the program). With the
redesignation, the X-20 program had reached its final form. A winged,
manned, recoverable spacecraft did not possess as large a payload as a
manned capsule-type spacecraft (such as Mercury or Gemini) when
launched on a given booster (an important consideration given the “lift-
gap” with the Soviets). A winged spacecraft also took longer to develop
and cost more than did a manned capsule. The Dyna-Soar program, always
troubled by funding limitations and, more seriously, by the absence of a
clearly defined military mission, now was judged by some as too small for

19


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Photograph of the Kingfisher high-altitude nuclear test of November 1, 1962.
The early Vela satellites were designed to detect such tests in space to police
the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Later satellites were able to detect nuclear
explosions in the atmosphere and outer space.

spot a nuclear explosion as far as 100 million miles from Earth. The Velas
would go into 70,000-nautical-mile-high orbits, about a fifth of the way to
the Moon, which placed the satellites above the Van Allen radiation belts.
Each of the pairs of satellites would be placed on opposite sides of the
Earth, thereby providing complete coverage of outer space.

While Vela was under development, negotiations continued on a com-
plete nuclear test ban treaty. But the problems of detecting small under-
ground nuclear tests with seismometers and disagreements over on-site
inspections proved too great. By early 1963, efforts shifted to a more lim-
ited goal. On August 5, 1963, the U.S., Soviet Union, and Britain signed
the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which prohibited testing nuclear
devices in the atmosphere, underwater, and in outer space. Underground
testing, though restricted, was still permitted. The treaty went into effect
on October 10, 1963. Six days later, the Air Force launched the first pair
of Vela satellites. These satellites proved highly successful, and on July
10, 1964, Defense Department announced the number of launches would
be reduced from five to three, for a savings of $26 million. A more
advanced design would be developed for the later missions. The second
pair of Vela satellites was launched on July 17, 1964, and the third and

42


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oy, ope ean

see tre sate Fatepaed tne meaee aie SEES

Schematic of Satellite Vehicle - RAND Project Feed Back, March 1954.

the earlier proposals, a low resolution at the surface—about 144 feet—
remained the main stumbling block.

At this time, technical breakthroughs made possible the production of
small nuclear warheads. In February 1954 a special Air Force evaluation
panel, John von Neumann’s Teapot Committee, recommended that the
United States accelerate development of Intercontinental Ballistic
Missiles (ICBMs). To direct this work, ARDC created the Western
Development Division (WDD), with headquarters in Inglewood,
California. The resultant ICBM, Air Force leaders knew, also could orbit
significant payloads when fitted with powered upper stages. Up to this
point, a separate satellite booster was planned. Using modified ballistic
missiles as launch vehicles would both shorten development time and
reduce costs when they entered serial production. On November 27, 1954,
ARDC issued System Requirement No. 5 for a reconnaissance satellite.
General Operational Requirement No. 80, issued on March 16, 1955, for-
mally established an Air Force requirement for a reconnaissance satellite.
The “ultimate” requirement called for a resolution that would “detect
objects no more than 20’ [feet] on a side.” On April 2, 1956, WDD, which
had acquired responsibility for the WS-117L from ARDC Detachment 1
at Wright-Patterson AFB, completed its development plan. It called for
full operational capability in 1963, and a research and development cost
of about $115 million. The WS-117L was to undertake more than recon-
naissance; another version of the satellite would carry infrared equipment
to detect Soviet missile launches. The Air Force contracted with RCA,
Lockheed, and the Glenn L. Martin Company for design studies of a mil-
itary satellite that would become operational in 1965. On June 30, 1956,


overfly each other’s territory. The Soviets rejected this proposal, later
known as “Open Skies,” seeking to protect their closed society. Beginning
in 1956, President Eisenhower personally approved each U-2 overflight,
including the first one on the Fourth of July. Soon after the start of U-2
overflights, American civilian leaders knew that the Soviets were not
building a large bomber force. The Soviets possessed about fifty Mya 4 jet
bombers and Tu 95 turboprop bombers combined, far fewer than had been
estimated and a far smaller number than the U.S. bomber force. For the
first time, the U.S. possessed solid information on Soviet military power
on which to base its own force structure. The U-2 heralded a major
change in the acquisition of intelligence.

Military Space Missions Identified, Satellite Work Begun

The RAND satellite studies between 1947 and 1954 identified all of
the military satellite missions that would form the future Air Force space
program. RAND researchers Staniey M. Greenfield and William W.
Kellogg authored a report titled, “Inquiry into the Feasibility of Weather
Reconnaissance.” The low resolution possible with television systems of
the early 1950s was sufficient to identify cloud types. Other studies iden-
tified satellites used as communications relays and as platforms from
which to guide aircraft, ships, and missiles. Relaying long-range commu-
nications with satellites would be particularly valuable in areas like the
Pacific Ocean, or for communications between ships and shore stations.
Given the Soviet threat, however, satellite reconnaissance claimed the pri-
mary interest. In April 1951, RAND issued a report, “Utility of a Satellite
Vehicle for Reconnaissance.” But reconnaissance satellites did not figure
in the 1952 Beacon Hill study conducted by Project Lincoln for the Air
Force, which looked to improve aerial and balloon reconnaissance sys-
tems. The members of the study apparently did not view satellite recon-
naissance as technically feasible in the near term.

In May 1953, the Air Force Air Research and Development Command
(ARDC) assumed “active direction” of RAND’s satellite efforts, and staff
members who visited RAND in August came away with the belief that an
immediate satellite effort should be started even if a reconnaissance pay-
load was not yet possible. On September 8, RAND recommended to
ARDC that full system development begin “perhaps immediately follow-
ing the completion of experimental component tests.” That December,
ARDC established Project 409-40, a “Satellite Component Study” for a
reconnaissance satellite, later given the Air Force designation WS-117L.
On March 1, 1954, RAND issued its final two-volume “Project Feed Back
Summary Report.” The report urged design, construction, and use of a
“satellite reconnaissance vehicle” as a matter of “vital strategic interest to
the United States.” RAND’s Feed Back study envisioned using an imag-
ing orthicon television system. RAND engineers estimated that the satel-
lite could provide 30 million pictures during a year of operation. As with


0.3 and 1.5 nautical miles for the primary Operational Linescan System
was only slightly improved over earlier DMSPs, the Block 5D-1 system
provided this resolution over the entire photo. Other instruments included
temperature/moisture sounders and aurora detectors. The infrared sounder
provided plots of temperature and water vapor versus altitude within the
atmosphere. The microwave temperature sounder measured tempera-
ture/altitude profiles within the atmosphere, even through clouds. The
aurora detector measured the location and intensity of the aurora. Radar
and long-range communication operators in the far north used this data to
predict radio interference and service interruptions.

The Air Force launched the first DMSP Block 5D-1 on September 11,
1976. Although it experienced stabilization difficulties on orbit soon after
launch, the satellite recovered and continued to operate for 36 months.
The second Block SD-1 launch occurred on June 5, 1977 and also ran into
stability problems because the solar panel boom only partially deployed.
The satellite stabilized on June 26, 1977. Subsequent Block 5D-1
launches, on April 30, 1978 and June 6, 1979 were successful, but the final
Block 5D-1 launch, on July 14, 1980, failed. The follow-on satellite, the
DMSP Block SD-2, although similar in design, was both larger at 21 feet
long and heavier at 1,656 pounds. The Block 5D-2 payload also increased
to 400 pounds, and the Atlas F served as the launch vehicle. An additional
instrument was a microwave imager. This passive microwave detector
measured rain, soil moisture, sea state, and ice cover. The first Block 5D-
2 was launched on December 20, 1980, followed by the second on
November 17, 1983, with subsequent launches during the 1980s.

Just as the earlier DMSP satellites supported U.S. combat operations
in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, later Block 5Ds supported tactical military
operations in the 1980s. These included confrontations with Libya, as well
as military action in Grenada in 1983 and in Panama in 1989. The DMSP
data also figured in routine military operations, and alerted civil and mil-
itary satellite operators to impending hazards from solar radiation. Such
radiation showers can damage spacecraft and affect pilots of high-altitude
aircraft such as the U-2 and SR-71. Sorties could be rerouted or resched-
uled to avoid exposing the crews to excessive radiation. NASA used these
data in rescheduling Space Shuttle flights.

Navigation Satellites-The Navstar Global Positioning System

In the early 1970s, the Air Force acquired responsibility for an addi-
tional space mission—navigation satellites. The first navigation satellite
system, the Navy’s Transit program, began launches in 1960 and the sys-
tem became operational in 1964. Transit used precise radio signals from
satellites in known orbits, timed with on board atomic clocks, to provide
position data to Navy ships and submarines. If the speed of the ship was
known exactly, its location could be determined with an accuracy of 200
feet in latitude and longitude. (An error of 1/2 knot reduced this to 600

55


IR TELESCOPE

GONDUCTION BAR WITH:

PEC ARRA

ADVANCED
RADECI —~%

ELECTRONICS BASE
(Signal Electronics)

STAR
SENSORS:

Drawing of the DSP telescope system. Unlike the MIDAS satellite, which used
slip rings to rotate the telescope, the DSP telescope was fixed to the spacecraft

and used the satellite’s rotation to scan. Because it was placed in a high altitude
geosynchronous orbit, only a few DSPs were needed instead of eight-to-twelve
MIDAS satellites in orbit at low altitudes.

impact points. The telescope was designed to detect large ICBMs and sub-
marine-launched missiles. Events would show it had a far greater capabil-
ity.

The DSP proved highly successful. In 1972, according to press
teports, the DSP was declared operational and turned over to NORAD.
Over the next two decades, DSP launches continued and improvements
were made in the satellites themselves. In the event of a missile attack
against the U.S., the DSP spacecraft would provide the President and the
U.S. military a warning within moments of launch. By removing the pos-

38


before such specialized satellites as NASA’s Gamma Ray Observatory
satellite were launched. DSP data has been released detailing asteroid air-
bursts. These exploded in the upper atmosphere with a yield equal to small
nuclear weapons. From SDI came the technology for adaptive optics.
Originally designed to allow ground-based lasers to compensate for the
effects of atmospheric turbulence, it has since been fitted to astronomical
telescope mirrors to improve their resolution. A prime example of this
union between military technology and civilian use was the Clementine
Moon probe, originally designed to test missile detection and tracking
sensors under space conditions. Because NASA had long wanted a lunar
probe to make a complete survey of the Moon, as a follow-on to the
Apollo missions, the two needs combined in Clementine, which in the
mid-1990s was placed into lunar orbit, and its detection equipment pro-
duced a high-resolution map of the Moon and its mineral content.

Closer to home, in February 1995, President William Clinton declas-
sified the photographs of the Earth taken by Project CORONA satellites
between 1960 and 1972. Originally produced for strategic reconnaissance,
they could now be used for Earth resource studies. The CORONA pho-
tographs, combined with those of NASA’s landsat, provided scientists
with a record of images of the Earth spanning 35 years. That record now
could be examined for a variety of purposes, such as alterations in the use
of land and the growth and movement of populations.

A half century has passed since General Arnold and other astronauti-
cal pioneers at RAND and in the U.S. Navy first considered the possibil-
ities of a military space program. In the interval, the Air Force developed
space systems that all American military services now employ and upon
which they have come to depend. United States defense support space sys-
tems have become as central to military operations as air, ground, or sea
power. As Desert Storm made plain, they permit these terrestrial forces to
be wielded in concert, and they multiply their effects on the battlefield so
enormously that an enemy without space assets has little hope of prevail-
ing. If the perceptions of military spacefaring in 1945-1946 became real-
ities in the years that followed, the perceptions of astronautics applied in
the TENCAP and Talon programs of today portend even greater possibil-
ities for improved military operations tomorrow.

Acknowledgement

I am indebted to the staffs of the Space and Missile Systems Center
and Air Force Space Command History Offices for providing crucial doc-
umentation, and especially to R. Cargill Hall of the Air Force History
Support Office, for his guidance in organizing and writing this history, and
for his editorial counsel on numerous drafts.

719


Four years had passed since the MOL program began. Under the orig-
inal plan, the first manned launch was to have been made in 1969. In 1969,
however, the first launch remained three years in the future. The original
cost of the program, estimated at $1.5 billion, by 1969 had doubled to $3
billion. Finally, within the Air Force and the Defense Department, the
question of identifying a significant role for military men in Space was
debated again. In the aftermath of the Apollo fire at Cape Kennedy that
claimed the lives of three astronauts, all hands recognized that ensuring
the safety of astronauts predominated—above and beyond any role for
men in orbit that might be identified. Underscoring that perception at an
Air Force meeting devoted to the subject, one official snapped: “His [the
astronaut’s] most important role will be tending to the life support sys-
tem.”

On June 10, 1969, Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird informed
Congress that MOL would be cancelled. By way of explanation, he cited
the need to reduce military spending and recent advances in the perfor-
mance and reliability of automated military satellites. In fact, President
Nixon cancelled MOL to permit work to begin on another automated
reconnaissance satellite project. A total of $1.3 billion had been spent on
the program. The estimated savings from this cancellation over the next
three years was $1.5 billion. The end of MOL brought to a close Air Force
attempts to create a separate military manned space program. This out-
come, however, would spare the service the sharp competition for funds
and division of interests between proponents of manned and unmanned
space flight that in the years ahead would sorely afflict the nation’s civil
space agency, NASA.

Military Space Shuttle Plans and Operations

NASA’s manned Space Shuttle program, intended to replace all exist-
ing U.S. boosters, began at almost the same moment that MOL expired. If
a fleet of Space Shuttles were to serve as the universal replacements, this
“man-rated,” reusable launch vehicle would have to be economical to fly
and maintain, and meet all existing and future launch requirements, such
as resupplying NASA’s planned space station and the needs of the Air
Force and Department of Defense—including launches into polar orbit, a
large payload bay, and the ability to make cross-range maneuvers during
reentry. To begin the venture, in 1970 the NASA Administrator Thomas
Paine cancelled production of the Saturn launch vehicles, the nation’s only
true heavy-lift launchers. Another launch vehicle, preferably the Space
Shuttle, now had to replace them.

Much as NASA influenced the design of MOL, Air Force desires had
a major impact on the Shuttle design. Working with NASA, in January
1973 the Air Force formed the Defense Department Shuttle User
Committee to coordinate military Shuttle use and identify potential mili-
tary applications. Operations from Vandenberg AFB were planned to start

26


An early Vela satellite readied for launch.

final pair on July 20, 1965. The satellites had a design lifetime of six
months, but they exceeded this by a factor of ten—the first pair operated
until August 1968, the second until December 1969, and the final two
were shut down in July and October 1970.

In March 1965, TRW was awarded a contract for a series of advanced
Velas. Although they had the same general design, they were heavier and,
fitted with improved optical detectors which could spot the flash of a
nuclear fireball within the Earth’s atmosphere. (France and Communist
China had not signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty and continued to make
atmospheric tests.) The equipment for detection of space tests was also
improved. This raised the satellite’s weight to 509 pounds, compared with
the 334 pounds of the original Velas. (The last two Velas’ weight would be
increased further to nearly 800 pounds.) Because of this increased weight,
the pair of satellites would be launched by a Titan IIIC.

Launch of the advanced Velas first occurred on April 28, 1967. This
was followed on May 23, 1969 by a second pair, and the final pair on April
8, 1970. Although a total of 12 Vela satellites was launched, a maximum
of eight were operational at any one time. For the final 18 years of opera-

43



system was authorized, the Air Force officers connected with MOL felt
confident that such a program would eventually be approved. With
President Johnson’s announcement in August 1965, it seemed that the Air
Force now had a role in American manned space flight.

The MOL program, like other space projects, suffered from technical,
weight, and budget problems. By February 1966, technical difficulties had
caused a nine-to-twelve-month slip in the schedule. A weight increase in
the MOL vehicle required that the Titan IIIC launch vehicle be replaced
by the Titan IIIM, a rocket which used seven-segment strap-on boosters
(rather than the five-segment strap-on boosters of the Titan IIIC). Despite
these early difficulties, a Gemini heatshield test was successfully com-
pleted on November 3, 1966. The launch vehicle, a Titan IIIC, carried an
unmanned Gemini with the hatch cut into its heatshield, and a Titan II tank
which simulated the laboratory. The Gemini, released during the ascent,
made a suborbital splashdown near Ascension Island in the Atlantic. The
hatch came through the fires of reentry intact. The Titan IIIC continued to
ascend and placed the simulated laboratory into orbit.

Far more serious were funding constraints. In 1965-1966, Congress
moved to pay for new social programs to create President Johnson’s
“Great Society.” And an increasing U.S. involvement in Vietnam and its
related military demands on resources affected MOL from the start of its
development. Initial funding limits in 1966 could be met with relatively
minor technical and schedule changes, but the real “crunch” came in the
fall of 1967. The Air Force had estimated that $600 million was needed
for initial MOL development. The FY 1968 budget included only $430
million. The Air Force estimated that this would result in a 15-month
delay in schedule, but the Defense Department permitted only a one-year
delay. The first unmanned launch would now take place in late 1970, with
the first manned mission scheduled in the summer of 1971.

As technical problems multiplied, the funding situation continued to
deteriorate. Estimates of MOL funding for FY 1969 ranged from $600 to
$640 million. In June 1968, Defense Department officials advised the Air
Force that no more than $515 million would be provided. That resulted in
program deletions and elimination of some tests as well as changes in
assembly requirements and contractor hardware tests. The first manned
MOL flight was pushed back another three months to the fall of 1971.
MOL’s funding problems intensified after the election of President
Richard M. Nixon at the end of 1968. About $700 million for each of the
next three years was seen as necessary to keep MOL a viable project. Only
$500 million seemed the maximum that would be made available. In early
1969, another round of budget cuts occurred. Not even major changes in
the development plan could now accommodate them. The fifth manned
MOL flight was cancelled and the first unmanned flight was delayed to
early 1971, while the first of the four manned MOL missions slipped from
the fall of 1971 to mid-1972.



a cigarette. Now he interrupted the discussion with a brief comment:

If the Soviets place a bomb in orbit and threaten us and if
this administration has refused to develop a capability to
destroy it in orbit, you will see the first impeachment pro-
ceeding of an American President since Andrew Johnson.

Evans recalled that about two minutes of total silence followed Murrow’s
remark. Finally, McNamara said testily, “Well, it doesn’t cost much, and
the JCS want it, so let’s approve 437.”

Program 437 featured a novel operational profile. The Thor could
intercept a satellite when it passed over Johnston Island at altitudes as high
as 700 nautical miles, and within a cross range of 1,500 nautical miles.
Because of timing requirements, the missile had a launch window of plus
or minus one second. Two Thors would be counted down simultane-
ously—one the primary interceptor, the other serving as back-up. The
Thor would lift off and follow a ballistic trajectory to the intercept point.
A radio signal would then arm and detonate a MK 49 nuclear warhead.
With a yield of one megaton, it had a kill radius of five miles.

Because Program 437 used existing equipment and enjoyed a DX pri-
ority, development went smoothly. The first test launch took place on the
night of February 14, 1964. The simulated warhead passed within the kill
radius of the target satellite, a Transit 2A rocket body, and the interception
was judged a success. A second test launch on March 1 went less
smoothly. The primary missile was “scrubbed” because of instrument
problems. The countdown continued with the back-up missile, and it was
successfully launched. Although not perfect, the launch had shown
Program 437 could cope with problems during the countdown and still
make a successful interception.

The first two Program 437 launches completed nearly all the Phase I
test objectives. The Air Force decided to bring the system to full opera~
tional (Phase II) status. The third launch was conducted successfully on
April 21, 1964. The fourth test launch was cancelled, then rescheduled for
mid-May as an all-Air Force operation (called a Combat Training Launch
or CTL). This first Air Force CTL on May 28, 1964 proved less fortunate.
The Thor lifted off successfully but a booster guidance failure caused it to
miss the intercept point. Nevertheless, the next day, on May 29, 1964,
Program 437 was judged to have achieved Initial Operating Capability
with a single Thor. On June 10, the system was declared fully operational
when a second Thor was placed on alert. President Lyndon Johnson made
public the existence of the Nike Zeus and Thor anti-satellite weapons on
September 20, 1964, during a campaign speech.

Although Program 437 might be operational, events were already lim-
iting its usefulness. The original plan called for Combat Crews A, B, and
C to each make one Combat Test Launch per year. In December 1963, the
Defense Department notified the Air Defense Command that the number

62


hydrogen bomb, and, at the 1954 May Day parade in Moscow, unveiled a
single Mya 4 jet bomber. Armed with hydrogen bombs, such aircraft
posed a major threat to America. During the July 13, 1955 Aviation Day
parade, Mya 4s made a mass fly-by. Estimates that the Soviets were build-
ing a bomber force larger than that of the U.S. began to appear, and, with
them, a controversy over an American “Bomber Gap.” If almost nothing
was known about Soviet nuclear capabilities, its military strengths and
weaknesses, or intentions, the first attempts to breach this secrecy were
already underway.

Early Aerial Reconnaissance

At the start of the Cold War, the United States began aerial reconnais-
sance about the periphery of the Soviet Union. One major effort involved
detecting Soviet nuclear tests. Air Force weather planes, fitted with air
scoops to collect radioactive fallout in 1949 returned the first evidence that
the Soviets had tested an atomic bomb. This early nuclear detonation
detection program anticipated important Air Force space missions.
Another effort, Project Mogul, used balloon-borne acoustic sensors in an
attempt to detect Soviet nuclear and missile tests. These sensors, designed
to pick up the low-frequency atmospheric shock waves radiated from the
Soviet Union, were mounted in balloons flying over New Mexico. Debris
from one of these balloons employed in training flights fell to Earth near
Roswell, New Mexico, in early June 1947, prompting reports that a “fly-
ing saucer” had been recovered. Although Project Mogul had only limited
success, it, too, anticipated real-time nuclear detection and ballistic mis-
sile early warning.

American reconnaissance flights about the Soviet Union’s periphery
yielded both photo and radar images of port facilities, coastal areas, and
islands. But the vast interior of the Soviet Union remained out of reach. If
the U.S. was to acquire reliable intelligence information of regions from
which a Soviet surprise attack might be mounted, it would require deep
overflights. In 1950, the best prospect for such deep overflights was cam-
era-carrying balloons. Skyhook weather balloons could reach altitudes
above the ceiling of jet fighters and ride the winter jet stream from west
to east. Under the code name “Project Genetrix,” the balloons would be
launched in Europe and drift across the Soviet Union on prevailing winds.
Once clear of Soviet airspace, the camera-carrying gondolas would be cut
free by a radio command. Descending by parachute, they could be caught
in midair by modified C-119 transports, or recovered on the ocean’s sur-
face.

On January 10, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his
approval. Balloon launches began and continued over the next several
weeks. On February 4, 1956, the Soviets vehemently protested the balloon
flights. Two days later, Eisenhower ordered a halt to any further balloon
launches. In all, 448 Genetrix balloons had been launched; of these, 40


evolutionary steps, flying faster and higher until finally an experimental
aircraft went into orbit. Such a vehicle might also serve as a replacement
for existing and planned manned bombers. Starting in the early 1950s,
Bell Aircraft conducted studies under the code names BOMI, Brass Bell,
ROBO (Rocket Bomber), and HYWARDS. On October 10, 1957, ARDC
Headquarters consolidated the Brass Bell, ROBO, and HYWARDS stud-
ies into a single project for experimental manned space flight called
“Dyna-Soar,” a contraction of “Dynamic Soaring.”

The X-20 Dyna-Soar

The Dyna-Soar envisioned a three-step development program. Step I
would develop an experimental hypersonic test aircraft. Step II would use
a two-stage rocket booster to accelerate the aerospace vehicle and its sin-
gle pilot to a speed of 18,000 feet per second and an altitude of 170,000
feet. It would then glide for 5,000 nautical miles, and could undertake
reconnaissance or bombardment missions. Step III would extend the vehi-
cle’s performance to orbital flight, where it would be able to carry out
reconnaissance or bombing missions.

On January 24, 1958, a few months before NASA’s creation, the Air
Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Development requested approval for an
ambitious Air Force space program judged “essential to the maintenance
of our national position and prestige”: (1) Ballistic [missile] tests and
related systems; (2) The X-15 and advanced research for manned space
flight; (3) Dyna-Soar and its space reconnaissance and global bombard-
ment subsystems; (4) WS-117L, a multi-satellite system for 24-hour
reconnaissance, a manned military space station, and a strategic commu-
nications station; and finally (5) a manned military Lunar Base. Needless
to say, much of this proposed military space program ran counter to the
Eisenhower Administration’s stated and unstated policies of minimizing
the cost of space ventures, of avoiding wherever possible “prestige” mis-
sions, and, most importantly, of rejecting any kind of offensive military
space activities that might place American reconnaissance satellites at
tisk. The Dyna-Soar component of this space program soon faced both
political and technical problems.

In early November 1958, W. E. Lamar, Air Force Deputy for Research
Vehicles and Advanced Systems, and Lt. Col. R. M. Herrington, Jr., the
chief of the Dyna-Soar Program Office, briefed officials of both ARDC
and U.S. Air Force Headquarters on program funding. General S. E.
Anderson, the ARDC commander, stated that although he supported the
Dyna-Soar program, he thought any references to space operations should
be deleted before they were proposed to the Air Staff. Air Force officials
decided to stress the suborbital aspects and the possibility of a military
prototype system. When the Dyna-Soar presentation was given to Richard
C. Horner, the Air Force Assistant Secretary for Research and
Development, he bluntly warned the officers that if a strong space

16


Suggested Reading

Austerman, Wayne R., Program 437: The Air Force’s First Antisatellite System
(Peterson AFB, CO: Air Force Space Command, Apr 1991).

Brugioni, Dino A., Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile
Crisis (New York: Random House, 1991).

Cassutt, Michael, “The Manned Space Flight Engineer Programme,” Spaceflight
(Jan 1989): 26-33.

Davies, Merton E. and William R. Harris, RAND’s Role in the Evolution of
Balloon and Satellite Observation Systems and Related U.S. Space
Technology (Santa Monica, CA: RAND R-3692-RC, 1988).

Davies, J.E.D., “The Discoverer Programme,” Spaceflight (Nov 1969): 405-7.

Greer, Kenneth E., “CORONA,” in Studies in Intelligence, supplement 17 (Spring
1973): 1-37.

Hall, R. Cargill, “The Eisenhower Administration And The Cold War: Framing
American Astronautics To Serve National Security,” Prologue (Spring
1995): 59-72.

, “Origins of U.S. Space Policy: Eisenhower, Open Skies, and Freedom of
Space,” in John Logsdon, ed., Exploring the Unknown: Selected
Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program (Wash D.C.:
USGPO, NASA SP-4407, 1995), Vol I: 213-29.

Hallion, Richard P., The Hypersonic Revolution, Vol 1: From Max Valier to Pro-
ject PRIME (Wright-Patterson AFB, OH: Aeronautical Systems Divi-
sion, 1987)

Houchin, Roy F., “The Diplomatic Demise of Dyna-Soar: The Impact of Inter-
national and Domestic Political Affairs on the Dyna-Soar X-20 Project,
1957-1963,” Aerospace Historian, Dec, 1988.

Klass, Philip J., Secret Sentries in Space (New York: Random House, 1971)

Killian, James R. Jr., Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower: A Memoir of the First
Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977)

Kutyna, Gen. Donald J., USAF, “The Military Space Program and Desert Storm,”
The Space Times (Sept-Oct 1991): 3-7.

Mark, Hans, The Space Station: A Personal Journey (Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 1987).

Neufeld, Jacob, The Development of Ballistic Missiles in the United States Air
Force, 1945-1960 (Wash D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1990).

Peebles, Curtis, Battle For Space (New York: Beauford Books, 1983).

, Guardians: Strategic Reconnaissance Satellites (Novato, CA.: Presidio
Press, 1987).

Perry, Robert L., Origins of the USAF Space Program, 1945-1956 (Wash D.C.:
Air Force Systems Command, Jun 1962).

Portz, Matthew H., The Aerospace Corporation, Its Work: 1960-1980 (Los
Angeles, CA.: Times Mirror Press, 1980).

Time-Life Books, Electronic Spies (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1991).

Weaver, Col. Richard L., USAF, “Report Of Air Force Research Regarding The
‘Roswell Incident’,” (Wash D.C: Office of Air Force History, 1994).

Zaloga, Steven J., Target America: The Soviet Union and the Strategic Arms Race,
1945-1964 (Novato, CA.: Presidio Press, 1993).

80

# U.S. G.P, 0. 2003-496-807/95354


sors also could spot burning rice fields, which allowed estimates of the
smoke and haze coverage. The next day’s target selection and mission
plan were based on the DMSP photos from the 7:00 p.m. pass. The orders
for the number and type of aircraft, as well as ordnance selection, used
data from the mid-night pass. The day’s air strikes were carried out based
on the DMSP photos from the 7:00 a.m. pass. Air-to-air refueling tracks
also had to be in areas that were free of clouds and turbulence at refueling
altitude. Close air support and rescue operations also depended on the
weather at low-altitudes.

In November 1966, the DMSP data produced 877 mission forecasts;
of these 852 (97 percent) proved correct. On April 15, 1968, the Air Force
informed the DMSP System Program Office that its satellite weather data
had saved $25 to $28 million by eliminating the need for weather recon-
naissance aircraft in Southeast Asia. Another study indicated that, at the
height of the bombing effort, DMSP paid for its annual cost every three to
six months. Two DMSP ground stations, located at Ton Son Nhut Air
Base, South Vietnam, and at Udorn Air Base, Thailand, supported military
operations with meteorological data. Each facility consisted of a pair of
sandbagged vans and a large dish antenna. A separate van also was
equipped to receive daytime photos from low altitude civil meteorological
satellites. Unlike the encrypted DMSP photos, those from the Weather
Bureau satellites could be picked up with simple receivers.

The Navy, with access to DMSP photos ashore, was relatively slow to
make direct use of the DMSP at sea. Not until 1970 was an aircraft car-
ier, the USS Constellation, equipped to receive DMSP images. The instal-
lation involved locating a temporary ground terminal on the hangar deck.
The value of the DMSP photos was underscored by the Captain’s willing-
ness to give up an aircraft parking space (a quantity in short supply on any
carrier) to house the terminal.

During the Vietnam War, distribution of the DMSP military meteoro-
logical imagery was restricted and the satellites themselves classified. But
in a May 1967 interview, General William Momyer, the commander of Air
Force operations in Southeast Asia, alluded to their importance:

As far as I am concemed, this [satellite] weather picture
is probably the greatest innovation of the war. I depend on
it in conjunction with the traditional forecast as a basic
means of making my decisions as to whether to launch or
not launch the strike. And it gives me a little bit better feel
for what the actual weather conditions are. The satellite is
something no commander has ever had before in a war.

Needless to say, with the cloud cover photos widely distributed in
Southeast Asia, DMSP had become an open secret by the early 1970s. In
1973 Secretary of the Air Force John McLucas publicly announced the
existence of the DMSP program, and DMSP photos were released for

53


1. Talon Command (command and control improvements):

Project Shield—enhanced support from DSP satellites for
warning and cuing targets for theater missile defenses.

Project Hook—integrating GPS navigation/position data with
survival radios for improved search and rescue operations for
downed aircrews.

2. Talon Ready (mission planning/rehearsal):

Project Scene—rapid processing of theater and tactical
imagery from overhead systems to support target planning for preci-
sion-guided weapons.

Project Spectrum—relaying and displaying imagery from
civilian Earth resources satellites, such as Landsat and SPOT, as well
as national systems, to wing and squadron intelligence and mission
planners.

Project Stamp—automated mission planning.

3. Talon Shooter (Real-time information to and from the cockpit):

Project Sword—relaying information from space systems
directly to tactical aircraft in near real-time, via normal communica-
tions channels. In the first demonstration, tactical information was
passed to an aircraft making an attack on a simulated surface-to-air
missile site. The aircraft then fired HARM (High-speed Anti-
Radiation Missile) missiles which destroyed the site, even though
the aircraft’s own systems had not yet detected it.

Project Lance—placing a mini supercomputer on board an air-
craft, which would then receive, process, correlate and display infor-
mation to the aircrew.

Project Zebra—using highly accurate, imagery-derived coordi-
nates for guided weapons based on GPS Rectified Imagery.

4. Talon Vision:

Air Defense System Integration—integrating national- and
theater-level intelligence to provide a theater commander with a
complete picture of the changing battlefield.

5. Talon Touch (Space Communications):

Satellite Launch Dispenser Communications (SLDCOM)—a
seamless connection from space systems, through the existing the-
ater battle management communications and intelligence systems,
down to individual pilots and soldiers in the field.

Other TENCAP elements include Talon Night, support to special
operations forces, and Talon Spear, improved training, testing, and exer-
cise capabilities at Nellis AFB.

In Desert Storm, military leaders also faced the threat of ballistic mis-
siles equipped with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
Traditional threats of retaliation proved ineffective in preventing Iraqi
Scud attacks on Israel. Saddam Hussein ordered missiles launched against

77


Johnston Island was the site for the Program 437 satellite interceptor between
1964 and 1975. Program 437 used a Thor booster and a nuclear warhead.

least they exploited the prospect of them through other space activities in
an effort to intimidate the West. When John F. Kennedy succeeded Dwight
D. Eisenhower as President of the United States in 1961, the issue of
nuclear weapons in orbit at first seemed open to question in the new
administration. In June 1962, Harold Brown, who replaced Herbert York
as Director of Defense Research and Engineering, rejected an expansion
of the SAINT program, saying that “this program should proceed only at
an orderly pace on a strictly R&D basis.” At the same time, Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara called on the Air Force to “get on with the
SAINT program.” If not intended to counter orbiting nuclear weapons, the
Soviets already had made threats against U.S. reconnaissance satellites.
There was a need, McNamara said, for the U.S, to be able to warn its pro-
tagonists: “If you shoot down one of ours we will shoot down one of
yours.” But if one had to deal with a military space threat, another answer
seemed to lie in Earth-based anti-satellite weapons.

A few weeks before, in May 1962, McNamara had approved testing of
the Army’s Nike Zeus Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABMs) as anti-satellite
interceptors. Unarmed tests were conducted from White Sands Missile
Range in New Mexico, then from Kwajalein Atoll in the Western Pacific.
The Nike Zeus satellite interceptor (called Program 505), however, was
limited to a maximum altitude of about 200 miles. On September 12, Air
Force leaders submitted to Air Force Secretary Eugene Zuckert a prelimi-
nary plan that used Thor IRBMs as satellite interceptors. This larger rocket
provided a much greater interception capability than did the Nike Zeus.
The nuclear-tipped Thor missiles would be based on Johnston Island in the
Pacific and use facilities built for the 1962 high-altitude Fishbowl! nuclear
tests. Zuckert was critical of employing a nuclear warhead, but ordered a
more complete plan be submitted to him as soon as possible.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 moved U.S. anti-satellite
programs off “top dead center.” Previously, CIA analysts and White

60


During the early stages of the (ICBM) take off there is
more than enough infrared emissions, but the Earth gets
in the way ... . After burnout there is not nearly enough
infrared signal to give detection at any useful range.

The figures . . . lead one to speculate on the increased
warning time and perhaps more accurate trajectory pre-
diction that might be possible by getting around this geo-
metrical limitation with a very-high-altitude search sta-
tion—perhaps with a satellite-borne infrared search set.

The proposals for satellite detection attracted the attention of several sci-
entific advisory committees, and a missile early warning system was
incorporated into the WS-117L at the outset, in 1956. In February 1958
when ARPA assumed control of WS-117L, money was unavailable to start
development. ARPA also envisioned a technical development program,
rather than a crash effort to achieve a missile detection system at the ear-
liest possible date. In September 1958, the Air Force Ballistic Missile
Division which oversaw WS-117L, proposed an expedited development
plan to Air Force Headquarters and ARPA. In late 1959 the Defense
Department removed control of all military satellite programs from ARPA
and returned direction of them to the Air Force. This included the early
warning satellite program, which was to be made operational as soon as
possible. (This was the time of the Missile Gap controversy.) The program
was originally “Subsystem G” in the WS-117L program, then identified
as the “Attack Alarm System” (AAS), and finally to be termed “Missile
Detection and Alarm System,” or MIDAS.

The MIDAS used the Lockheed Agena booster-satellite, stabilized on
orbit in a nose-down attitude, with an infrared scanner and telescope
mounted in a rotating turret on the nose. The infrared sensor traced out a
circular pattern on the Earth below. MIDAS would detect the launches and
relay information on the number of missiles, their launch sites, and
azimuths (direction of travel) to ground stations. Given existing technol-
ogy, as conceived, MIDAS would employ eight satellites placed in 2,000-
nautical-mile-high polar orbits, equally spaced in two orbital rings. This
would insure at least one MIDAS satellite above the Soviet Union at all
times. The data on missile launches would be transmitted to readout sta-
tions located in Alaska, Greenland, and England. These MIDAS satellites
were to have an operating lifetime of one year.

But MIDAS 1 launched on February 26, 1960, was lost when its
Atlas-Agena launch vehicle exploded. MIDAS 2 successfully orbited on
May 24, 1960; however, after 16 orbits the telemetry system failed. In
June 1960 two radiometer experiment missions, RM-1 and RM-2, were
added to the program. They were subsequently flown in December 1960
and February 1961 on Discoverer satellites to measure the background

33



Force Weapons Laboratory, the Air Force Geophysics Laboratory, and the
Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory. AFSTC combined Air Force
space technology efforts. A further re-organization came in March 1989,
when Space Division was renamed the Space Systems Division (SSD) and
the Ballistic Missile Office became the Ballistic Missile Division (BMD).
This lasted only until May 1990, when BMD was assigned to SSD as an
organizational element, the third time the space and missile functions had
been combined. In July 1992, SSD itself was re-named the Space and
Missile System Center (SMC), reflecting its joint space and missile activ-
ities though it remained a component of the Air Force’s research and
development arm.

The founding of the Air Force Space Command capped changes in the
Air Force space mission over three decades. Nevertheless, many military
leaders in all of the services still viewed the four primary defense support
space missions as something outside the “real world” of Air Force or Navy
or Army operations. That attitude changed perceptibly in 1991 when these
pre-positioned assets in Earth orbit demonstrated forcefully the central
role space support now played in military operations.

Vv

Desert Storm, the Air Force and the Military Space
Program in a Changing World

Desert Storm, the military campaign by U.S. and Coalition forces to
liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in January-February 1991, was the
first major contest of arms in which space systems were fully integrated
at all levels of planning and operations. It has been called “the first space
war” because communications, navigation, weather, missile early warn-
ing, and reconnaissance satellites proved indispensable to the final success
of combat operations. Desert Storm defined how wars would be con-
ducted in the future. The high frontier of space provided U.S. and Coa-
lition forces “information dominance” and, with it, the leverage needed to
quickly wage and win a modern war. U.S. and Coalition forces communi-
cated with one another in the field and across the world through military
communications satellites. The DSCS satellites provided eighty-four per-
cent of the long-haul strategic communications and much of the shorter-
range in-theater tactical communications. Hundreds of satellite communi-
cations receivers were employed down to the company level.

In this conflict, the Iraqi Army, equipped with short-range Scud bal-
listic missiles, could strike at targets in Saudi Arabia and Israel. The
Scud’s flight time from launch to impact was less than seven minutes—
far shorter than that of an ICBM. This made warning time very critical,
and the DSP early warning satellites played a vital role. Although Space
Command had never attempted warning of tactical ballistic missiles

73


radiation on Earth and in space. By the time these flights had been com-
pleted, doubts expressed about MIDAS were reaching the American pub-
lic. During testimony in the spring of 1961, McNamara advised Congress
of “a number of highly technical, highly complex problems associated
with this system . . . . The problems have not been solved and we are not
prepared to state when, if ever, it will be operational.” The Air Force
revised its development plan in March to include 24 to 27 launches, with
operations pushed back to January 1964. The service launched MIDAS 3

Orbiting satelite detect infrared radiations
emiited by Soviet ICBM's in powered flight.
Date telemetered instantencously to MIDAS
Control Center via fer north readout stations,
Decoded date reveals approximately the num
ber of missiles laanched and launch location,
direction of travel and burning characteris
ties.

Map shows probability of at least
one MIDAs welt Gevcting oh 1CE
laamch in each of the illustrated segments of
the USSR. These probabilities are bated on
geometric considerations.

Diagram showing an early plan for MIDAS operations, using a network of low
altitude satellites to provide continuous coverage of the Soviet land mass.

34


Artist’s concept of a Defense Satellite Communications System II spacecraft in
orbit. The first DSCS II satellite, launched in 1971, became the first operational
military communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit. The launch vehicle
was the Titan III/34D booster. A total of 16 DSCS II satellites were launched.

successfully launched on May 12, 1977. The next launch, on March 25,
1978, was a failure. A second stage hydraulic failure prevented the Titan
TIC from reaching orbit. The Air Force successfully launched the final
two of the second series of DSCS II satellites on December 13, 1978. This
established the operational four-satellite network. An additional four
DSCS II satellites were built—two were launched on November 20, 1979.
The next DSCS II satellite, launched on October 30, 1982, was matched
with the first of the DSCS III satellites. This was also the first launch of
the Titan 34D booster, which replaced the Titan IIIC and D boosters.
Planning began for the DSCS III in 1973, while the DSCS II satellites
were beginning to be launched. The new satellites carried multiple beam
antennas to provide flexible coverage, counter jamming, and six active
channels rather than the four of the DSCS II satellites. In 1977, General
Electric won the Air Force contract to build one qualification and two

49



December 10, McNamara announced cancellation of the X-20; its tests of
reentry technology would be undertaken by the ASSET program, a series
of small rocket-boosted models. Dyna-Soar would be replaced by a
Manned Orbiting Laboratory.

The Manned Orbiting Laboratory

The start of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program under-
lined the changing relationship between the military and the Defense
Department. MOL had been suggested by Harold Brown, approved by
McNamara, and its design influenced by NASA. The Air Force had no
active participation in the deliberations or recommendations. Starting a
program of this magnitude without directly involving the service that
would direct it was unprecedented. Before work could begin, the MOL
program had to survive a Pre-Project Definition Phase (Pre-Phase 1). This
was followed by the Project Definition Phase (Phase I). Not until Phase II
would contracts be issued, hardware built, and launches made. And, as
might be expected, early work concentrated on selecting the experiments
MOL would conduct. Approval to begin development depended on pro-
ducing an experiment package that McNamara and his advisers might
accept as militarily useful.

The MOL program’s primary objective was to qualitatively and quan-
titatively test the military usefulness of man in space. The experiments
selection ground rules focused on the military role of man in space, cov-
ered the full spectrum of military applications, and made maximum use of
ground tests and existing equipment to keep costs as low as possible.
Testing man’s role for space reconnaissance was acceptable as long as it
did not produce an actual reconnaissance capability. That is, the initial
objective was not to develop an operational manned military space sys-
tem. Rather, MOL was to determine the role of man in space and how his
unique capabilities could be used in various military space activities.
MOL presumably would show if sufficient justification existed to develop
a manned military capability in the future.

The baseline MOL design was a two-man Gemini B spacecraft
attached to a Laboratory Vehicle which would be launched as a single unit
by a Titan IIIC. MOL’s role as a test program was reflected in the launch
and experiment plan. The spacecraft would be launched from Cape
Kennedy into a 125-250 nautical mile equatorial orbit, inclined less than
36 degrees to the equator. This orbit would not pass over any part of the
Soviet Union and it was not envisioned that “reconnaissance quality” pho-
tos would be taken. Once in orbit, the two-man crew would not perform
any extra-vehicular activity, but transfer to the Laboratory Vehicle through
a hatch cut in the Gemini B’s heatshield. The crew would then spend 30
days in space operating the experiments. At the end of the mission, the
crew would transfer back to the Gemini B, reactivate its systems, re-enter
the atmosphere and splash down in the ocean.

22


(EHF) that do not suffer prolonged black-out from high-altitude nuclear
explosions, the Milstar program began in October 1981, as part of
President Ronald Reagan’s upgrade of U.S. strategic forces. One element
emphasized communication systems that could survive under conditions
of nuclear war. Full-scale development began with award of the prime
contract to Lockheed in July 1983. Tests were conducted using an EHF
payload launched on board a FLTSATCOM satellite in December 1986.
Development of these complex satellites took a decade; the Air Force
launched the first of four Milstars on February 7, 1994. The vision of
world-wide communications via spacecraft held by Arthur C. Clarke and
his RAND contemporaries four decades before had been achieved.

Meteorological Satellites - DMSP

Development of weather satellites to serve all civil and military appli-
cations was originally assigned to NASA. A proposed military system was
limited to studies while the Defense Department negotiated with NASA
and the Commerce Department’s Weather Bureau to develop a single joint
civilian/military weather satellite system. NASA’s Tiros I, based on an
Army design and launched on April 1, 1960, began a revolution in weather
forecasting. NASA’s meteorological satellite program, however, could not
meet military needs for coverage, readout locations, or timeliness. And
NASA’s entrant to meet all government meteorological requirements, a
large satellite called Nimbus, was technically complex and long delayed
in development (the first one would not be launched until the mid-1960s).
Consequently, with approval from the Department of Defense, the Air
Force in the early 1960s developed a separate, simplified, low altitude mil-
itary weather satellite system to provide cloud cover photography. As
more sophisticated instruments were developed, these would be added.
(Indeed, this low-cost military meteorological satellite system, conceived,
managed, and directed by Air Force Colonel Thomas O. Haig, proved so
effective that the Weather Bureau soon advised NASA that it would buy
near-copies of the military system instead of Nimbus.)

By the time these classified military weather satellites were in opera-
tion, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War had grown into a massive com-
mitment of U.S. forces, including air attacks against targets in North
Vietnam. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), as it
was eventually called, became the primary short-term forecasting tool for
tactical military operations, particularly in the air war. The DMSP satel-
lites, placed in 450-nautical-mile polar orbits, passed over Southeast Asia
at 7:00 a.m., noon, 7:00 p.m., and mid-night local time. The satellites car-
tied equipment that provided both day and night visual imagery of cloud
cover. (Civilian weather satellites provided daytime only photos.) The
photos had two levels of resolution, 0.33 and 2 nautical miles, and covered
an area 1,600 nautical miles across. The night images were used to find
the differing cloud-top levels and breaks in the clouds. The infrared sen-

52


House officials had judged Soviet deployment of nuclear-armed missiles
in Cuba as “irrational.” Yet, Khrushchev had done so and brought the
world to the brink of nuclear war. Might the Soviets also be so irrational
as to launch orbital nuclear weapons? A State Department contingency
plan prepared in May 1963 observed:

It is possible that the Soviets may at any time conclude
that the politico-military and psychological gains from
such a feat would justify its undertaking . . . . A ther-
monuclear “sword of Damocles” would seem to hang
over everyone’s head in a way which, logic and military
technology aside, ICBMs do not.

The plan concluded:

In anticipation of the contingency of a Soviet weapon in
space and recognizing that it may be necessary to under-
take physical countermeasures, we should develop as
rapidly as possible anti-satellite capabilities.

By February 1963, the Thor interceptor (now named Program 437)
was judged the best way to gain greater altitude capability over that
offered by Program 505. Zuckert told the Chief of Staff “that development
of an operational capability to negate satellites has top priority among
defense programs.” Program 505 would go into operation as an interim
experimental system. (Owing to its limited altitude capability, it would be
closed down in 1966.) Work also began on Program 437, with the aim of
having the Thor interceptors on 24-hour alert.

Although this action contrasted sharply with the cautious approach
accorded SAINT (which Secretary McNamara had cancelled in December
1962), doubts remained about anti-satellite programs in general. In late
1963, Kennedy Administration officials met to review the technical feasi-
bility and political sensitivity of Program 437. In attendance: Robert
McNamara, Harold Brown, Undersecretary of State U. Alexis Johnson,
Director of the U.S. Information Agency Edward R. Murrow, and Col.
Harry E. Evans, Chief of the Research and Development Division of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the official Program 437 history, Evans recalled:

Most of the civilian leadership of both the State and
Defense Departments were very nervous about even hav-
ing a program of research and development for something
like 437, let alone the prospect of having such a system
operationally ready and manned by “blue suiters.”
Certainly the aspect of detonating a nuclear weapon in
space was politically unattractive to them.

As the discussion continued, most seemed to be against what was viewed
as a political liability. Up to this point, Murrow had been quietly smoking

61


For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
‘Superintendent of Documents, Mail Stop: SSOP, Washington, DC. 20402-9328
ISBN 0-16-048945-8


Air Force budget cuts—the Saipan radar, though completed, never went
into operation, while the San Miguel site was closed down. Orbital data
obtained from this network were sent to NORAD’s Space Defense Center
inside Cheyenne Mountain, near Colorado Springs, Colorado, where it
was processed by computers to produce the orbital predictions.

These data were used for several purposes. One was simply cataloging
the ever-changing population of space vehicles and debris in various Earth
orbits. Atmospheric drag causes satellites in low orbits to re-enter the
atmosphere and incinerate. Any debris which survives may impact the
Earth and cause damage or injuries. The location of a vehicle’s reentry
track and possible impact can be predicted, and, if necessary, warnings
can be given. With the increasing population of space debris, the risk of
collisions among debris and satellites also increased. The orbital data is
used to warn when a man-made object will pass close to a Space Shuttle.
Several times, Shuttles have had to maneuver to avoid such close passes.
Of the more than 5,000 objects tracked in space, seventy-five percent was
debris or fragments, twenty percent consisted of inactive payloads, while
operational satellites amounted to only about five percent.

Nuclear Detection - Vela Hotel to IONDS

The automated Vela nuclear detection satellites remain one of the
most successful Air Force space projects. The Air Force had been involved
early in detection and monitoring of Soviet nuclear testing, beginning with
Project Mogul in the late 1940s. This mission became more critical in the
mid-to-late 1950s when the U.S., Soviet Union, and Great Britain began
serious negotiations for a complete nuclear weapons test ban treaty. Any
such agreement would require technical systems to police compliance
with treaty terms and detect any violations. After conducting studies, on
September 2, 1959, Defense Department directed ARPA to begin Project
Vela. Named after the Spanish word for “watchman,” it consisted of three
elements. Vela Uniform employed sensors on Earth that improved the
capability to monitor underground nuclear tests. Vela Sierra also involved
Earth-based systems to detect atmospheric and space tests. Vela Hotel was
a satellite system designed at first to scan above the horizon and detect
nuclear tests in space.

Responsibility for Vela Hotel, as with other military satellite pro-
grams, transferred from ARPA to the Air Force on September 18, 1959.
The service organized the project as a two-part effort. The first involved
flying piggy-back proton, electron, neutron, X-ray and gamma ray detec-
tors on board Discoverer satellites to provide background data on space
radiation. The second would develop and launch actual Vela satellites. On
November 24, 1961, the Air Force selected TRW as contractor to build ten
Vela satellites. They were to be launched in pairs on five Atlas Agenas
from Cape Canaveral in 1963-1964. The satellites, shaped as facetted
spheres, carried X-ray, gamma ray, and neutron detectors which could

41



sibility of a successful surprise attack, during the 1970s and 1980s the
DSPs served to keep Soviet leaders from seriously contemplating such an
action in the first place. In 1991 the early warning mission performed for
the first time in a wartime role. U.S. and Coalition forces, as well as the
civilian population of cities across the Middle East, relied on the DSP
satellites for warning of Iraqi Scud missile attacks. In the wake of Desert
Storm, General Donald J. Kutyna, Commander of U.S. Space Command
in 1991, termed DSP the most important of all Air Force satellite projects.

The SPADATS/SSN Tracking Network

Another space defense mission involved Air Force responsibility for
tracking all satellites and debris in orbit. This effort was composed of
three elements—the Air Force Spacetrack system, the Navy’s Space
Surveillance System, and the Canadian Forces Air Defense Command
Satellite Tracking Unit. Additional data also was provided by the
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. The complete network was
called the Space Detection and Tracking System (SPADATS), operated by
NORAD, located in Colorado.

The sensors that provided the raw data for SPADATS were scattered
across the world. Spacetrack radars included the Cobra Dane located at
Shemya Island, Alaska, the Milstone radar at Westford, Massachusetts,
the AN/FPS-85 at Eglin AFB, Florida, and the AN/FPS-79 at Pirinclik
(formerly Diyarbakir), Turkey. Additional radars at Vandenberg AFB, the
Navy’s Pacific Missile Range, and Cape Canaveral also contributed to
SPADATS. The tracking radar on the island of Trinidad in the West Indies,
for instance, was a major source of data. Although committed to a primary
mission of early warning, the BMEWS radars at Thule, Greenland; Clear,
Alaska; and Fylingdales Moor, England provided about one quarter of the
total observations. The main Navy contribution, the Space Surveillance
System, consisted of a series of ground stations stretching in a line across
the southern United States that went into operation during 1959. Three
transmitter sites sent a fan-shaped “fence” of radio signals thousands of
miles into space. As a satellite passed through the fan, an echo was
reflected back to receivers at the ground stations.

From 1960 into the early 1990s a network of Baker-Nunn cameras
also provided tracking data based on optical sightings on a world-wide
basis. These cameras could spot a satellite as small as a basketball out to
25,000 miles and were used to detect satellites orbiting beyond the range
of other sensors. The Baker-Nunn cameras operated in twilight or dark-
ness when the satellite was illuminated by the Sun but the Earth’s surface
was in darkness. When the satellite’s position against a known star field
was measured, very precise data was produced. The Air Force Baker-
Nunn cameras sites were Sand Island (near Johnston Island) in the Pacific;
Jupiter, Florida; Harestua, Norway; Santiago, Chile; Mt. John, New
Zealand; San Vito, Italy; Pulmosan, South Korea, St. Margarets, New

39

———



April 8, 1966, the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory-I was launched into
a nearly circular 500-nautical mile orbit. Two days later, OAO-I suffered
a power system failure which crippled it, and NASA officials requested
that the fourth Program 437AP launch be used to photograph the satellite.
On April 17, the Air Staff agreed. The flight would test the altitude and
range limits of Program 437AP. The launch from Johnston Island was
made on July 2, but a short circuit caused it to diverge from the planned
flight path. The camera could not acquire OAO-I, and it photographed
empty space.

The failure of the OAO-I mission ended Program 437AP. The United
States Intelligence Board considered further launches from Johnston Island
to be inadvisable. The site had been publicly identified as an anti-satellite
base, and the Soviets were sure to track American rockets and discover if
one of their satellites had been photographed. The Intelligence Board sug-
gested that a base in the continental United States be used, but the cost esti-
mates for such an effort made it prohibitively expensive. On November 30,
1966, Air Force Headquarters formally cancelled Program 437AP.

Program 437 now returned to full alert status. The first CTL in nearly
two years was conducted on March 31, 1967, as part of Air Defense
Command exercise which brought Program 437 into simulated wartime
operations for the first time. A simulated warhead passed within two nau-
tical miles of its target, a piece of space debris. (The shortage of missiles
which had limited CTLs was eased when an additional nine Thors were
allotted by Defense Department to Program 437 CTLs through 1971.)
Another successful CTL followed on May 14, 1968. The simulated war-
head’s miss distance was one-and-one-quarter nautical miles, against an
Agena satellite. The CTL was conducted as part of a Joint Chiefs of Staff
and National Military Command Center exercise, which gave the training
launch an air of realism. The second CTL of 1968, conducted on Novem-
ber 20, was also successful.

Despite Edward R. Murrow’s admonition and still without any Soviet
weapons to attack in orbit, in 1969, Program 437 began to be dismantled.
Moreover, one year earlier the Soviet Union and the United States had
signed the UN-sponsored Outer Space Treaty, which prohibited stationing
“weapons of mass destruction” in space. That particular threat appeared to
have all but disappeared. The number of personnel assigned to the project
was reduced, which required that nuclear warheads be removed from their
Thor missiles and placed in secure storage elsewhere on the island. The
need to remount the warheads increased the reaction time from five to
eleven hours. Before year’s end, the Defense Department announced
phaseout of the complete system by the end of FY 1973.

A final Program 437 CTL was conducted on March 27, 1970, and a
simulated warhead passed only one nautical mile from the target satellite.
Two months later, on May 4, 1970, Deputy Secretary of Defense David
Packard directed the Air Force to accelerate phase down of Program 437

64


cials made no effort to speed up Vanguard or “race” the Soviets to launch
the first satellite. The WS-117L also remained a low-priority, long-term
effort. Even the ICBM program was subject to overtime restrictions and
reductions in production and deployment. Secretary of Defense Charles E.
Wilson showed open hostility to satellites, saying at one point that he
“wouldn’t care” if the Soviet Union launched a satellite before the U.S.
On Friday, October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union obliged him by placing
Sputnik 1 into orbit. The event had a stunning political effect on public
opinion in the United States. An aide to Senator Lyndon Johnson (D-Tex)
captured this mood:

It is unpleasant to feel that there is something floating
around in the air which the Russians can put up and we
can’t.... It really doesn’t matter whether the satellite has
any military value. The important thing is that the
Russians have left the Earth and the race for the control
of the universe has started.

In the following days and weeks, the Eisenhower Administration was
judged complacent in the face of an impressive Soviet achievement.
Politicians and pundits used the Sputnik launch to challenge everything
from United States education, defense and space policy, to the size of
automobile tailfins.

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev quickly exploited this loss of con-
fidence in the United States by ordering the launch of a second and larger
satellite, Sputnik 2, which orbited the Earth on November 3 and carried a
dog named Laika. This was followed on May 15, 1958 by Sputnik 3, a
1,327 kg geophysical satellite. The weights of these satellites were far
beyond the lifting capabilities of U.S. rockets, sparked American concern
over the size of the Soviet ICBM force, and prompted a “Missile Gap”
controversy at the end of the decade. Air Force intelligence believed the
Soviets had begun to deploy a very large ICBM force which would leave
the U.S. vulnerable to a surprise attack in the near future. The Navy and
Army estimated a small Soviet ICBM force would be deployed. CIA intel-
ligence estimates fell in the middle range—somewhere between those of
the military services. None of these estimates was based on hard informa-
tion, as the few U-2 overflights had failed to disclose a single military
ICBM site. Too small an area had been covered to prove there were no
ICBM sites, however. The Missile Gap controversy affected domestic pol-
itics. Inflated estimates of a large Soviet missile force, leaked to the press,
were used to attack Eisenhower defense policy. Democratic politicians
depicted Eisenhower as “doing nothing” in the face of a Soviet missile
build-up, intent on balancing the budget while he marked time playing
golf. Deeply frustrated and unable to reassure the American public,
President Eisenhower—given the U-2 information available to him—
remained convinced that no missile gap existed. Yet, because the U-2


1986 and September 1989. One was lost during launch when its Atlas
Centaur was struck by lightning.

The Ultrahigh-Frequency Follow-On (UFO) satellite replaced the
FLTSATCOM series. Built for the Navy by Hughes Space and
Communications, the Air Force launched UFO 1 on March 25, 1993.
Regrettably, the Atlas I’s first stage engine suffered an early shut down.
Although the Centaur second stage continued to burn until the propellant
was depleted, it could not reach the planned transfer orbit. UFO 2,
launched on September 3, 1993, was successfully placed in geosynchro-
nous orbit. The Navy has ordered a total of nine UFO satellites from
Hughes.

Part of the Air Force use of the FLTSATCOM involved the Air Force
Satellite Communications System (AFSATCOM), which relayed mes-
sages to and from nuclear forces such as bombers and missile silos, com-
mand posts and aircraft, and submarines. (Such a role had been planned
for the original Steer program, which later became part of Advent.) The
AFSATCOM transmissions are normally short, pre-formatted messages
that required minimal power. The space elements of AFSATCOM origi-
nally consisted of transponders on board the FLTSATCOM and the
Satellite Data System (SDS) spacecraft built by Hughes Aircraft. With the
FLTSATCOM satellites in equatorial orbits and SDS spacecraft in polar
orbits, AFSATCOM could provide world-wide coverage. The AFSAT-
COM reached initial operational capability on May 22, 1979 (shortly after
the first FLTSATCOM was launched). At first, 15 B-5S2 bombers, four
EC-135 command and control aircraft, and a ground station were
equipped with receivers. Some 900 terminals eventually were to be
deployed. The AFSATCOM was expanded with the launch of the DSCS
III satellites. Each carried a single transponder for use by the system.

The follow-on to AFSATCOM and DSCS was the Milstar military
communication satellite. Designed to use Extremely High Frequencies

Artist’s concept of the Milstar communications satellite, designed to use
Extremely High Frequencies (EHF) which do not suffer prolonged
blackouts from high-altitude nuclear explosions.

51


The design evolution of the Global Positioning System satellites from the
early test satellites (top) to the most recent GPS version (bottom).

which would be launched atop Atlas E/F boosters. GPS represented a
national system intended to serve the military needs of the Air Force,
Navy, and the Army. As events transpired, it also would bring about a rev-
olution in commercial transportation management, surveying, and air-sea
rescue.

The original GPS plan called for a network of 21 satellites (18 pri-
mary and three spares), later expanded to 24 satellites (21 primary and
three spares). The GPS satellites were placed into 10,900-nautical-mile
circular orbits, inclined 55 degrees to the equator. The full complement of
satellites, located in six orbital planes, insured that four satellites were vis-
ible to a terrestrial receiver at all times. Each GPS satellite carried four
atomic clocks and a low-power transmitter which broadcast coded time
signals and status messages. By integrating the signals from four satel-
lites, a GPS receiver could determine its location, altitude, speed, and time
with extreme precision. Nonetheless, to prevent the enemy for using GPS,
it was designed to provide two levels of accuracy in position. In military

57


noted, the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on the Peaceful Uses of
Outer Space now accepted the “permissibility of the launching and flight
of space vehicles . . . regardless of what territory they passed over during
the course of their flight through outer space.” While freedom of space
had been tentatively established in international law, the U.N. committee
added this only applied to “peaceful” missions.

The Administration clearly counted reconnaissance satellites in the
“peaceful” category of defense support missions. But it limited to studies
any offensive military space operations, such as orbital nuclear weapons,
satellite interceptors, space-based anti-ballistic missile systems, and
lunar-based ballistic missiles lest they provide the Soviets with an excuse
to attack reconnaissance satellites. A few days after Sputnik 1 was
launched, Quarles directed the Air Force not to consider nuclear weapons
in orbit in its future space planning. This extended to even the suggestion
of an offensive mission. On October 20, 1958, ARPA Director Roy
Johnson ordered the Air Force to stop using the “Weapons System” des-
ignation (such as WS-117L) for military satellites, “to minimize the
aggressive international implications of overflight . . . It is desired to
emphasize the defensive, surprise-prevention aspects of the system. This
change . . . should reduce the effectiveness of possible diplomatic protest
against peacetime employment.”

The Eisenhower space policy can best be understood as strategic, rather
than tactical, in nature. It was intended to establish the basic legal principles
and missions for the long term. In this, it proved very successful.
Eisenhower’s space policy was less successful on the tactical level of the.
day-to-day Cold War political struggle with the Soviet Union. The
Eisenhower Administration stressed that the U.S. was not in a “race” with
the Soviets, dismissing such efforts as “stunts.” American space flight activ-
ity was directed toward pure scientific research, civil applications (such as
communication satellites), and limited military support applications (such
as reconnaissance satellites). But this policy ignored the powerful symbol-
ism that space held publicly in the late 1950s; space was part of the Cold
War. The Soviets’ aggressive drive in space contrasted strikingly with
Eisenhower’s apparent passivity. The American public looked to
Eisenhower for visible leadership in space. By refusing to acknowledge the
political importance of space activities, Eisenhower gave to the Soviets a
major diplomatic advantage which fed the crisis atmosphere and the Missile
Gap controversy. Ironically, attempts by Eisenhower and his scientist-advis-
ers to downplay space activities conducted for purposes of international
prestige resulted in the very things they wanted to avoid—demands for
increased defense spending and a more aggressive space effort.

The Air Force WS-117L program, renamed Sentry and still later
SAMOS (for Satellite and Missile Observation System), continued under
development at the Lockheed facility at Sunnyvale, California. On
January 22, 1958, the NSC assigned the highest national priority to devel-

11


High Frontier

The U. S. Air Force
and
the Military Space Program

Curtis Peebles

Air Force History and Museums Program
1997


Til

Military Space Operations 1958-1991

The Air Force emerged from the organization of the U.S. space pro-
gram between 1958 and 1960 with the defense support missions of mis-
sile early warning and space defense. The first mission employed auto-
mated satellites equipped with infrared sensors to detect Soviet missile
launches; the second embraced development of a satellite inspector vehi-
cle, satellites to detect nuclear explosions on Earth and in space, and an
Earth-based system of radars and cameras that could track satellites in
orbit. At the same time, the Eisenhower Administration assigned several
other military space application missions to other services and agencies.
The Navy was to develop a navigation satellite system, while the Army
would oversee strategic and tactical communications satellites. NASA
acquired responsibility for developing meteorological satellites to serve
both civil and military users.

Missile Early Warning - MIDAS to DSP

In 1956, the CIA warned the National Security Council Planning
Board that “it is possible the USSR, if it sought full strategic surprise,
could launch an attack on the continental U.S. without undertaking any
observable preparations which would provide strategic warning.”
Although the probability of such an event remained low, the U.S. could
not absolutely count on advance indications and warning of a Soviet sur-
prise attack. Thus, considerable effort was devoted to building a radar net-
work first to detect incoming Soviet bombers before they reached their
targets, and, second, with the emergence of the Soviet long-range missile
program in the mid-1950s, on larger Ballistic Missile Early Warning
System (BMEWS) radars that could provide 10 to 20 minutes warning.
Even with this radar warning, however, only “alert” aircraft with crews at
the ready would have time to take off; most U.S. bombers would be caught
on the ground in a Soviet missile attack.

In 1955-1956, Joseph Knopow, a Lockheed engineer, and Sidney
Passman and William W. Kellogg of RAND began looking at ways to
detect missile launches using infrared sensors. At first they considered
equipping aircraft flying outside Soviet airspace with sensors. Again, due
to the curvature of the Earth, aircraft could not observe most of the boost
phase. But satellites also could carry the detection equipment. From a van-
tage point in space, infrared sensors on board satellites could detect the
hot exhaust of a missile as it rose above the atmosphere. This would add
five to eight minutes to the radar warning time, allowing more bombers to
take off before Soviet warheads struck. Passman and Kellogg wrote in
RAND Research Memorandum RM-1572:

32


before, during the Desert Shield build-up the Iraqis made three practice
Scud launches. These tests allowed the “bugs” to be worked out of the
DSP in a quick-response mode. When the Iraqis began Scud launches on
the second night of the air war, Space Command was ready.

Data on each Scud launch, detected by the DSP satellites within
moments of liftoff, was relayed to NORAD/Space Command at Cheyenne
Mountain in Colorado. Within five minutes the command confirmed a
launch, predicted the impact point, and flashed word via communication
satellites to the Middle East. Space Command personnel then turned to
their television sets and watched as the air raid sirens began to wail on the
other side of the world. Troops hurriedly put on their chemical protection
suits, while civilians took refuge. At the same time, pointed by DSP data,
Army Patriot missiles roared aloft to intercept the incoming Scuds. It was
all very different forty-six years earlier when London and Antwerp were
under attack from German V-2s and the missiles struck without warning.
The DSP satellites allowed people to take shelter, while the Patriots pro-
vided an active defense. Together, they reduced the number of casualties
and damage.

If the DSP and communications satellites were applied successfully in
tactical operations, by far the most important automated space system
employed in Desert Storm was the Navstar Global Positioning System.
Like DSP, it too proved vital to military success. Before the Iraqi invasion
of Kuwait, the Army had purchased only about 1,000 military GPS
receivers (called Small Lightweight GPS Receivers, SLGRs or “slug-
gers.”). As the Desert Shield deployment continued and the demand for
sluggers in the field soared, the GPS Program Office made emergency
purchases of some 13,000 civilian GPS receivers for use on military vehi-
cles. Moreover, many soldiers, desperate for the navigational advantage
that GPS offered, bought their own from civilian electronics stores or
received them as gifts rushed from home. The soldiers were able to have
them working within a half hour of opening the box.

Because most of the GPS receivers employed in Desert Storm were
civilian models and unable to use encrypted signals, for the greater navi-
gational accuracy the Air Force and Defense Department chose to leave
GPS signals unencrypted and risk Iraqi forces also using the same GPS
signals. That risk was judged acceptable because Coalition forces were
fighting a war of movement in unfamiliar territory, while the Iraqis were
tied down in fixed positions, and lacked precision guided weapons that
could use the GPS data. But the usefulness of the GPS data also was lim-
ited to Coalition forces because the complete satellite network had not yet
been established in orbit. GPS provided accurate data when four satellites
were in view of a receiver, but in 1991 there were seven periods each day
up to 40 minutes in duration when fewer than four were in view. During
these GPS “sad times,” as they were called, Coalition forces had to revert
to LORAN or dead reckoning.

714


such operational space missions as rendezvous and space station resupply.
In September 1962, Secretary McNamara voiced these very concerns.
Following another briefing on the program, he questioned Air Force offi-
cials whether Dyna-Soar represented the best expenditure of national
resources.

Secretary McNamara was interested in the military potential of
NASA's Gemini two-man spacecraft. When McNamara reoriented the X-
20 program towards a research role, he suggested Defense Department
participation in the Gemini program to demonstrate manned rendezvous.
At a November 1962 meeting with NASA Administrator James E. Webb
and Associate Administrator Robert C. Seamans, Jr., McNamara made a
surprise proposal that NASA’s Gemini be merged with planned Air Force
Gemini flights, and that the combined effort be moved to the Department
of Defense. NASA rejected the proposal on the grounds that a military
program would interfere with Apollo and posed political and foreign pol-
icy concerns. Air Force leaders also did not like the proposal, which
threatened the X-20. The results of the few “Blue Gemini” flights, they
believed, would not be worth the cost.

McNamara nonetheless remained interested in the subject. On January
18 and 19, 1963, he directed a comparison study of the X-20 and Gemini
to see which was the more feasible approach to military space flight. A few
days later, an agreement between Defense Department and NASA allowed
military experiments to be flown on board NASA Gemini missions. On
March 15, he requested a further comparison be made between the X-20
and Gemini with respect to four prospective military missions—satellite
inspection, satellite defense, reconnaissance, and orbiting of offensive
space weapons. He added that a manned space station serviced by a ferry
vehicle could be the most feasible approach. The Air Force review com-
mittee, meanwhile, completed its study on May 10, 1963, and found nei-
ther the Gemini capsule nor the X-20 able to meet any of the four missions
without modifications. With use of a mission module and a Titan III
booster, the Gemini would provide better orbital maneuverability and pay-
load capacity. The X-20, however, had better reentry flexibility.

On July 22, 1963, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson asked
McNamara for his views of the space station’s importance to military
spacefaring. McNamara replied a few days later; he considered multi-
manned, long-duration orbital flights most important to military space
activities. Because there was no clearly identified manned military space
mission, however, he believed that efforts should be directed towards pro-
viding experience in manned space flight. The Air Force participation in
the Gemini flights would provide much of this experience. McNamara
thought that a space station would be useful in conducting experiments on
every type of military space mission, and that it might evolve into an oper-
ational system.

In August 1963, Harold Brown, who succeeded York as Director of

20


(Cover illustration) Artist’s concept of the Manned Orbiting
Laboratory on its Vandenberg launch pad. After the cancellation of
the MOL program, the SLC-6 pad was modified for polar orbit
launches of the military Space Shuttle. Following the loss of
Challenger, the Air Force “mothballed” SLC-6.


tions, four satellites made up the network. The design lifetime of 18
months also was far exceeded—the final Vela operated for 14 years. As
the satellites got older, ground controllers had to exercise special care.
Twenty-one years of Vela operations ended at 11:57 a.m. Pacific Daylight
Time, September 27, 1984, when Col. Thomas Niquette, Director of
Operations for the Air Force Technical Applications Center sent a com-
mand to shut down the final Vela satellite. (This was the first of the 1969
pair.) The twelve satellites had operated for a total of 108 years, traveled
3.23 billion miles, and detected about 40 atmospheric tests. They also had
verified, contrary to the fears of some, that all State signatories to the
nuclear test ban treaty had abided by its terms for over twenty years.

This did not mean the end of nuclear detection as an Air Force mission.
Rather than building specialized nuclear detection satellites, Vela instru-
ments now were carried aloft on other automated military satellites, such
as the Defense Support Program (DSP) and Navstar GPS navigation satel-
lites. The program was redesignated the Integrated Operational Nuclear
Detection System (IONDS). The first Navstar to carry the IONDS sensors
was the sixth Navstar, launched on April 26, 1980. This effort at detecting
nuclear detonations has continued since then without interruption.

Communication Satellites - IDCSP to Milstar

Of all the civilian applications satellites which emerged in the 1960s,
none affected everyday life more profoundly than did communication
satellites. With them it would become possible to pick up a phone and call
nearly anywhere in the world. It was also now possible for a news event
to be covered live on television and relayed around the world via satellite.
Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke first proposed radio and telephonic
communications from satellites positioned in geosynchronous orbit. In the
October 1945 issue of Wireless World magazine, he described three large
satellites placed in 22,300-mile-high orbits over the equator. Rotating
around the world at the same speed as the Earth’s peripheral velocity, each
would remain positioned above one point on the equator, making it possi-
ble to relay television signals from satellite-to-satellite around the world.
(The concept was independently formulated in February 1947 by James
Lipp in one of the early RAND studies.)

Although the emphasis in both satellite studies and development in
the early and mid-1950s turned on scientific and reconnaissance applica-
tions, interest in communications applications continued. The first com-
munication satellite was Project Score, an Atlas B placed into low Earth
orbit on December 18, 1958. It carried a tape recorded Christmas message
from President Dwight Eisenhower. In October 1958, ARPA directed the
Army to begin work on the prototype of a communications relay
(repeater) satellite called Courier. The first one was launched two years
later on October 4, 1960. Operating as a “repeater” satellite, a message
was transmitted to Courier, where it was rebroadcast it to a ground station.

44


Launch of the STS-S1C mission on January 24, 1985. This was the first mili-
tary Space Shuttle flight that carried a classified payload.

began in April 1981, the Shuttle experienced continuing problems and
launch delays. The start of launch operations at Vandenberg AFB was
repeatedly delayed by difficulties of constructing the SLC-6 Shuttle pad.
Finally, as events turned out, Congress paid for a fleet of only four
Shuttles. Just how these four would meet all of America’s space launch
needs, civil and military, remained an open question. Air Force officials
debated continuing to buy expendable boosters even though the Shuttle
was now operational. Undersecretary of the Air Force Hans Mark sup-
ported employing the Shuttles to launch all military satellites, while most
senior Air Force officers opposed a policy that depended exclusively on
the Shuttle. The Martin Marietta Corporation had developed the Titan 34D
as a replacement for the Titan IIIC and D boosters, pending full replace-
ment by the Shuttle.

While the debate swirled, in 1983 Air Force Vice Chief of Staff
General Jerome F. O’Malley reopened the issue of expendable boosters.
And on December 23, 1983, Air Force Undersecretary Edward Aldridge,
Jr. issued a memo, “Assured Access to Space,” which called for the pro-
duction of improved Titan 34D boosters to launch military satellites as a
back-up to the Shuttle, with only two launches per year made. The
remaining military Shuttle flights would amount to about twenty percent
of the total number of Shuttle missions each year. In early 1985, Martin
Marietta’s Titan 34D-7 (later Titan IV) was selected. And a medium-lift

28


But the performance of Program 461 vehicles remained open to ques-
tion. Testifying before Congress, Brown claimed that “the way the pro-
gram was [currently] going, it would never produce a reliable, dependable
system.” The Defense Department cut FY 1963 funding to $75 million,
while the FY 1964 budget was only $35 million. Because of the cuts, the
Air Force dropped all deployment plans and directed its efforts toward
improving reliability and detection probability, reducing false alarms, and
attitude stabilization of the satellite. The long years of effort were finally
rewarded on May 19, 1963. A 461 satellite launched on that date operated
for six weeks and detected nine Titan II, Atlas E, Minuteman, and even
Polaris missiles. The detection of solid-propellant Minuteman and Polaris
launches was especially gratifying given the earlier doubts that MIDAS
infrared sensors could ever spot these rockets. This success was followed
by another launch on July 18. Although the satellite operated for only 96
orbits before starting to tumble, it successfully detected an Atlas E
launch—as well as Soviet rocket tests. The twin successes showed that
satellite early warning definitely was feasible and achievable.

On November 7, 1963, the Defense Department halted further
Program 461 launches to allow development of an improved system able
to detect submarine-launched missiles and IRBMs, as well as pinpoint
their launch sites. This MIDAS follow-on program called for eleven Atlas
Agena launches between January 1966 and July 1968, when limited oper-
ations would be achieved. This would be followed between March 1969
and August 1970 by launches of the operational system. These satellites
would use a 6,500-nautical-mile-high orbit. This plan was later abandoned
and the U.S. early warning satellite program was again reoriented. Now, a
few MIDAS satellites would be placed in geosynchronous Earth orbit. At
that altitude, three or four satellites could constantly watch the entire
Earth; that made unnecessary a network of eight or more MIDAS/461
satellites in relatively low orbits. In 1967-1968, TRW won the contract to
build the operational geosynchronous early warning satellites. Launches
of these satellites began in the early 1970s, with the effort redesignated as
the Defense Support Program (DSP). The 32.8 feet-long DSP satellite was
launched by a Titan IIIC into a geosynchronous orbit.

The heart of the DSP satellite remained a large infrared telescope
fixed to the front end of the spacecraft. The DSP pointed towards the Earth
and the entire satellite was spun at a few revolutions per minute. This
allowed the telescope to scan the Earth, watching for missile launches.
The TRW design was elegantly simple, and had greater reliability, because
it eliminated the rotating turret and slip rings used on Lockheed’s MIDAS
design. The infrared energy from a rocket was detected by sensors inside
the telescope. As the sensors swept across an infrared source, an electronic
signal was generated. The signals were relayed to a ground station and
quickly passed to NORAD headquarters in Colorado. Once analyzed, the
DSP data showed the number of missiles, their azimuth, and projected

37



eee) 2
Artist’s concept of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory on its Vandenberg launch
pad. After the cancellation of the MOL program, the SLC-6 pad was modified

for polar orbit launches of the military Space Shuttle. Following the loss of
Challenger, the Air Force “mothballed” SLC-6.

Despite the studies, MOL development stalled. Although plans were
submitted, the experiments were judged insufficient and their costs too
high. Some officials proposed a combined Air Force/NASA space station
program. With unmanned automated military spacecraft now performing
successfully on orbit for extended periods, some in the Department of
Defense argued that man had no military role in space. Other studies
examined different MOL configurations which combined Apollo hard-
ware and a one-man Gemini capsule. Finally, various medical experts
declared that humans could not survive 30 days in a weightless orbital
environment. MOL program goals consequently shifted during 1964 and
early 1965, and moved towards operational-type missions. The launch site
changed from Patrick AFB, Florida, to Vandenberg AFB, California,
where the MOL could be launched into a polar orbit allowing overflight
of the Soviet Union; manned space reconnaissance became its primary
mission.

Not until August 25, 1965, a full 20 months after the program began,
did President Johnson announce that development work would start. The
MOL configuration remained the original baseline design. The contrac-
tors: McDonnell Aircraft would build the Gemini B reentry capsules,
Douglas Aircraft would furnish the Orbital Laboratory, and General
Electric would fabricate the experiments. Officially, MOL’s reconnais-

23



the Air Force notified Lockheed that it had won the WS-117L contract.
The military satellite was to use an Atlas booster with a Lockheed-built
upper stage, later called Agena. Once in orbit, the Lockheed booster-satel-
lite would be stabilized with its nose pointed toward the Earth, to allow a
camera system to take pictures. The development plan was approved in
July 1956 by the Air Staff. However, the Defense Department provided
only $4.7 million for FY 1956. Even the conservative estimates of pro-
gram costs indicated a need for at least $39.1 million in start-up funding.

Meanwhile, in a March 1956 report to the Air Staff, RAND recom-
mended substituting film recovery in place of electronic scanning and
readout in orbit. On June 26, 1956, RAND issued “Physical Recovery of
Satellite Payloads: A Preliminary Investigation.” The RAND proposals
received support in late summer when a Defense Department study panel
concluded that a solution to the reentry problem, then being investigated
for ballistic missile warheads, was within reach.

Forging a National Space Policy

The status of the WS-117L reconnaissance satellite remained in
doubt. In November 1956, Secretary of the Air Force Donald Quarles
directed WDD to cease all efforts toward vehicle construction at
Lockheed, and imposed sharp funding limits. An emerging civilian space

Original Air Force WS-117L Program Team in Inglewood, California, shortly
after arrival at the Western Development Division, March 4, 1956, in front of
Ramo-Wooldridge Building on Arbor Vitae, Inglewood, California. Standing
left-to-right: Capt William O. Troetschel; Edwin Kolb, WPAFB; 1Lt John C.
Herther; Lt Col William G. King, former program director at WPAFB; Russell
Johnson, AFRADC; James Suttie, AFRADC; Joseph Fallik, AFRADC; Capt
James S. Coolbaugh; Capt Frank S. Jasen. Kneeling left-to-right: Fritz Runge;
Capt Richard P. Berry, AFCRC; Capt Robert C. Truax, USN, program director
and chief engineer; Robert Copeland, WPAFB; Lt Col George P. Jones,
AFCRC; Lt Col George Harlan, SAC liaison.


Department declared the Navstar GPS satellite system fully operational on
July 17, 1995.

Anti-Satellite Systems-SAINT, 437, and the F-15 ASAT

Part of the public’s emotional response to the launches of the early
Sputniks in 1957-1958 reflected fears that the Soviets would launch
nuclear weapons into Earth orbit that could be called down on American
heads at a moment’s notice. President Eisenhower’s scientists sought to
explain away these public concerns as best they could. Compared with
nuclear-tipped ICBMs that could traverse the globe in 30 minutes to strike
a target, orbiting nuclear weapons in space not only would cost enormous
sums more, they said, but such weapons made no technical or military
sense. First, an orbiting weapon required elaborate spacecraft systems,
such as retro-rockets to deorbit it, others to guide it, and still others to arm
it. Second, all of these integrated systems would have to perform reliably
while on orbit for many months if not years, or the bomb became useless.
(Spacecraft at that time hardly performed reliably for more than a few
orbits, as the MIDAS experience made clear.) Third, if used in retaliation,
such weapons could not be delivered at a moments notice, but would have
to wait at least an orbit or two until the Earth tumed beneath it and the
intended target hove into view. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, if such
a weapon were used for a first strike and a partial malfunction occurred as
the nuclear bomb moved along its orbit, it might just as easily fall on
Buenos Aires as on Washington D.C., or, worse yet, on Moscow.
Consequently, the Eisenhower Administration disdained serious military
efforts to counter such weapons. :

In August 1959, the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division issued a pre-
liminary development plan for a Satellite Interceptor (SAINT). In mid-
June 1960, Herbert York, Director of Defense Research and Engineering,
ordered the SAINT program restricted to development of subsystems and
forbade flight testing. In a review of the revised SAINT plan in July 1960,
Air Force Undersecretary Joseph Charyk, involved at that time in evaluat-
ing the best way to organize the Air Force reconnaissance satellite effort,
ordered any reference to a satellite “kill” capability removed from the
SAINT program. He restricted SAINT to rendezvous and inspection only,
which brought with it a new name, Satellite Inspector. The Eisenhower
Administration’s opposition to a weapons-equipped satellite interceptor
reflected concerns about jeopardizing the principle of “Freedom of
Space”; officials sought to ensure and preserve the right of unobstructed
passage in space for reconnaissance satellites. Space-based military
weapon systems, on the other hand, might be judged legitimate targets for
destruction—an altogether different precedent that U.S. leaders were
unwilling to encourage.

The public statements of Soviet officials in the early 1960s occasion-
ally implied that orbital nuclear weapons might be militarily useful. At

59


GPS guided Air Force and Navy aircraft equipped with receivers to
their targets in the air war. Army special forces helicopters navigated to
targets behind Iraqi lines using GPS receivers. And precision artillery fire
was directed against the enemy using GPS data. The Navy used GPS data
to map mine fields accurately in the Persian Gulf, then navigate through
them. But perhaps GPS’ greatest achievement came in the “100-hour
ground war.” The Coalition moved 100,000 troops in poor weather 100
miles west along the Iraqi-Saudi border during the so called “Hail Mary”
maneuver. This sidestepped Iraqi forces concentrated in the east near the
Persian Gulf, on the Saudi/Kuwait border. At the start of the ground war,
four armored divisions with some 2,000 vehicles were lined up along a
75-mile-wide front.

In the border breakthrough of the Iraqi berms on February 26, 1991,
two divisions operated side-by-side along a 25-mile front. Using GPS,
every unit knew both its location and the planned locations of those on its
flanks. The SLGRs, which could also be programmed with waypoints,
gave direction and distance to the next waypoint and the vehicle’s speed.
The GPS’ atomic clocks also allowed the time of all the SLGRs to be syn-
chronized. Without GPS, it would not have been possible to conduct the
Hail Mary sweep effectively. One Army sergeant gave his SLGR the ulti-
mate compliment—“If it could make coffee, I’d marry it.” Captured Iraqi
soldiers, who had only compasses and maps, could not believe U.S. forces
had found their way through the flat, featureless desert of western Iraq.
They were even more astonished when they discovered that GPS receivers
were not only in the hands of command personnel, but individual soldiers.

Following the Gulf War, the military services began purchasing addi-
tional GPS receivers for use in everything from B-1B bombers to trucks,
though hardly as fast as some had hoped. In late 1994, for example, the
pilot of an Army helicopter not yet equipped with a GPS receiver strayed
across the 38th parallel into North Korea and was shot down. Meanwhile,
studies have begun of helmet-mounted GPS antenna and of miniature
receivers to be carried by American pilots. If shot down, these receivers
will guide rescue helicopters to the aviator.

The DMSP meteorological satellites also played an important role in
Desert Shield and Desert Storm. During the build-up of Coalition forces
in Desert Shield, a new terminal, the Rapid Deployment Imagery Ter-
minal, was quickly procured. Older terminals were also rushed to the Mid-
dle East. These display terminals provided nearly all of the weather data
used to support the deployment. Coalition air forces also used the DMSP
data to plan initial air strikes. When the lights went out in Baghdad dur-
ing the first night’s air attacks in January 1991, a DMSP satellite first spot-
ted it. This represented the first bomb damage assessment of the air
attacks on Iraq’s electrical system. The air war itself transpired during the
worst recorded weather in fourteen years. Half of all sorties were affected
by the weather, resulting in cancellations or diversion to other targets.

75


The other communications satellite concept studied by both NASA and
Defense Department in the late 1950s involved a “reflector” communica-
tion satellite. As the name suggests, the transmission was reflected from
the satellite’s surface back to the ground. A reflector satellite required no
electric power or major on board systems. NASA tested the concept with
two Echo balloon satellites. The military counterpart was Project West
Ford. Rather than a balloon satellite like Echo, West Ford used 400 mil-
lion copper dipoles, each 0.7 inches long and thinner than a human hair.
The “needles” were carried in a canister on board a MIDAS. After release,
plans called for the needles to slowly separate from the canister and form
a ring around the Earth 2,000 miles high, five miles wide, and 25 miles
thick. Transmissions could then be reflected off the ring. The first West
Ford canister was launched on board MIDAS 4. Although it separated, the
needles did not disperse. A second attempt was made on May 9, 1963 and
was successful. Communication tests were conducted, and no harmful
effects were noted on optical or radio astronomy from the ring, but, in the
face of vigorous scientific protests, no subsequent dipole needle launches
were made. Although Echo had shown reflector communication satellites
were feasible, rapid advances in space and communications technology
shifted attention to geosynchronous repeater satellites for both civil and
military use.

In 1959, as a follow-on to Score, ARPA requested that the Air Force
and Army prepare a joint development plan for a geosynchronous com-
munication satellite. The booster and spacecraft were the responsibility of
the Air Force, while the communications equipment, both on the ground
and the payload on board the satellite, was to be overseen by the Army.
When development began, there were three projects—Steer, Tackle, and
Decree. The program soon ran into budget and technical criticisms, and in
February 1960 the three projects were combined into a single major effort
called “Advent.” In September 1960, ARPA transferred Advent to the
Army. The complex, 1,250-pound Advent payload was to be launched by
an Atlas Agena, which would place test vehicles into 5,600-nautical-mile-
high orbits. Subsequently, Atlas Centaur boosters would launch Advent
satellites into geosynchronous orbits. A total of ten launches were
planned, but work on Advent moved slowly. The division of authority
between the Air Force and Army proved awkward and caused many prob-
lems. Cost estimates sky-rocketed—from $130 million in December 1958
to $352 million less than two years later. The Atlas Centaur booster, mean-
while, slipped two years behind schedule; all the while satellite technol-
ogy advanced rapidly. A lighter-weight communication satellite could
now perform Advent’s mission.

On May 23, 1962, Defense Secretary McNamara cancelled Advent.
As a replacement, the Institute for Defense Analysis recommended two
systems. The first was a series of 20 to 30 small satellites in medium-alti-
tude orbits. A number of these satellites could be orbited on a single

45


conducted by the Army between Fort Dix, New Jersey, and Camp Roberts
in California, before operations commenced. In the second IDCSP launch
on August 26, all eight satellites were lost when the payload shroud failed
80 seconds after lift-off. A new shroud was designed and the third IDCSP
launch took place on January 18, 1967. The eight satellites reached orbit
successfully. The Titan IIIC launch of July 1, 1967 carried only three
IDCSP satellites, a Despun Antenna Test Satellite, the LES 5 tactical com-
munications test satellite, and the Defense Department SAGE 1 satellite
which returned the first television pictures of Earth from geosynchronous
orbit.

During July 1967, the Pacific IDCSP military communication net-
work transferred from a research and development test phase to opera-
tional status. This provided strategic communication links among ground
stations in Hawaii, the Philippines, South Vietnam, and the continental
United States. A final launch on June 13, 1968 brought the total to 26
IDCSP satellites. The complete world-wide network was now considered
operational, with the satellites subsequently renamed the Defense Satellite
Communications System I (DSCS I). The IDCSP/DSCS I satellites
demonstrated a remarkable lifetime. By late 1971, about 20 of the satel-
lites were still operating (15 was considered adequate.) Although several
shut down when their six-year lifetime was up, as late as mid-1976 three
were still in use.

The IDCSP/DSCS I satellites were intended for strategic military
communications between fixed bases. For tactical communications, how-
ever, the requirements were more severe. A portable ground terminal had
to be small and lightweight enough to be carried by small ships, aircraft,
or troops in the field. Under such conditions, the big dish antennas of con-
ventional ground terminals were impractical. By using selected frequen-
cies, it was possible to use a non-directional fixed antenna. However,
because such an antenna could pick up both direct signals and reflections
(such as from the ocean’s surface), specialized receiving equipment was
needed. The space technology for tactical military communications was
first tested with the Lincoln Experimental Satellite (LES) program.
Launched on December 21, 1965, on a Titan IIIC, an upper stage failure
left LES 4 stranded in a 105-by-18,200-nautical-mile orbit. Despite this
unplanned orbit, the satellite’s beacon was used to analyze the problem of
reflected transmissions. The LES 5, launched on July 1, 1967, along with
three IDCSP satellites and two other test satellites, undertook communi-
cation tests with small mobile terminals on aircraft, ships, submarines,
and jeeps. LES 6 followed on September 26, 1968.

In September 1965, a tri-service panel studying the future of tactical
satellite communications recommended development of a large, high-
power military geosynchronous satellite. The Defense Department
awarded a contract for the satellite to Hughes Aircraft in December 1966.
The Tactical Communications Satellite I (TACSAT I) was the largest such

47



remained a secret, he refused to divulge the source that prompted his con-
viction.

In the “space race,” as the press liked to term astronautical events, the
launch of Sputnik 1 established the very legal precedent that Eisenhower
sought. Soviet officials never asked permission for their satellite to pass
over the United States. Only four days after Sputnik 1 was launched,
Eisenhower and Quarles discussed the issue. Quarles observed, “the
Russians have . . . done us a good turn, unintentionally, in establishing the
concept of freedom of international space . . .. The President then looked
ahead and asked about a reconnaissance [satellite].”

Organizing America’s Space Effort

With subsequent U.S. space activities now inevitable, Eisenhower’s
first impulse was to assign all space activities to the Department of
Defense. In early February 1958, he created the Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA) that was to oversee initial defense research and
development, initially including both civil and military space activities.
However, Vice President Richard Nixon and the chairman of the newly
established President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), James R.
Killian, convinced Eisenhower that a civilian national space agency would
be preferable.

Eisenhower decided to use the National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics as the basis for the new space agency, and he submitted the
proposed legislation to Congress on April 2, 1958. Signed into law on July
29, the National Aeronautics and Space Act created the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which began operations
on October 1, 1958. NASA inherited existing scientific satellites and plan-
etary missions from the National Science Foundation and ARPA. Soon,
NASA would add manned space flight to its responsibilities. Eisenhower
split U.S. space activities between NASA (civilian) and ARPA (military).
The military services now reported to ARPA on space matters, which sig-
nificantly reduced the Air Force’s role.

NSC directives expanded the basic outlines of U.S. space policy in
June and August 1958 and December 1959. The first directive called for
establishing a “political framework which will place the uses of U.S.
reconnaissance satellites in a political and psychological context most
favorable to the United States.” The second directive said:

Reconnaissance satellites are of critical importance to
U.S. national security . . . . Reconnaissance satellites
would also have a high potential use as a means of imple-
menting the open skies’ proposal or policing a system of
international armaments control.

The third described the military space missions which were considered to
be peaceful uses of outer space. At the same time, the 1959 directive

10 .