C E N T E R F O R T H E S T U D Y O F 

NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE

JANUARY 2012

critical to us security:

the gambit and hexagon satellite

reconnaissance systems compendium

EDITED BY JAMES OUTZEN, PH.D.
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE

The Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (CSNR) is an independent National 

Reconnaissance Office (NRO) research body reporting to the NRO Deputy Director, Business 

Plans and Operations. Its primary objective is to ensure that the NRO leadership has the analytic 

framework and historical context to make effective policy and programmatic decisions. The CSNR 

accomplishes its mission by promoting the study, dialogue, and understanding of the discipline, 

practice, and history of national reconnaissance. The Center studies the past, analyzes the present, 

and searches for lessons-learned.

Contact Information: To contact the CSNR, please phone us at 703-488-4733 or email us at

csnr@nro.mil

To Obtain Copies: Government personnel can obtain additional printed copies directly from CSNR. 

Other requestors can purchase printed copies by contacting:

Government Printing Office

732 North Capitol Street, NW

Washington, DC 20401-0001

http://www.gpo.gov

Published by

National Reconnaissance Office

Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance

14675 Lee Road

Chantilly, Virginia 20151-1715

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-937219-04-8

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CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

CONTENTS
v

CONTENTS

FOREWORD ............................................................................................................................................................. x

PREFACE.................................................................................................................................................................xii

INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................................xiv

SECTION I: HISTORY BY GERALD HAINES, PH.D. ..............................................................................................1

GAMBIT.............................................................................................................................................................5

HEXAGON.......................................................................................................................................................21

CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................................35

ENDNOTES.....................................................................................................................................................37

SECTION II: SYSTEMS REQUIREMENTS ...........................................................................................................41

1. Report: U.S. Air Force, General Operational Requirements for a Reconnaissance Satellite 

Weapon System, 26 September 1958.............................................................................................................44

2. Memorandum: Air Force, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Major General James H. 

Walsh, Intelligence Requirements for SENTRY, 10 November 1958 ..............................................................49

3. Report: CIA Director Allen W. Dulles, Intelligence Requirements for Satellite Reconnaissance 

Systems of Which Samos is an Example, 5 July 1960....................................................................................55

4. Report: Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, 

Report of a Special Panel on Satellite Reconnaissance, 25 August 1960.......................................................74

5. Memorandum and Report: Edward Purcell to the Director of Central Intelligence, Panel for 

Future Satellite Reconnaissance Operations, 3 July 1963..............................................................................82

6. Memorandum and Attachments: United States Intelligence Board, Long-Range Requirements 

for Satellite Photographic Collection, 27 July 1964 .......................................................................................104

7. Memorandum: United States Intelligence Board, Long-Range Requirements for Satellite 

Photographic Collection, 31 July 1964 ..........................................................................................................133

SECTION III: PROGRAM INITIALIZATION..........................................................................................................139

1. Organizational Instruction: Operational Order for the Satellite and Missile Observation System, 

Lieutenant General Bernard A. Schriever, undated .......................................................................................142
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CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

2. Organizational Instruction: The Basic Policy Concerning SAMOS, Memorandum from 

Major General R. M. Montgomery, 29 December 1960*................................................................................178

3. Security Instruction: Security Guidance of an Unclassified Nature Relating to SAMOS, 

Colonel Harry L. Evans, undated...................................................................................................................183

4. Letter: Kodak’s Arthur B. Simmons to Air Force Undersecretary for Research and Development 

Joseph V. Charyk, Preliminary Schedules for Blanket and Sunset Strip, 22 July 1960.................................187

5. Report: Major General O.J. Ritland, Project Cue Ball: Outline Development Plan, 

9 November 1961 ..........................................................................................................................................200

6. Report: Colonel William G. King, Program Management Plan, Project G-3, 

1 February 1966 ............................................................................................................................................226

7. Report: CIA Directorate of Science and Technology, Preliminary Project Fulcrum Phase I 

Tasking, 1 July 1964 ......................................................................................................................................243

8. Memorandum: CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology Albert D. Wheelon to the 

Director of Central Intelligence, Project FULCRUM, 30 September 1964.....................................................248

9. Memorandum: Director of the National Reconnaissance Office Alexander Flax to Director of 

Special Projects, SAF and Director of Reconnaissance, CIA, System Operational Requirements 

for the New Search and Surveillance System, 29 April 1966 ........................................................................252

10. Letter: President of the Perkin-Elmer Corporation Chester W. Nimitz, Jr., Cover Letter for 

Design Definition of Hexagon Optical Sensor, 21 July 1966 .........................................................................279 

SECTION IV: SYSTEMS CAPABILITIES.............................................................................................................285

1. Technical Document: KH-7 Camera System (Part I), National Photographic Interpretation 

Center, July 1963...........................................................................................................................................287

2. Technical Document: The KH-8B Camera System (Third Edition), National Reconnaissance 

Office and National Photographic Interpretation Center, October 1970 ........................................................305

3. Briefing Book: Project Hexagon Overview, National Reconnaissance Office, 

25 January 1978*...........................................................................................................................................334

SECTION V: SYSTEMS CONTRIBUTIONS ........................................................................................................447

1. Report: Analysis of Gambit Project, 24 August 1967*.......................................................................449

2. Report: Analysis of Gambit (110) Project, Brigadier General William G. King, 

28 April 1970* ................................................................................................................................................487
vii

CONTENTS

3. Report Excerpts: Program 206-II System Performance, Lockheed Martin Missiles and 

Space Company, undated ............................................................................................................................. 511

4. Letter: Major Factors Contributing to Program 206-II Success, written to Alexander Flax, 

13 November 1966 ........................................................................................................................................513

5. Memorandum: Innovations and Trends in Exploitation in the Western Geographic Division, 

IEG caused by the KH-9 System, 20 March 1973.........................................................................................517

6. Report: The KH-9 Search and MC&G Performance Study (Volume II), National 

Photographic Interpretation Center, October 1977*.......................................................................................520

SECTION VI: PROGRAM CONTROVERSIES ....................................................................................................587

1. Report: US Air Force, Minutes of Joint Meeting of Reconnaissance Panel and SAMOS 

Working Group, 1 July 1960 ..........................................................................................................................591

2. Memorandum: National Reconnaissance Office, Approval to Re-Orient Program 206 to 

Air Retrieval Over Pacific Area, 19 September 1962.....................................................................................603

3. Memorandum: Director of the National Reconnaissance Office Brockway McMillan for the 

Vice Chief of Staff, USAF, Space Recovery Responsibility, 18 October 1963...............................................609

4. Letter: Director of the National Reconnaissance Office Brockway McMillan to 

Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Director of Science and Technology Albert Wheelon, 

Concerning the Establishment of the Satellite Photography Working Group, 18 November 1963................ 611

5. Memorandum: Colonel Paul E. Worthman Memorandum for the Record, Telephone 

Conversations with Representatives of the Itek Corporation, 24 February 1965 ..........................................615

6. Memorandum: Colonel Paul E. Worthman Memorandum for the Record, Itek Discussions 

with Dr. McMillan and Dr. Land, 25 February 1965........................................................................................617

7. Memorandum: DNRO Brockway McMillan Memorandum for the Record, Discussion with 

Itek Leadership and Pullout from Fulcrum Follow-on, 25 February 1965......................................................618

8. Memorandum: Fulcrum Program Manager Jackson D. Maxey to Deputy Director for 

Science and Technology, Ground Rules for the New Search System Competition, 2 August 1965..............623

9. Memorandum: John Martin, SAFSP Director to Director of the National Reconnaissance 

Office Dr. Alexander Flax, Comments on Alternate Management Arrangements for the New 

Photographic Satellite Search and Surveillance System, 4 November 1965 ................................................625

10. Memorandum: Huntington D. Sheldon CIA’s Director of Reconnaissance to the Director 

of the National Reconnaissance Office Alexander Flax–CIA Comments Concerning Alternative 

Management Arrangements for the New Photographic Satellite Search and Surveillance System, 

4 November 1965 ..........................................................................................................................................634 
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CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

11. Memorandum: Brigadier General James T. Stewart, Director of NRO Staff Department of the 

Air Force for Dr. Alexander Flax, Task Group Report for Alternative Management Arrangements for 

the New Photographic Search and Surveillance System, 5 November 1965................................................636

12. Letter: Acting Director of CIA Rufus Taylor to Director of Bureau of the Budget Charles Zwick, 

Concerning Memorandum Regarding FY1970 Hexagon Funding, 20 December 1968................................640

13. Letter: Robert Mayo Bureau of the Budget to Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms, 

Concerning Assessment of Hexagon Contributions, 22 March 1969*...........................................................644

14. Report: Deputy Director of the National Reconnaissance Office Robert Naka, Report of the 

Hexagon Review Committee, 4 September 1969..........................................................................................653 

15. Letter: CIA Program Manager Robert Kohler, Concerning the Reliability of Corona, Gambit, 

and Hexagon Film Return Systems, 20 February 1973.................................................................................665 

SECTION VII: PROGRAM CONGRATULATIONS...............................................................................................671

1. Letter: Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms to Director of the National 

Reconnaissance Office Dr. Alexander Flax, Congratulations on First KH-8 Mission, 18 August 1966..........673

2. Letter: Director of Central Intelligence William Casey, Commendation for the Operation of 

Hexagon Mission 1217, 3 January 1983 .......................................................................................................674

3. Memorandum: Director of the National Reconnaissance Office Edward C. Aldridge, Letter of 

Appreciation from the Director of Central Intelligence William Casey, 7 January 1983.................................675

4. Report: National Reconnaissance Office, Hexagon Transition Plan, March 1972.............................676

________________

* Pages including full-page redactions and blank pages have been removed from these documents.

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CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

FOREWORD
xi

FOREWORD

I am pleased that the Historical Documentation & 

Research (HDR) Section of the Center for the Study of 

National Reconnaissance (CSNR) has produced this 

collection of Gambit and Hexagon documents titled 

Critical to US Security: The Gambit and Hexagon Satellite 

Reconnaissance Systems Compendium. This will give 

researchers in the Intelligence Community and academic 

world an opportunity to preview some of the program 

documents that the National Reconnaissance Office 

(NRO) will be declassifying and an opportunity to study 

the history and background of these two phenomenal filmreturn satellite reconnaissance programs as reflected in 

these documents.

I personally have been involved in efforts to declassify the 

Gambit and Hexagon satellite programs for over a decade. 

The declassification process has been slow and deliberate 

because these two systems have represented state-ofthe-art capabilities that even in 2011, on the occasion 

of the NRO’s 50th Anniversary, remain impressive. The 

CSNR conducted a series of assessments of the risks 

of declassifying program details and consulted with 

experts across the Intelligence Community. There has 

been extended dialogue to ensure that the Intelligence 

Community continues to protect any capabilities, the 

disclosure of which might adversely impact on current 

operations. National reconnaissance is a much too 

valuable national treasure for its secrets to be lost to 

compromise.

 During the past decade, I have come to understand 

the importance of these programs on a number of levels. 

First, the then newly established NRO developed these 

systems relatively early in its history, and that activity 

helped forge the way for the NRO to develop and operate 

satellite systems. Second, the systems provided essential 

data to intelligence users and valuable information to 

national security policymakers, thereby making the NRO 

an essential organization for succeeding in the intelligence 

battles of the Cold War. Third, the systems proved essential 

for teaching the NRO how to transition from successful 

programs to new programs that promised even greater 

capabilities. In short, these programs are cornerstones of 

the NRO’s history and architects of its culture of success.

The NRO developed the Gambit and Hexagon satellite 

photoreconnaissance systems to satisfy intelligence 

requirements that date back to at least the mid 1950s. 

Dr. James Outzen, the NRO Historian, selected the 

documents contained in this compendium to provide the 

reader with information on the history, capabilities, and 

technical contributions of these programs. 

The first section of this volume is a short history of the 

Gambit and Hexagon programs prepared by the NRO’s 

first historian, Dr. Gerald Haines. Dr. Outzen and I chose 

this history because Dr. Haines wrote it for the occasion 

of the declassification of the programs—something we 

had anticipated years earlier, but only became possible in 

2011, the 50th Anniversary of the NRO. We have additional 

document sections in this compendium that contain 

primary source documents on the initilization of each of the 

systems, intelligence requirements for the systems, and 

capabilities and contributions of the Gambit and Hexagon 

systems, as well as the controversies surrounding the 

systems and recognition of the systems successes.

Based on the intelligence requirements for these programs 

and the information contained in the compendium, I 

anticipate the readers of this compendium will gain an 

appreciation of the roles Gambit and Hexagon played in 

the NRO’s history. I also expect that the compendium 

will help readers understand the intelligence reasons 

for developing the programs, the challenges in meeting 

the intelligence imperatives, and the successes of the 

programs. The readers should come away from reviewing 

this volume with insight applicable to their own efforts to 

assure the United States’ success in gathering intelligence 

by using satellites.

Although not exhaustive, the compendium will provide 

a hearty introduction to the dynamics surrounding the 

development, operation, and termination of these important 

overhead reconnaissance systems. This compendium is 

an opportunity to have an early look into a formerly highly 

classified world of national reconnaissance. 

Robert A. McDonald, Ph.D.

Director, Center for the Study of National 

Reconnaissance

Business Plans and Operations

National Reconnaissance Office
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CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

PREFACE
xiii

PREFACE

This compendium of documents related to the Gambit 

and Hexagon satellite programs was inspired by a 

practice initiated with the 1995 declassification of the 

Corona satellite reconnaissance program. A few months 

after the declassification announcement for the Corona 

program, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) published 

a similar volume edited by Kevin Ruffner. Like the CIA’s 

Corona compendium, we wanted to include a basic 

history of the Gambit and Hexagon systems. Dr. Gerald 

Haines, the NRO’s first historian wrote a history of the 

Gambit and Hexagon systems that was unpublished up 

to this point. Dr. Haines finished the history in 1997 in 

anticipation of the declassification of the Gambit and 

Hexagon programs. We are pleased to publish the history 

for the first time in conjunction with the 2011 Gambit and 

Hexagon declassification announcement. To enhance the 

history, we have also included photographs and graphic 

illustrations that were used to explain the capabilities of 

the two systems.

A much more challenging task was to identify documents 

to include in the compendium in order to explain the 

development, launch, and operation of the Gambit and 

Hexagon systems. The difficulty arose from an abundance 

of documentation for all of the systems. To determine 

which documents to include, I conducted document 

reviews at the CIA records center, the NRO records center, 

and NRO field sites where documentation still resided for 

the programs. I also reviewed a small number of Hexagon 

documents complied by the NRO’s Public Affairs staff.

From these efforts, I identified some 4,000 pages of 

documentation for consideration to include in this volume. 

After this initial selection, I sorted the documents into 

main themes that characterize the histories of the Gambit 

and Hexagon systems. Those themes include program 

requirements, program initiation, system capabilities, 

technological contributions, controversies surrounding the 

programs, and recognition of program successes. The 

challenge then was to select documents representative of 

these themes. I made the selections that best described 

important elements relevant to each theme. Unlike the 

Corona volume, we are not able to include later Gambit 

or Hexagon panoramic imagery. This imagery remains 

classified at this writing.

As with any major publication, there are many individuals 

who are responsible for completing the project. I express 

appreciation to the NRO records center. Their staff provided 

outstanding help in locating dozens of boxes of records for 

me to review. Likewise, I express my appreciation to the 

staff at the CIA’s record center who located many boxes 

for my review related to the CIA’s development of what 

would become the KH-9 camera system for Hexagon. I 

express appreciation to the NRO’s Public Affairs staff, for 

sharing documents located through part of their research 

process. During the summer of 2011, four interns for the 

Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (CSNR) 

provided invaluable assistance with this effort. Steve 

Glenn and the records declassification staff for the NRO 

provided incredible support in reviewing several hundred 

pages of documents for release. Without their efforts, this 

project would never have been completed The Director 

of the CSNR, Dr. Robert A. McDonald, provided not only 

essential support, but valued wisdom in developing this 

volume. Finally, none of this would have been possible 

without the editing, layout, and graphic design work by the 

CSNR support staff. 

James Outzen, Ph.D.

Chief, Historical Documentation and Research

Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance
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CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

INTRODUCTION
xv

INTRODUCTION

After the 1960 success of the Corona program, users of 

imagery intelligence developed growing appetites for more 

space based photoreconnaissance. During the more than 

two and a half decades that followed, the United States 

operated three additional film-return satellites. They were 

named Gambit, Gambit-3, and Hexagon. 

The introduction of the Gambit system in 1963 provided 

the United States with the ability to take higher resolution 

images of specific targets. This complimented Corona’s 

wide area coverage. Gambit allowed the United States 

to carry out “surveillance,” or ongoing tracking of known 

targets. Corona’s wide area coverage allowed the United 

States to continue to “search” broad areas of the Soviet 

Union and China in order to locate the targets such as 

intercontinental ballistic missile sites, nuclear test sites 

and facilities, and other strategic and tactical land, air, 

and naval targets. Search and surveillance from space 

became a key strategic capability for the United States to 

fight the Cold War. 

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) developed 

Gambit-3 to further improve resolution for surveillance of 

targets identified by Corona imagery or other sources of 

intelligence. First launched in 1966, Gambit-3 incorporated 

a number of technological changes to not only improve 

resolution, but also increase the length of time the system 

operated, the amount of coverage, and control of the 

system. 

Hexagon was developed to improve resolution of widearea search imagery captured by the Corona program. 

Hexagon’s developers introduced a primary camera 

system that produced imagery of high enough resolution 

to fulfill some search requirements as well. Later Hexagon 

missions would also include a mapping camera system 

to aid possible Cold War military operations. The NRO 

launched the Hexagon system in June 1971, replacing the 

Corona program that developers originally only expected 

to last two years. Hexagon would be the last of the nation’s 

four film return imagery systems that, together, provided 

insight into the U.S. adversaries’ military capabilities.

Gambit and Hexagon moved the Intelligence Community 

closer to meeting the intelligence requirements that 

prompted the development of space imagery systems. 

The requirements can be traced back to as early as 1955 

for what would become the Air Force’s Samos program. 

First and foremost, the United States needed satellite 

imagery systems that could provide “instantaneous warning 

of ballistic missile attack(s)” by the Soviet Union. The 

requirements also included supporting U.S. war planning, 

understanding the intentions of possible U.S. adversaries, 

and determining the military capabilities of those enemies.

The historical record indicates that Corona and Gambit 

were essential for assessing the Soviet nuclear strike 

capabilities in the 1960s. The systems worked hand 

in hand, with Corona imagery first identifying nuclear 

facilities and then Gambit providing detailed information 

on those facilities. By the end of the 1960s, while U.S. 

concerns about the size of Soviet nuclear remained, the 

United States began to focus on curtailing those nuclear 

capabilities. Gambit and Hexagon would also become 

essential resources for helping achieve this end.

The United States and the Soviet Union entered the 

1970s actively pursuing control of nuclear arms. The 

Strategic Arms and Limitations Talks (SALT) resulted in an 

agreement to control development of antiballistic missiles 

as well as an interim agreement on limitations on nuclear 

weapons development. By this time, the Hexagon system 

was operational and replaced Corona for wide area search 

requirements. Hexagon satellites joined later Gambit 

satellites in serving as a primary means for verifying Soviet 

compliance with the agreements reached through the 

SALT process. 

As the systems neared the end of their lifespans in the 

mid-1980s, they remained a key resource for nuclear arms 

limitation verification. The systems also served as a means 

for gaining insight into other intelligence issues that would 

arise over their lifespans. Together, Gambit and Hexagon 

yielded intelligence information that assisted the President 

of the United States, as well as U.S. military, diplomatic, 

and intelligence officials to make better informed decisions 

on matters of national security.

Eventually the costs, both in terms of money and time, 

would lead to the replacement of Gambit and Hexagon by 

near-real-time imagery systems. Gambit and Hexagon 

would remain highly regarded for their technological 

innovations and invaluable contributions to the defense 

of the United States. The contents of this volume are 

intended to help the reader understand and appreciate this 

high regard for the Gambit and Hexagon imagery satellite 

systems.

James D. Outzen, Ph.D.

Compendium Editor
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CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

SECTION I: HISTORY

WRITTEN BY

GERALD HAINES,PH.D.
2

SECTION I: HISTORY - OVERVIEW

OVERVIEW

Since the early 1960s, U.S. policymakers have come to 

rely increasingly on photoreconnaissance satellite imagery 

for timely and accurate intelligence. Photoreconnaissance 

satellites and the information they provide have become 

virtually indispensable to the U.S. Intelligence Community 

and its intelligence assessments. Developed, operated, 

and managed by the National Reconnaissance Office 

(NRO), these satellite systems sparked a revolution in 

intelligence collection. Operating in a crisis atmosphere, 

the NRO forged a unique working partnership with U.S. 

private industry partners to design and build these new 

satellite systems. The NRO/industry partnership drove 

space reconnaissance technology beyond current limits. It 

made possible a new generation of photoreconnaissance 

technologies that resulted in the acquisition of neverbefore-seen, detailed intelligence data for U.S. officials.

Corona, the first U.S. reconnaissance satellite program 

ushered in this new era in intelligence. A stop gap film 

recovery system, Corona focused primarily on the Soviet 

Union and other denied areas. Corona imagery provided 

U.S. decisionmakers with vital information on Soviet 

weapons development, order-of-battle, and its nuclear 

program. During the 1960s, Corona satellites were this 

nation's primary search system. Covering wide swaths 

of the Soviet Union, Corona cameras swept the Soviet 

land mass for signs of missile development and nuclear 

testing activity. Although its contribution to U.S. intelligence 

was "virtually immeasurable," Corona imagery also had 

limitations. In 1961, for example, it could resolve no 

object smaller than 10 to 15 ft. U.S. photointerpreters and 

U.S. planners needed, and demanded, higher resolution 

imagery for their intelligence estimates relating to Soviet 

weapons systems and target identifications.

To fill this gap, Director, NRO (DNRO), Joseph Charyk, 

pushed the development of a high-resolution spotting 

satellite system, Gambit. Also known as the KH-7, Gambit 

was to provide resolution better than 2 ft. After overcoming 

a series of developmental problems, both technical 

and managerial, the first Gambit satellite flew in July 

1963. The returned film product whetted the appetite of 

U.S. intelligence analysts for more. Although Gambit, a 

surveillance system, covered far less area than Corona, 

it produced photography with a much better resolution, for 

example, objects as small as 6 ft could now be located and 

observed.

An improved Gambit, known as Gambit-3 or the KH-8, 

flew in 1967. Capable of stereo photography, it proved 

highly successful replacing Gambit-1. The Gambit program 

eventually flew 54 missions over 20 years, concluding in 

1984. It provided U.S. officials with unique, highly detailed 

imagery of sensitive targets, and became a major tool for 

photo analysts during the Cold War.

Film-recovery payloads culminated with the development 

of the Hexagon series of satellites. Approved for design 

and development by the United States Intelligence Board 

(USIB) in 1964, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 

designed Hexagon as both a high resolution and wide 

area coverage system. It was one of the largest and most 

complex reconnaissance satellites ever built. Known to 

the American public as "Big Bird," it was 10 ft in diameter 

and 55 ft in length. It rivaled the National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration’s (NASA's) Space Lab in size. 

Hexagon featured two panoramic counterrotating opticalbar cameras and four recovery capsules (later Corona 

and Gambit satellites carried two). Later Hexagons also 

contained a fifth capsule to return film from a separate 

mapping camera. Accompanying stellar and terrain cameras 

in Hexagon made it possible to extract mapping, charting, 

and geodetic data for the Defense Mapping Agency and 

other organizations of the Intelligence Community. The 

NRO launched twenty Hexagon's between June 1971 and 

April 1986. The only failure to mar this remarkable satellite 

program occurred on the twentieth and last flight when 

the launch booster exploded above Vandenberg Air Force 

Base, California on 18 April 1986.

In the 1980s, the next generation of U.S. 

photoreconnaissance satellites (which eliminated the need 

for film return) replaced both Gambit and Hexagon. During 

their years of operation, however, Gambit and Hexagon 

proved invaluable to U.S. policymakers. For much of the 

Cold War, these systems kept watch over the Soviet Union 

and other communist bloc areas. They proved critical to 

U.S. security by providing detailed intelligence on U.S. 

adversaries. Their search and surveillance capabilities 

also made possible arms limitation negotiations and the 

verification of nuclear reduction treaties.

This study traces the origins and development of the 

Gambit and Hexagon programs. It details the technological 

problems, breakthroughs, and accomplishments 

encountered as NRO, CIA, Air Force, and private industry 

engineers, designers, and program managers pushed 

the cutting edge of space reconnaissance technology. 

It outlines the evolving close partnership and working 

relationship between the NRO and industry in pursuing 

far-reaching scientific and technological goals. This study 

also describes the bureaucratic battles among the CIA, the 

NRO, and the Air Force over control and management of 

these systems. Finally, it places the development of these 

unique satellite systems squarely in the crisis atmosphere 

of the Cold War and the constant demands of U.S. officials 

for more and better pictures. It is a remarkable story.

BACKGROUND

Deeply concerned over Soviet boasts about the success 

of their missile program and the growing "missile gap," 
3

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

controversy, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, despite 

reservations, authorized a U-2 penetration flight of the 

Soviet Union for 1 May 1960. The Department of State and 

the CIA strongly supported the decision. The intelligence 

objective of gathering information on the Soviet missile 

program was overwhelming in spite of the dangers.

The most experienced U-2 pilot, Francis Gary 

Powers was selected to fly Operation Grand Slam. 

According to CIA analysts, this route offered the best 

chance of photographing suspected locations of Soviet 

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) sites. Powers’ first 

target was the Tyuratam Missile Test Range; he was then 

to head for Chelyabinsk, just south of Sverdlovsk. Powers 

never made it past Sverdlovsk. Four and a half hours into 

the mission, a Soviet SA-2 Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) 

disabled his aircraft 70,500 ft above the Sverdlovsk area. 

The Soviets had succeeded in downing the United States' 

most advanced reconnaissance aircraft. When Eisenhower 

finally admitted U.S. responsibility for the U-2 overflight, he 

suspended all future U-2 flights over the Soviet Union. The 

United States was now primarily blind regarding Soviet 

missile advancements.

At the same time the U-2 was successfully overflying 

the Soviet Union, 1956 through 1960, and following the 

dramatic Soviet space successes in 1957 with Sputnik I 

and Sputnik II, President Eisenhower formally endorsed 

a stop-gap U.S. satellite program in February 1958. The 

new Corona project, managed jointly by the same CIAAir Force team, which had built the U-2, was to produce a 

satellite imaging reconnaissance system that would take 

pictures from space and deorbit a capsule with film back to 

earth. Like the U-2, this was a bold initiative to counter the 

closed societies of the Sino-Soviet bloc.

A string of twelve successive failures, however, threatened 

to end the Corona program before it even succeeded in 

returning a single film capsule from space. As the failures 

continued to mount, CIA Deputy Director for Plans, Richard 

Bissell and his Corona team became frustrated. It was not 

like the development of the U-2 where, if something failed, 

the pilot, unless it was a fatal error, could usually relate 

what happened. With satellites, according to Bissell, "they 

spun out of control, burned up in the atmosphere, crashed, 

hopelessly lost in the ocean, or exploded. Because the 

whole system was destroyed on reentry, it was often 

impossible to retrieve it and do an assessment."

Discouraged, on 10 August 1960, the Corona team 

launched a diagnostic payload in an attempt to determine 

what was going wrong. The launch from Vandenberg, 

AFB, California, was perfect, the Agena rocket sent the 

spacecraft into the proper orbit, and on its 17th revolution, 

it successfully returned to earth, the first payload from 

space. 

Buoyed by this success, the CIA/U.S. Air Force team 

launched a camera-equipped Corona on 18 August. Like 

the earlier mission, Corona Mission 9009 worked perfectly 

and deorbited its film payload on Friday, 19 August 1960, 

exactly 100 days after the Soviets shot down Powers and 

his U-2. The two recoveries did not make a successful 

program, however. Of the next four launches, only three 

went into orbit and one of these suffered a camera failure.

Corona Mission 9013, recovered on 10 December 1960, 

revealed Soviet construction work on its SS-6 missile 

sites at Plesetsk and at Yurya. Photoreconnaissance was 

beginning to pay off. Corona photography obtained in June 

1961 also revealed a new Soviet missile project around 

Leningrad. Some CIA analysts believed this new system was 

an Antiballistic Missile (ABM) system designed to counter 

U.S. intermediate-range missiles. The John F. Kennedy 

administration, anxious over this new development, turned 

to the CIA and the Corona program for more data. Corona, 

however, was not able to perform the required task. Even 

its newest camera, the stereo KH-4, known as Mural, was 

not good enough to provide technical data on the design of 

objects as small as a SAM. Moreover, Corona engineers 

were still grappling with keeping the satellite cameras in 

focus. According to the Satellite Intelligence Requirements 

Committee (SIRC), new U.S. satellite systems were 

needed that could resolve objects as small as 6, 1.5, and 

0.3 m. Corona cameras called only for a resolution of 6 m. 

This was in accordance with its role of performing widearea, low resolution "search" missions. 

5

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

GAMBIT
6

SECTION I: HISTORY - GAMBIT

ORIGINS OF THE PROGRAM

The NRO Gambit satellite program evolved from the 

Air Force's larger developmental plans for building 

reconnaissance satellites—the WS-117L program in the 

mid-1950s. As originally envisioned, the Air Force sought 

to create a multifaceted satellite observation system. 

Little came of these efforts, however, as the Department 

of Defense (DoD) struggled to eliminate “non-critical” 

defense expenditures and the Eisenhower administration 

stressed a “space for peace” theme. Following the Soviet 

space successes of 1957, however, Defense Secretary 

Neil H. McElroy authorized the acceleration of WS-117L 

to proceed “at the maximum rate consistent with good 

management.”7

Upon the urging of his civilian scientific advisors, President 

Eisenhower in 1958 ordered a small part of the WS-117L 

program, a satellite with a returnable film capsule, be taken 

from the Air Force overall program and given to the same 

team that had built the U-2—the CIA's Richard Bissell 

and the Air Force's Brig Gen Osmond Ritland—for quick 

development. Corona was to be a stop-gap measure until 

the larger Air Force effort produced results.

In the aftermath of the U-2 shoot-down, the suspension of 

U-2 operations over the Soviet Union in May 1960, and the 

mounting failures of the Corona and Samos programs, U.S. 

officials urgently sought new sources of high resolution 

reconnaissance photography.8 The imagery was critical to 

U.S. national security interests.

The U-2 shoot-down triggered a series of top level 

meetings on the status of the Air Force's Samos programs. 

The Eisenhower decision to stop all aircraft overflight 

operations meant the loss of high-resolution observation 

of the Soviet Union. Even if Corona achieved success, 

and at this point it had not, there was an immediate need 

for much better resolution than it could provide. George 

B. Kistiakowsky, who had succeeded James Killian as 

President Eisenhower's science advisor, was pessimistic 

about the Samos programs.

On 26 May 1960, Eisenhower directed Kistiakowsky to set 

up a group to advise, as quickly as possible, the best way 

to expand satellite reconnaissance options. Kistiakowsky 

turned to James Killian, Edwin H. Land, Carl Overhage 

of Lincoln Laboratories, Richard M. Bissell, Jr., and Air 

Force Under Secretary Joseph V. Charyk. They all echoed 

Kistiakowsky's concerns over Samos and suggested a 

DoD streamlined, super-Corona program. Charyk also 

argued strongly for keeping the program in the Air Force. 

If given the chance, Charyk believed he could create a 

successful covert satellite program within the Air Force.

On 25 August 1960, Eisenhower approved the 

recommendation of the Kistiakowsky Study Group. Charyk 

got his wish and Samos became part of a new Air Force 

organization known as the Air Force Project Office, which 

subsequently became the Secretary of the Air Force 

Special Project Office (SAFSP). The new Samos project 

office in Los Angeles was to be housed in the same 

building as the new Space System Division. It would have 

direct access to all Air Force resources: an Atlas booster; 

an Agena spacecraft; a launching site at Vandenberg AFB; 

tracking and control services at Sunnyvale, California; and 

recovery services at Oahu, Hawaii. Brig Gen Robert E. 

Greer became the first SAFSP director. He had previously 

been the Air Force's assistant chief of staff for guided 

missiles. At the same time, under a security strategy called 

“Raincoat,” Charyk hid the sensitive space program by 

forbidding any publicity releases on an Air Force space 

project.

Another factor that affected the Gambit program was the 

formal establishment of the NRO in September 1961. Now, 

all national collection requirements went through the NRO 

and its Satellite Operations Center (SOC) located in the 

basement of the Pentagon. Joseph Charyk and Richard 

Bissell, Jr. became the first co-DNROs and Gambit became 

the first full-scale venture of the new organization. Charyk 

assigned the Gambit Project to Program A (Air Force) 

at SAFSP. It proceeded independently from the Corona 

project and the CIA satellite effort (Program B).

GAMBIT DEVELOPMENT

In March 1960, Eastman Kodak submitted proposals to 

the Air Force and the CIA for the development of a 77-in 

(focal length) camera for satellite reconnaissance. Building 

on its development work for the CIA's Oxcart aircraft 

program, Kodak suggested that the new high performance 

catadioptric lens camera might be suitable for satellites.9

In June, Kodak proposed a 36-in camera system to 

provide convergent stereo coverage of Soviet territory. 

Termed “Blanket,” Kodak claimed the new system could 

be made operational in a short period of time because 

it was based on existing technology from the Oxcart 

program. Kodak officials, Arthur Simmons and Herman 

Waggershauser, showed the proposal to Edwin H. (Din) 

Land, one of Eisenhower's scientific advisors. Land 

enthusiastically brought the proposal to the attention of 

Air Force Under Secretary Joseph V. Charyk. Charyk, too, 

was interested. He liked the Kodak proposal, a film-only 

recovery scheme like Corona with a very high-acuity, long 

focal-length camera. In discussion with Charyk, Kodak 

officials confidently projected the feasibility of providing a 

surveillance camera with 2- to 3-ft around resolution with 

high-acuity stereo coverage.

A month later, on 20 July, Kodak offered a modified 

proposal, which integrated the 77-in camera with the 

stereo features and film recovery techniques embodied 
7

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

in “Blanket.” It termed the new proposal “Sunset Strip” 

after the popular television series. This was promising 

technology for new orbital reconnaissance systems.

In September 1960, Charyk met with Greer, Col Paul J. 

Heran (Chairman of the E-6 Source Selection Board) and 

Lt Col James Seay (Greer's procurement chief) to review 

proposed satellite programs. All agreed to proceed with 

both E-6 (which had the potential of being twice as good 

as Corona) and the Kodak “Sunset Strip” proposal. Charyk 

directed that “Sunset Strip” be developed on a cover 

basis, hidden in the E-6 program. He set initial funding for 

research and development study funds for the balance of 

FY 1961. Greer named the new “black” program Gambit. 

By keeping the physical and environmental limitations of 

E-6 and Gambit compatible, it seemed possible to develop 

and test Gambit without any outward indication that such 

a program existed.

At the same time Charyk moved to hide the Gambit 

project, he also shielded it from the overall Air Force Samos 

program, cutting out the Strategic Air Command, the Air 

Force Ballistic Missile Division, and the Air Force System 

Command. They all objected strongly to “losing” Samos. 

Charyk later reflected that it was extremely difficult limiting 

“need to know” especially when everyone believed they 

were working on a strategically important program. On the 

one hand he was telling them that Samos was extremely 

important and on the other that it would be drastically cut 

back.

Since the 77-in camera development program was well 

publicized, Charyk and Greer followed the earlier Corona 

precedent. They terminated the Kodak study contract for 

“Sunset Strip” as “no longer required” and simultaneously 

authorized Kodak to continue the development as a covert 

effort. As the “Sunset Strip” activity closed and Kodak 

personnel nominally shifted to other Kodak projects, they 

actually moved into a new facility in a different building and 

resumed their work. In establishing the Corona program, 

Bissell and Ritland followed much the same procedures.10

The complex, involved, security procedures for Gambit 

“cover and deception,” in retrospect seem overdone. 

There were few challenges or threats to the system or the 

disclosure of Gambit.

 Gambit-1 configuration
8

SECTION I: HISTORY - GAMBIT

GETTING PICTURES

While putting the rather elaborate security system in 

place, both Charyk and Greer agreed that their real job 

was to “get pictures,” the objective of the national satellite 

reconnaissance program. Although Charyk initially balked 

at Eastman Kodak's demand for a 7-percent profit margin 

on camera development, by January 1961, he and Kodak 

had reached agreement.

Greer supported Kodak. According to Greer, the fee was 

not excessive. He based his judgment on the U-2 camera 

expenses and Kodak's “unique capability.” Moreover, the 

25 August National Security Council directive ordered the 

Samos “take to be processed by the same agency that 

processed U-2 take”—Eastman Kodak. There were no 

alternatives. General Electric's (GE’s) Space Division was 

to build the orbital-control vehicle. By mid-1961, Gambit 

had evolved into a 15-ft long, 5 ft in diameter space vehicle.

The Gambit payload embodied a Maksutov f/4.0 lens 

(both reflecting and refracting elements) similar to an 

astronomical telescope with a 77-in focal length and a 

clean aperture of 19.5 in. This lens, when flown at a nominal 

95 rim altitude was to produce an around resolution, at 

nadir, from 2 to 3 ft. Gambit was to carry 3,000 ft of 9.5-

in diameter, thin-base film through a strip camera, which 

would provide image-motion compensation by moving the 

film across the image exposure slit at the same velocity 

that the projected image moved over the earth. The 

camera would image a strip on the earth 10.6 nm wide. It 

possessed the capability of photographing specific targets, 

Samos Nose Cone
9

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

which were off the immediate orbital track through oblique 

pointing. The planned weight of the total photographic 

system was 1,154 lbs.

The high resolution requirement for Gambit imposed 

a need for accurate orbit maintenance over a period of 

several days and for an ability to rotate the camera section 

about the vehicle's roll axis. The GE Orbital Control Vehicle 

(OCV) was to be capable of varying the roll attitude from 

0 to 45 degrees and of performing 350 roll maneuvers at 

an average role of one per second. The command system 

was to receive, accept or reject, and execute both realtime or stored commands.

The attitude control system was a two-axis gimballed 

platform on which were mounted infrared horizon scanners 

and an integrating gyroscope. The horizon sensors 

measured pitch and roll error; the gyro measured yaw 

error. Control movements were dependent on several 

jet-nozzle apertures. A set of four rocket engines, each 

capable of producing 50 lbs of thrust, would provide orbit 

maintenance.

The initial Gambit launch vehicle was an Atlas Agena-D. 

The Atlas used 123 tons of liquid oxygen and refined 

kerosene (RP-1) to power the booster engines—each 

generating 154,500 lbs of thrust and a 57,200-lb thrust 

sustainer engine. The Agena-D upper stage used 13,234 

lbs of fuel to power its 16,000-lb thrust engines.

After exposure, the camera’s film was wound up in the 

Recovery Vehicle (RV). At the end of the mission, the 

RV was separated from the OCV, spun up on its axis of 

symmetry by a cold-gas system, and then deboosted 

from orbit. Parachute deployment was to occur at 55,000 

ft. The initial recovery vehicle was intended for land 

recovery. In fact, in October 1961, Charyk approved the 

use of the Wendover AFB in Utah for Gambit land recovery 

operations. At this point, both Kodak and GE appeared to 

be ahead of schedule in completion of their design concept. 

By 1 August 1961, a Gambit launch date in January 1963 

appeared possible.

Even with progress in the Gambit program, by January 

1962, the need for an on-orbit, high-resolution, photographic 

reconnaissance system was even more critical. The Samos 

E-5 program had been cancelled after a series of failures 

and Corona was experiencing operational difficulties. 

DNRO Charyk, under constant pressure to get quick and 

effective results from the satellite reconnaissance program, 

wanted to accelerate the pace of Gambit development and 

improve its product. In discussions with Greer and Quentin 

A. Riepe, the program director for Gambit, however, it soon 

became clear that serious problems remained and any 

quick fixes would seriously degrade the photography. There 

was general agreement that the earliest possible date for 

the initial launch would be May rather than February 1963.

PROBLEMS

The National Security Council (NSC) program directive 

in 1960 approving Gambit specified the development of a 

land recovery program. In the climate of the early Corona 

program, land recovery appeared to be a useful option, 

less risky, more reliable, and less costly than the ocean 

recovery used by Corona. Moreover, the projected weight 

of the Gambit RV would exceed the capability of the C-119 

recovery aircraft. By July 1962, however, the reasons for 

distrusting air-sea recovery methods seemed less valid. 

The improving capability of the Corona RV and the good 

performance of the overwater recovery system convinced 

Greer of the feasibility of using a Corona-like RV on Gambit.

The Gambit RV was then 500 lbs over design weight 

and most of the overweight derived from complications 

introduced by the land recovery requirement. Overwater 

recovery, as developed in the Corona program, seemed 

to Greer a very simple process when compared to the 

planned land recovery scheme. In its descent toward the 

ocean, a Corona reentry vehicle could safely shed all sorts 

of accessories—hatch covers and ablative cones, for 

example. They simply fell into the ocean and sank. A land 

recovery vehicle could shed nothing, lest it became a lethal 

projectile. Greer asked GE to do a quiet study of “gluing 

the Discoverer capsule on the front end of Gambit.”

Greer was attracted to the concept by the potential of 

major savings on weight, cost, and launch schedule. More 

than 600 lbs of orbital weight could be saved by going to an 

overwater recovery mode. Facility funds for the Wendover 

range could be cut from the budget. Most importantly, 

with a modified Corona RV, Gambit could maintain its 

launch schedule. After listening to the various arguments, 

including the Gambit program office, which felt that the 

land recovery approach was still the better option, on 18 

September Charyk authorized Greer to begin immediate 

development of a Corona-type recovery system for Gambit 

in preparation for a June 1963 first flight date.

The switch to a Corona-type water recovery vehicle 

markedly simplified the entire Gambit system and probably 

saved the program. It did not, however, eliminate all 

problems. While work on the camera payload at Eastman 

Kodak continued to progress, major problems threatened 

the launch date schedule. The optics for Gambit were to 

be larger and lighter than any previously built for space 

including the primary and stereo mirrors. Using large 

boules of very pure fused silica glass, engineers joined 

the sections. The fusion operation was extremely delicate: 

heated too long or at too high a temperature, the structure 

became a molten blob, too low a temperature or too short 

a time prevented the parts from fusing properly. Engineers 

shipped the large, lightweight blanks to Kodak for figuring 

and polishing at its special facility.11
10

SECTION I: HISTORY - GAMBIT

Frederic Oder, director of Special Projects at Kodak 

and familiar with the Corona RV from his previous work 

on WS-117L, favored the use of Corona technology on 

Gambit. Kodak had originally planned to keep the film path 

pressurized including the film chute and take-up cassettes. 

Using his Corona background, Oder urged the adoption 

of a nonpressurized film path. This simplified the process 

and allowed the Gambit film load to be accommodated in a 

Corona-like RV without serious modifications.

Kodak was also having problems attaching or cementing 

the silica mirrors to their metal case and with the platen 

drive, which caused the film to move irregularly over the 

exposure slit. Although the problems were not considered 

major, they added to existing pressure on delivery time and 

flight schedules.

The OCV development by GE, in its Valley Forge, 

Pennsylvania facility, was another story. Repeated failures 

in such varied experiments as the harnesses, power 

supplies, batteries, command systems, horizon sensors, 

rate gyros, environmental doors, and pyro devices, caused 

major cost overruns and severely threatened delivery 

schedules.

The prevalence of cost overruns, particularly at GE, 

the threat of new schedule slippage, and the increasing 

cost of the Gambit program greatly concerned Charyk. At 

the same time, pressures continued to increase for hard 

intelligence on the Soviet Union. The Cuban Missile Crisis 

of October 1962 added to the sense of urgency.

At a meeting with the President's Foreign Intelligence 

Advisory Board and the “special group” of the National 

Security Council, Charyk characterized Gambit as 

“imperative” and urged that the program be pressed 

with a “maximum sense of urgency.” “No reasonable 

steps,” Charyk argued, “should be omitted to guarantee 

its success at the earliest possible time.” According to 

Charyk, Gambit offered the most promising approach to 

discovering whether or not the Soviet Union was actively 

preparing for war.12

Gambit-3 Agena Vehicle
11

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

Discouraged about the rate of Gambit progress, Charyk 

suggested to Greer a management change. He wanted 

an exhaustive technical review of the program to locate 

any remaining problems. Greer was reluctant to relieve 

Col Riepe, the original program manager. Nevertheless, 

on 30 October 1962, Greer replaced Riepe with Col 

William G. King. King had a long experience with satellite 

reconnaissance. He had been Samos program director 

in the late 1950s and was one of the first to recognize 

the advantages of film recovery techniques over the 

technically more difficult readout systems. At the time of 

his appointment to head the Gambit program, he was 

serving as Greer's special plans officer.13

Immediately upon taking over the Gambit program, King 

discovered that the GE adaptation of the Corona capsule 

to Gambit was seriously off course. Greer's original intent, 

confirmed by Charyk, was to “glue on” the Corona recovery 

vehicle. Elaborate or extensive modification of the capsule 

was neither intended nor desired. In the course of changing 

over from land recovery to air-sea recovery, however, 

Gambit officials had authorized GE to develop a recovery 

vehicle capable of accepting the original pressurized 

Gambit take-up cassette and film chute.14 Responding to 

the request to convert Gambit to a Corona recovery vehicle, 

GE scaled up the Corona capsule, making it deeper and 

increasing its base diameter. The result was a completely 

new capsule which required an extensive test program. 

The cost also escalated.

King suggested that the original intent of the Corona 

modification be reinstated and that the rapidly expanding 

GE development effort be stopped. Greer, who had 

originally ordered that changes to the Corona capsule 

should be minimal, agreed. King imposed an “absolute 

minimum” change policy in his instructions to GE on 

adopting the Corona recovery system to Gambit.

At the same time, King was sorting out the technical 

problems with Gambit, Charyk and Greer decided to 

strengthen Gambit management further by transferring the 

program from the Space Systems Division to SAFSP. Such 

a move would give Gambit the prestige and authority of the 

office of the Secretary of the Air Force. This set off a fire 

storm in the Air Force Systems Command (AFSC). General 

Bernard Schriever, commander of AFSC, had been a 

major force in establishing the Air Force space program. 

Schriever believed strongly that all Air Force space activity 

should be under AFSC management. He made several 

determined but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to regain 

“ownership.” High priority space programs would from now 

on report directly to the Office of the Secretary of the Air 

Force. 

King continued his technical review of the Gambit program 

by questioning GE's untested OCV and its attitude-control 

subsystem. In order to improve the probability of early 

Gambit flight successes, King and Greer suggested that the 

Agena, at least for the first three flights, remain connected 

to the OCV. The reliable Agena, while not as precise as the 

Gambit system, could provide a stabilization and control 

mechanism to stabilize the Gambit camera long enough 

to secure operating experience and proof of system 

feasibility. Flying in this “hitch-up” configuration would not 

allow the demonstration of Gambit's full capability and it 

would only permit near-nadir photography, but King and 

Greer were determined that the first Gambit should return 

at least “one good picture.”

King and Greer also envisioned using a roll-joint coupling 

(invented for an interim high resolution satellite developed 

by the CIA, known as Project Lanyard and its KH-6 camera) 

between the spacecraft (Agena) and the camera system. 

Should the GE OCV prove unreliable, the introduction of 

the Lanyard roll-joint could stabilize and control the vehicle.

As was the case with the Corona reentry capsule, the 

Gambit launch roll-joint technology was unknown to most Gambit people. 
12

SECTION I: HISTORY - GAMBIT

Because of the high degree of security compartmentation 

in the reconnaissance Program structure, CIA security 

officials were reluctant to disclose even the existence 

of Lanyard to Gambit personnel. Charyk got around this 

problem by “suggesting” to Greer (Greer actually drafted 

the suggestion) that he contact Lockheed Corporation 

about the roll joint as “...he (Charyk) believed a similar idea 

was once proposed and possibly designed in connection 

with another space program.” Lockheed thus delivered 

the finished roll joints to the Gambit program as though 

they were new items with no relationship to any other 

reconnaissance program.

On 14 December 1962 Greer and King proposed yet 

another technical innovation. The latest change advocated 

incorporating “Lifeboat” provisions into Gambit. “Lifeboat” 

was another Corona originated technique. It involved 

providing independent reentry command circuitry 

(including a receiver), a separate magnetometer, and its 

own stabilization gas supply. All were independent of the 

main systems. If the primary reentry systems became 

inoperative, “Lifeboat” could be separately activated.

“Lifeboat” had proven its value on several occasions 

with Corona. Charyk formally approved adding “Lifeboat,” 

“hitchup,” and “roll joint” to Gambit on 19 December. 

“Lifeboat” was to be a permanent part of Gambit, “hitchup” 

was to be used on just the first four vehicles and then on 

a flight-by-flight basis. “Roll joint” was to be developed as 

an operational substitute for the OCV roll system. At the 

same time, in order to maintain the launch schedule, Greer 

and King deleted a substantial portion of the test program 

for Gambit. There was no alternative if Gambit was to 

meet its proposed schedule of June. Both knew the risk, 

but additional overruns or schedule slippage could put the 

program in danger of being cancelled.15 U.S. policymakers 

demanded useful intelligence images of Soviet targets.

When Charyk resigned as DNRO on 1 March 1963, 

Brockway McMillan of Bell Telephone Laboratories 

replaced him. All seemed to be proceeding well with 

Gambit. By May, Gambit was in its first flight checkout 

sequence. On the afternoon of 11 May, however, a faulty 

valve and a deficient fuel loading sequence caused a loss of 

internal pressure on the Atlas 190D. The booster collapsed 

on the pad, dumping both the GE orbital vehicle and the 

Agena on the concrete slab. The GE vehicle was severely 

damaged, the Agena to a lesser degree. Surprisingly, there 

was no explosion or fire, although 13,000 gallons of liquid 

oxygen and a full load of fuel sloshed over the pad. The 

camera system was damaged beyond repair, a large part 

of the optics demolished. The Gambit project team worked 

furiously to repair the damage and keep the pre-flight 

checkout on schedule. Despite their efforts the original 27 

June launch date slipped back to July.16

FIRST LAUNCHES

Twenty-two months and 17 days after the National 

Security Council decision to proceed with a covert highresolution satellite, Gambit flight vehicle No. 1 lifted off 

from its Vandenberg launching pad on 12 July 1963 at 

1344, Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). For an instant during 

the launch, most observers experienced the horrified 

sense that disaster had come again to the NRO/Air Force 

satellite reconnaissance program. The splashing rocket 

exhaust of the Atlas knocked out all electrical connections 

to telemetry and cameras. It gave the impression of a 

major launch start explosion. Seconds later, however, the 

Atlas could be seen climbing steadily towards its launch 

window. Climbout, separation, and orbital injection went 

smoothly. Greer and King knew, however, it would be 

another 90 minutes before they would have proof that the 

bird was in a proper polar orbit. It would take another five 

orbits before the Gambit payload came to life. After another 

nine “working” passes, a recovery attempt would be made. 

There would be another wait as the capsule re-entered the 

earth's atmosphere, hopefully survived its passage through 

the upper atmosphere, arrested its descent by parachute, 

and was recovered.

On the fifth orbital revolution, command controllers turned 

on the camera for light strip exposures of 20 seconds 

each. On orbits eight and nine, two stereo pairs, and five, 

2-second strips were exposed. A premature exhaustion of 

Agena stabilization gas then forced the discontinuance of 

camera operations. With the Agena out of fuel, “Lifeboat” 

became the only means of recovering the film capsule. 

On the eighteenth orbit, a ground station commanded 

“Lifeboat” and Gambit back toward earth. A C-119 aircraft 

waiting near Hawaii swept the parachuting reentry capsule 

out of the sky. The first Gambit was a success, but what 

about the film?

Evaluation of the recovered film, only 198 ft was exposed, 

indicated an out-of-focus condition for most of the flight 

caused apparently by uncompensated temperature 

changes that affected the face of the primary mirror and by 

faulty image motion compensation settings. Nevertheless, 

the best resolution was close to 3.5 ft, the average 

resolution about 10 ft. It was the best photographic return 

ever obtained from a reconnaissance satellite.

Greer, gratified by the success of the first flight, informed 

King that he very much wanted “two in a row.” The very 

success of the first flight raised Intelligence Community 

expectations for subsequent flights.

The second Gambit flight took place on 6 September 

1963. All went well. During 51 hours on orbit, the hitched 

vehicle completed 34 orbits and exposed 1,930 ft of film. 

On the 34th revolution, the reentry vehicle was detached 
13

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

and successfully recovered by air catch. An analysis of the 

photographs recovered from the second Gambit showed 

consistently high quality until the 31st orbit. The resolution 

achieved during the initial portion of the fight meant the 

photointerpreters could distinguish such detail as aircraft 

engine nacelles, small vehicles, and even maintenance 

equipment. For the first time, a satellite reconnaissance 

camera had returned detail at levels previously obtained 

only from reconnaissance aircraft. Only three years after 

Eisenhower ordered manned reconnaissance flights over 

the Soviet Union discontinued, U.S. satellites had filled 

the intelligence gap. First, Corona had returned coverage 

of areas most U-2s could not reach or safely overfly, and 

now Gambit had returned detail not greatly inferior to that 

produced by U-2 cameras. Gambit imagery, however, 

was limited to 1,930 ft of film from Gambit's second flight. 

Although Gambit's achievements were remarkable, it did 

not yet provide recurring coverage of the Soviet Union. 

Such coverage, at resolutions much better than Corona 

could provide, was still an urgent national goal.

McMillan, under constant pressure for more pictures, 

wanted future Gambit missions to concentrate on obtaining 

the best possible ground resolution over larger numbers 

of “denied area” targets. McMillan informed Greer, “... the 

name of the game is specific coverage of specific, known 

targets with stereo photography of the best possible 

quality.” Greer was increasingly confident Gambit could 

produce the desired results.

Gambit Operational Modes
14

SECTION I: HISTORY - GAMBIT

On 25 October 1963, Gambit’s third flight produced 

photography “better and more consistent than that of 

either of the first two missions.” Imagery was the first to 

show identifiable figures of people on the ground—from 

a distance of 90 miles. The scene was a football field in 

Great Falls, Montana. In one photo, a place kicker could 

be seen putting the football in place while the other players 

moved into position. In a second photo, the players had 

lined up, ready for the kickoff.

Despite the superb resolution, however, the first three 

Gambit flights produced little intelligence. They did, 

however, whet the appetite of the U.S. Intelligence 

Community for more and better satellite imagery.

Gambit No. 6, launched on 11 March 1964, seemed to 

bring the program to maturity. Despite some continuing 

problems, Gambit No. 6 returned substantial quantities of 

highly useful intelligence data on targets.

CONTINUING PROBLEMS

The year 1964, however, brought serious problems to 

the program. From May through October 1964, half of 

six flights produced no coverage whatsoever. The best 

resolution degraded to 7 ft. Despite some successes in 

early 1965, the Gambit program was seriously ill.

Maj Gen Robert Greer retired on 30 June. He was 

replaced by Brig Gen John L. Martin who had been chief 

of the NRO Staff in the Pentagon and deputy to Greer. 

The summer of 1965 brought key personnel changes as 

well. Dr. Alexander H. Flax, Assistant Secretary of the Air 

Force for Research and Development replaced McMillan 

as DNRO on 1 October. Only Col King continued in place 

as project director for Gambit.

As Greer's deputy, Martin had a detailed knowledge 

of Gambit. He had witnessed the agonies of the early 

Gambit operations and years later recalled the emotion of 

“watching a bird go dead.” “You simply cannot imagine,” 

he said, “the frustration you feel when a healthy-looking 

Gambit suddenly became a zombie.”

Shortly after assuming command, Martin faced the issue 

of whether or not Gambit No. 20 should hold to its early July 

flight date. Martin decided to go ahead with the previous 

schedule. On 12 July Martin witnessed a comprehensive 

failure, the Atlas booster shut down prematurely and Gambit 

No. 20 flew a 682-mile arc into the Pacific Ocean. Martin 

demanded immediate changes. He and King set about 

tightening quality control and the incentive contracting 

system. They subjected the Gambit system to new and 

more stringent test and inspection procedures. Despite 

their efforts, Gambit No. 21 became the third successive 

Gambit to experience catastrophic failure when the AC/

DC power converter in the OCV failed, resulting in the 

loss of stability. The Intelligence Community, increasingly 

dependent on high-resolution photography to determine 

Soviet ICBM activity expressed its major concern with the 

gap in detailed coverage of the Soviet program.17

Martin, although under pressure to produce detailed 

imagery, delayed the next scheduled Gambit launch. He 

turned his attention to GE's OCV, which had, on balance, 

provided most of the program difficulties. Traveling to GE 

Philadelphia, he and King mystified GE management by 

requiring exclusive use of a dining room, ten tables, ten 

white tablecloths, and ten completed Gambit electronic 

boxes. With GE management looking on, Martin produced 

his own screwdriver and removed the cover-plates from the 

first box. He raised the box above the cloth-covered table 

and shook it hard. He paused to inventory the native and 

foreign items which fell on the table. He and King moved 

from table to table repeating the operation with each box. 

Martin concluded by stating that someone or someones 

had to be responsible for the debris on the table. GE 

management responded by revamping its organization and 

production and testing procedures. They were determined 

that GE hardware would become a quality member of the 

Gambit components family.

GE was not the only errant contractor King and Martin 

took to task. Lockheed and Kodak were both criticized 

for shipping unfinished products to Vandenberg and then 

attempting to complete their work in Vandenberg's Missile 

Assembly Building (MAE). Determined to guarantee 

hardware integrity, King even threatened to close the MAB, 

forcing all contractors to deliver flight-ready hardware to 

the launch site.

Martin also made an exhaustive study of the incentive 

contracting in effect for the Gambit program. He was 

amazed to find that the system of rewards paid more 

for under-cost, on-time delivery than for high quality 

performance on orbit. He observed, for example, that 

such a set of values placed GE in position to collect a 

healthy bonus for providing the OCV under cost and on 

time despite the failure rate on orbit. To the contractor, the 

arrangement stressed the cost factor far more than the 

performance factor. The result was that GE was motivated 

to delete as many control and test procedures as possible 

in order to save money and time in producing the OCV. 

Taken to its logical extreme, the incentive formula could 

result in the delivery of a minimum cost vehicle which failed 

catastrophically, but, nonetheless, earned a premium for 

the contractors. Martin shifted the focus of the incentive 

system from cost to performance. Martin's new system 

placed the emphasis on orbital performance and provided 

large bonuses for on-orbit success.

Gambit No. 23, launched on 8 November 1965, was 

the first satellite to have full benefit of the new test and 

inspection regime. Unfortunately, it too quickly succumbed 
15

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

to flaws and during its 18-revolution lifetime photographed 

limited targets. The Martin-King plan for improvement in the 

Gambit program, however, continued unrelenting. It finally 

paid off. The next 10 flights were all qualified successes. 

From January to October 1966, the NRO launched Gambit 

satellites at a rate of about one per month. They routinely 

returned photographic intelligence of high quality, covering 

more targets in each flight. “Best resolution” averaged 

about 2 ft. By the third anniversary of the Gambit flight 

program, 12 July 1966, Gambit had extended its longevity 

from one to eight days on orbit; had increased the number 

of targets and had improved resolution from 3.5 to 2 ft. 

The last Gambit mission, No. 38 (KH-7), flew on 4 June 

1967. It was replaced by the highly successful Gambit-3 

Program.18

GAMBIT-1 SUMMARY

Gambit was the first operational U.S. satellite system to 

return high resolution photography consistently. An AtlasAgena booster combination launched the Gambit into orbit. 

GE built the orbital control vehicle which housed the camera 

system. Eastman Kodak developed and manufactured 

the camera system itself which was originally designed 

around a lens of 77-in focal length, producing photographs 

with a ground resolution of 2 to 3 ft. GE built the recovery 

capsule, which was adapted from the Corona program. 

The first Gambit was launched in 12 July 1963 and flights 

continued until 4 June 1967 when Gambit-3 replaced the 

Gambit-1 system.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF GAMBIT-319

Even before the launch of the first of the Gambit 

reconnaissance satellites in July 1963, U.S. planners 

discussed the need for an even greater capability system. 

Gambit, with its 2 to 3-ft resolution, (three to five times better 

than anything Corona produced) could produce significant 

operational and technical details on Soviet weaponry. But, 

they believed, even greater intelligence on the Soviets 

could be obtained if the United States developed an 

imaging system that could return better ground details. 

Intelligence Community analysts wanted “more.”

In the early 1960s, the dominant factor in obtaining 

higher resolution tended to be focal length and pointing 

accuracy. Long lens systems created enlarged images of 

relatively small areas. Eastman Kodak worked on such a 

system with its Valley program. By August 1963, Valley 

research and Gambit-1 experience convinced many NRO 

officials that long focal lengths were feasible for satellite 

operations. In December 1963, Kodak employees, Charles 

P. Spoelhof and James H. Mahar, presented their ideas for 

an advanced Gambit system to DNRO Brockway McMillan 

and Gen. Robert Greer. Following the presentation, 

McMillan approved the development of an improved, 

higher resolution, Gambit program.

The crux of Kodak's proposal was a system that would 

exploit the pointing accuracy of Gambit-1 with a new 

camera. Kodak engineers believed that better resolution 

could be obtained, assuming imagery from an orbital 

altitude of 90 miles. Spoelhof and Mahar also proposed 

that the new system incorporate a “factory to pad” concept 

to provide greater modularity, instead of an orbital control 

vehicle enveloping the camera system (Gambit-1). They 

proposed using two modules, one containing the camera 

and the recovery vehicle, the other housing propulsion and 

the on-orbit initial subsystems. Kodak also incorporated 

the Lockheed roll-joint concept between the forward 

photographic payload/recovery vehicle section and the 

satellite-control section.

Kodak also planned to use a special, very-low-coefficientof-thermal-expansion Invar (an iron-nickel alloy) for both 

the optical barrel and related assemblies, and a new thinbase (1.5 mile) high-resolution film with an exposure index 

of 6.0. (The film was roughly three times more sensitive 

than the film then in use on Gambit-1.)

Concerned that the new program might have major 

problems in producing the larger optics and that the 

improved film could not be delivered on schedule, DNRO 

McMillan sponsored a host of alternative technologies. This 

caution was also evident in the selection of the booster. 

Although King and Greer favored using the Atlas and 

Agena booster combination, McMillan wanted an option of 

using the new Titan-III booster which would provide for a 

greater payload weight.

King and Greer worked out the remaining major elements 

of the Gambit-3 concept in January 1964. Their plan called 

for the entire Gambit-3 program to operate under the 

purview of the SAFSP. They called for an initial flight in July 

1966. The Gambit-1 system would continue until Gambit-3 

became operational.

Because of DNRO McMillan's strong interest in the Titan 

as a possible booster for Gambit-3, Greer and King tasked 

Lockheed in July 1964 to study Agena compatibility with 

the Titan-III. In October 1964, on the basis of the Titan 

III-Agena study carried out by Lockheed, Greer's staff 

prepared cost estimates for switching from the AtlasAgena. Consideration for making the change included the 

desire to use the Titan III family of boosters for other Air 

Force space missions, the potential versatility and on-orbit 

weight-growth capability, and the likelihood that a new 

search system replacing Corona would rely on Titan III 

boosters. Despite the fact that the Atlas was considered 

the standard launching vehicle for the Air Force, DNRO 

McMillan officially approved the switch to Titan in October 

1964. Although this increased cost and caused a slippage 
16

SECTION I: HISTORY - GAMBIT

in the initial launch date, the choice of the Titan, in 

hindsight, was a major improvement. It allowed future 

system changes with less consideration of the limited lift 

capacity of the Atlas.

At Lockheed, the Gambit-3 program came under the 

direction of the Space Systems Division. The program 

manager was Harold Huntley who reported directly to 

James W. Plummer, assistant general manager for Special 

Programs (Plummer would become DNRO in 1974). While 

Lockheed's work on the Agena modifications proceeded 

and never seriously threatened the planned launch date of 

July 1966, payload development by Eastman Kodak was 

behind schedule by the fall of 1964. The major problem for 

Kodak centered on the manufacture and mounting of the 

two large mirrors of Gambit-3 optics. These optics were 

larger than those of many earth telescopes, but needed to 

be much lighter to operate in space. Kodak experienced 

several failures in attempting to manufacture the mirrors. 

In addition, the figuring and polishing processes were far 

more difficult than originally anticipated. Kodak originally 

estimated that each of the two mirrors would require around 

800 hrs of grinding, polishing, testing, and coating to finish. 

The early mirrors took 3,000 hrs per mirror. Because of 

mirror-fabrication problems, Kodak was three months 

behind schedule. Kodak's problem was compounded by 

its underestimation of the needed engineering manpower. 

The company experienced a major shortage of technical 

people, apparently from an overcommitment of resources. 

Kodak was working simultaneously on Gambit-1, Gambit-3, 

a lunar camera for NASA, and a proposed new search 

system that later became the Hexagon program.

The final determination for fabrication fused silica, for 

the primary aspheric mirror substrate and the return to 

conventional polishing techniques, pushed the production 

schedule ahead. By January 1966, there still existed 

considerable doubt that the high-speed, high resolution 

film on which Gambit-3 depended would be ready for use 

in initial flights. If it was not ready, the fall-back film, with 

an index of 3.6 and a resolution capability of 110 lines per 

millimeter, as against the 130 lines ASA (American National 

Gambit system and optics swath
17

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

Standards Institute, formerly known as American Standards 

Association) 6.0 film would be used. It would build a certain 

amount of smear but there was no alternative. In fact, the 

new film did not become available until June 1968.

Given their experience with Gambit-1, Greer and 

King also introduced another innovative management 

technique. In contrast to the extensive testing at the launch 

site that characterized Gambit-1, testing that frequently 

brought substantial repair work in the Missile Assembly 

Building, Greer and King initiated a command system for 

Gambit-3, featuring an automated checkout system that 

allowed telemetry readout of functions. These readouts 

directly indicated whether or not various subsystems 

and components operated within acceptable limits. This 

automated checkout was normally performed during 

final assembly at Kodak and Lockheed, the principal 

manufacturers. The components, therefore, went directly 

from factory to launch pad.

NRO planners took no chance with the success of the first 

launch of Gambit-3. By the time of the launch, recovery 

operations had become rather routine, using Air Force 

C-130 aircraft and Navy range ships. An NRO agreement 

with the U.S. Navy provided for the Navy to support these 

recoveries with two such range ships. As the first Gambit-3 

launch approached, the Navy, however, had only one ship 

on duty station. NRO program officers requested additional 

Navy support through the Office of the Commander-inChief, Pacific Forces (CINCPAC), which controlled all DoD 

assets in the Pacific. CINCPAC responded that because 

of the Vietnam conflict, the usual recovery support could 

not be provided. Col King took the issue to DNRO John 

McLucas. This was a serious threat to the successful 

completion of the mission. McLucas took up the matter 

with the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), ADM David L. 

McDonald, who, in turn, sent a flash precedence message 

to CINPAC ordering the support. CINCPAC signaled back 

to SAFSP, “We don't know whom you know, but how many 

battleships do you want and where do you want them 

delivered?”

GAMBIT-3 BECOMES OPERATIONAL

On 29 July 1966 at 1130 PDT, the first Gambit-3 roared 

off the launch pad at Vandenberg (the initial launch had 

been projected nearly three years earlier for 1 July 1966). 

Two hours later, Sunnyvale reported, “All systems appear 

normal.” The first Gambit-3 performed exceptionally well. 

The satellite achieved a near-nominal orbit. Its mission 

lasted five days during which it acquired targets that were 

successfully “read out.”20

The overall quality of the imagery from the first Gambit-3 

mission was better than that obtained from any Gambit-1 

mission.Although the primary optics fell short of the design 

goal, the intelligence provided by this mission was the 

highest of any reconnaissance satellite to date.

The fate of Gambit-1 was now sealed, although DNRO 

Alexander Flax was extremely reluctant to cancel any 

planned Gambit-1 launches until Gambit-3 actually 

demonstrated a consistent level of capability. Director of 

Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms, however, felt 

strongly that the success of Gambit-3 warranted cutting 

back Gambit-1 launches. The United States Intelligence 

Board's (USIB) Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance 

(COMOR) proposed, after listening to the arguments, that 

Gambit photographic payload section
18

SECTION I: HISTORY - GAMBIT

nine Gambit-1s and eight Gambit-3s be approved for the 

FY 1967 flight schedule. Contemporary launch schedules 

called for the launch of Gambit-1s at the rate of one per 

month. The decision to proceed with a mix of Gambit-1 

and Gambit-3 was based on the perceived greater cost 

of the new system (Gambit-3), and the concern that 

success in all of the scheduled missions would cause the 

exploitation and analytical elements to be inundated with 

high resolution imagery. The concern was real.

During the 11-month period, July 1966 to June 1967, 

the success of Gambit-3 created a new problem for U.S. 

officials by returning huge quantities of surveillancequality photography. The sheer volume overwhelmed 

U.S. photointerpreters. The United States now had three 

successful satellite systems routinely returning large 

quantities of imagery: Corona, Gambit-1, and Gambit-3. 

The Satellite Operations Center (SOC) in the Pentagon 

was also feeling deluged. It was barely able to cope with 

Gambit and Corona.

Despite the success, DNRO Flax was less than euphoric. A 

best resolution fell well short of the planned resolution. He, 

nevertheless, cancelled the final five Gambit-1 missions on 

30 June 1967. Gambit-3 was to be the main surveillance 

satellite system. Unlike Flax, DCI Helms characterized 

the take from Gambit-3 in November 1967 as providing 

“extremely important intelligence.” He saw it as a striking 

success. Flax's more cautious optimism proved prophetic.

By late 1967 the inadequacy of the Gambit-3 camera 

system remained an unsolved problem. Despite the fact 

that it was better than that of Gambit-1, it did not obtain 

the resolution originally specified. Some at NRO believed 

Gambit-3 would never achieve the resolution for which it 

had been designed, much less the long coveted resolution 

desired by photointerpreters. However, improvements were 

on the way as Kodak continued its work on improving the 

mirror substitute materials and the high-speed emulsion on 

its ultra-thin base film. Kodak introduced its new film on the 

14th Gambit-3 flight on 5 June 1968. By the 27th flight it 

exceeded all expectations.21

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

Gambit program officials strongly believed that neither 

the Soviets, nor anyone else, knew the capability of the 

Gambit program. In 1969, however, officials held their 

breath as a Soviet satellite, Cosmos 264, began to make 

orbital adjustments that U.S. engineers calculated would 

bring it within 70 miles of Gambit-3. Eventually the two 

satellites passed within 15 miles of each other as NRO 

controllers held their breath, wondering if Cosmos was a 

“killer satellite.”

THE BLOCK II PROGRAM

One of the major innovations in the Gambit-3 program was 

the introduction of a second recovery vehicle. It eventually 

became known as the Block II program. Growing national 

interest during the period of Gambit-3 development in 

creating a satellite capability of quick reaction to world-wide 

crisis situations drove concepts for improving Gambit-3. As 

early as January 1965, DNRO McMillan informed Secretary 

of Defense, Robert McNamara, of studies underway for 

providing Gambit-3 with such a capability. The Corona 

program had demonstrated the feasibility and utility of using 

two recovery buckets. The premise behind the change was 

that a long-life, multiple capsule, film return system, could 

provide urgently required images that would be taken and 

returned to earth for evaluation, while at the same time 

continuing the satellite's routine surveillance duties.

Fortunately, owing mostly to McMillan's foresight, the 

Titan booster used for Gambit-3 had excess lift capability. 

The addition of a second reentry vehicle and more film 

capacity, while they greatly increased Gambit-3's weight, 

did not exceed the Titan lift capacity. Work began on the 

Block II series of Gambit-3 in late 1966. The double-bucket 

Gambit was ready by the fall of 1969. The first Block II 

vehicle (Gambit-3, no. 23) flew on 23 August 1969. After 

this first successful Block II flight, the program suffered 

a series of annoying problems, from poor orbits, to failed 

parachutes, to program malfunctions, which kept it from 

reaching its full potential.

Despite the nagging problems, the resolution of Gambit-3 

cameras continued to increase. Operational longevity also 

increased from 10 days to 27 days. A new lens, under 

development by Kodak for several years, was finally 

introduced in 1971. It brought an immediate performance 

improvement in the camera system. With a different focal 

length, the new lens permitted Gambit resolution to surpass 

even the previous best. Target coverage also increased.

A FULLY MATURE SYSTEM

By August 1977 Gambit-3, with 48 vehicles flown, was a 

fully mature, successful satellite program. During the next 

seven years, Gambit-3 continued to steadily improve its 

performance. Time-on-orbit lengthened to three to four 

months for each flight. Target coverage also increased 

significantly. By the time of the last Gambit-3 flight in April 

1984, Gambit-3 was still producing the high quality imagery, 

which maintained its preeminence in technical collection.22

SUMMARY

The Corona program provided U.S. policymakers, for 

the first time, a capability to monitor military and industrial 
19

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

developments over vast areas of the Soviet Union 

and other denied areas of the world. Although Corona 

provided immeasurable contributions to national security, 

its resolution was not good enough to answer numerous 

critical intelligence questions regarding Soviet weapons 

development. Nor could it provide the image quality 

needed to provide true science and technology analysis. 

Gambit filled this gap. By the end of the program, Gambit 

routinely collected high-resolution imagery.

Gambit imagery closely monitored the Soviet Union. 

Gambit also provided insight on China. This information 

was vital to U.S. strategic planners, photointerpreters, 

and U.S. policymakers and defense planners. The Gambit 

system proved to be an invaluable intelligence collection 

tool during the Cold War.

In August 1984 President Ronald Reagan emphasized 

Gambit's contribution to U.S. intelligence in a message to 

DNRO Pete Aldridge:

When the Gambit Program commenced we 

were in the dawn of the space age. 

Technologies we now take for granted 

had to be invented, adapted, and 

refined to meet the Nation's highest 

intelligence information needs while 

exploiting the unknown and hostile 

medium of space. Through the years 

you and your team have systematically 

produced improved satellites providing 

major increases in both quantity and 

quality of space photography.

The technology of acquiring high 

quality pictures from space was 

perfected by the Gambit Program 

engineers; .... Through the years, 

intelligence gained from these 

photographs has been essential to 

myself, my predecessors, and others 

involved with international policy 

decisions. These photographs have 

greatly assisted our arms monitoring 

initiatives. They have also provided 

vital knowledge about Soviet and 

Communist Bloc scientific and 

technological military developments, 

which is of paramount importance in 

determining our defense posture.

A generation of this Nation's youth 

has grown up unaware that, in large 

measure, their security was ensured by 

the dedicated work of your employees. 

National security interests prohibit 

me from rewarding you with public 

recognition which you so richly 

deserve. However, rest assured that 

your accomplishments and contributions 

are well known and appreciated at 

the highest levels of our Nation's 

government.

21

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

HEXAGON
22

SECTION I: HISTORY - HEXAGON

INTRODUCTION

Gambit was primarily a National Reconnaissance Office 

(NRO)/Air Force program to develop a high-resolution 

“spotter-type” satellite. It caused few bureaucratic turf 

battles and became highly successful. Proposals for and 

the development of a second-generation search satellite 

to follow Corona, however, became embroiled in major 

bureaucratic conflicts between the NRO and the Central 

Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Despite the bureaucratic in-fighting, the development and 

operation of the Hexagon photoreconnaissance satellite 

system provided U.S. policymakers and planners with 

a unique collection capability. Hexagon's ability to cover 

thousands of square nautical miles with contiguous, cloudfree, high resolution imagery in a single operation, provided 

U.S. intelligence users with vast amounts of intelligence 

information on the Soviet Union and other denied areas. 

It also collected large-scale contiguous imagery within 

specific geometric accuracies and unique mapping, 

charting, and geodesic data. Used in combination with the 

Gambit program, Hexagon was of paramount importance 

in confirming or denying Soviet strategic weapons 

development and deployment. Its ability to detect quickly 

any new Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) 

complex or mobile missile placement became invaluable 

to U.S. negotiators working on arms-limitation treaties and 

agreements.

ORIGINS

In May 1963, Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) John 

A. McCone convened a Scientific Advisory Panel under the 

chairmanship of Edwin Purcell, Nobel laureate and professor 

of physics at Harvard University, “to determine the future 

role and posture of the United States Reconnaissance 

Program.” The Purcell Panel recommended a Corona 

improvement program rather than an entirely new satellite 

system:

We believe that an attempt to make a 

completely new (search) system, which 

would provide equally wide coverage 

(as Corona) with a modest improvement 

in resolution (5-feet, say, instead 

of 10-feet around resolution) would 

not be a wise investment of resources.

Not entirely satisfied with the Purcell Panel 

recommendation, in the fall of 1963, McCone directed 

his Deputy Director of Science and Technology (DDS&T), 

Albert D. (Bud) Wheelon, to explore the requirements and 

possible configuration for a second generation search 

satellite to replace Corona. One of the major questions 

confronting Wheelon and his staff was the degree of 

resolution needed to fulfill the various requirements of 

the Intelligence Community. Wheelon directed his newly 

created Systems Analysis Staff, headed by Jackson D. 

Maxey, to review the types and characteristics of United 

States Intelligence Board (USIB) targets to determine the 

kinds of coverage needed. A detailed experiment, which 

included 25 National Photographic Intelligence Center 

(NPIC) photointerpreters, concluded that the majority of 

USIB targets could be properly identified using imagery 

with a resolution in the 0.6 to 1.2 m (2 to 4 ft) range. Due 

to the cost of booster rockets, Wheelon concluded that 

an entirely new camera system with a longer focal length 

covering a large swath would have to be developed to 

meet such target requirements.

While Wheelon and Maxey continued to work on their 

study, Corona's Performance Evaluation Team (PET) 

also looked at the problem. The PET investigation effort 

examined the possibility of “scaling up” the Corona camera 

from the existing 610-mm (24-in) lens to a 1-m (40-in) lens 

while maintaining the same “acuity.” According to the PET 

report, “scaling up” could improve Corona’s resolution 

without having to design an entirely new camera and 

satellite.23

Director, NRO (DNRO) Brockway McMillan and his 

NRO staff strongly supported the Purcell Panel and 

PET recommendations. This sparked a growing debate 

between the NRO and the CIA over the development of a 

follow-on system to Corona.24

Critical of the NRO position, McCone asked for a 

meeting with Deputy Defense Secretary, Roswell L. 

Gilpatric, to discuss the issue. On 22 October 1963, 

McCone and Gilpatric agreed to form a separate CIANRO/Air Force sponsored research group of the nation's 

leading optical experts to explore the issue of improving 

satellite photography. Chaired by Sidney Drell of Stanford 

University, the group met on 13 November 1963 to study 

image quality. The Drell group findings basically supported 

the CIA contention that the United States needed a new 

system, which would provide Corona-type coverage 

with consistent Gambit-type resolution. At the same 

time, in order to augment these studies, Wheelon asked 

for additional reports from Itek and Space Technology 

Laboratories (STL) of the Thompson Ramo-Wooldridge 

(TRW) Corporation. All seemed to be in agreement. A new 

system was needed to meet the growing requirements of 

the Intelligence Community for high quality imagery and 

expanded coverage.

PROJECT FULCRUM

Following up these studies, in May 1964, Wheelon 

directed Itek and STL to prepare a joint proposal for 
23

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

a satellite system that could replace both Corona and 

Gambit. The Itek-STL proposal recommended a 2,495-kg 

(5,500-lb) payload containing two, counter-rotating Itek 

cameras in an STL three-axis stabilized spacecraft with a 

simple recovery system. A modified Titan II booster with no 

second stage would place it directly in orbit. The camera 

was to be a dual Maksutov reflective system with f/3.0 

lenses having a 1.5-m (60-in) focal length employing a 

corrective lens, beryllium mirror, and eggerate quartz main 

plate. The cameras would provide a nadir resolution from 

0.8 to 1.2 m (2.7 to 4 ft) at an altitude of 185 km (100 miles). 

In his memorandum recommending NRO/CIA funding for 

Project Fulcrum, Wheelon suggested the program could 

be developed within 24 months. He also stressed the cost 

savings. According Wheelon, by replacing the Corona and 

Gambit programs, the government could save money by 

the end of FY 1969.25

McMillan was furious. Wheelon and the CIA were 

contracting for satellite systems and subsystems studies 

without even informing the NRO, which theoretically had 

responsibility for all reconnaissance satellite development. 

Deputy Director, Research and Engineering (DDR&E), 

Eugene Fubini, sympathetic to McMillan's position, 

questioned the entire Fulcrum proposal. Fubini reported that 

the recent Corona missions seemed to confirm the Purcell 

Panel recommendations that substantial improvement in 

the Corona camera results could be obtained. Over the 

strong objections of McMillan and Fubini, DCI McCone 

asked Gilpatric to direct the DNRO to establish Fulcrum as 

an NRO development project and assign responsibility for 

research, development, and operation to the CIA.

Looking for further support, McCone also asked 

Polaroid's Edwin H. (Din) Land to convene a panel of 

experts to consider the technical feasibility of the Fulcrum 

proposal. The group met on 26 June 1964 and issued its 

recommendations the same day. Land called the proposed 

system “extremely attractive,” and “praised the ingenuity 

of the idea.” The Land Panel also noted several problem 

areas but added that the system looked good enough to 

fund study efforts.

Armed with the Land Panel recommendation, Wheelon, 

on 2 July 1964, formally presented a plan to McMillan for 

initiating Fulcrum. After conferring with McMillan, on 8 July, 

Deputy Secretary of Defense, Cyrus Vance, cautiously 

suggested that the DNRO complete comparative studies 

and explore all possible alternatives before committing to 

the new system. He, nevertheless, authorized the CIA to 

pursue “design tests necessary to establish the feasibility 

of the proposed Fulcrum camera concept.”

McCone's and Wheelon's plan went far beyond design 

studies. They wanted to build a strong CIA space system 

development and management capability. Wheelon and 

McCone received the backing of the USIB on 27 July 1964. 

The Board approved the recommendation of its Committee 

on Overhead Reconnaissance (COMOR) that there was an 

urgent need for a search and surveillance system capable 

of Corona coverage and Gambit resolution. This echoed 

Wheelon's justification for Fulcrum. In August 1964, 

Wheelon created a Special Projects Group (SPG) within 

DS&T to handle all CIA satellite reconnaissance programs. 

He named Jackson D. Maxey Fulcrum Project Manager. 

(Maxey was one of several senior engineers Wheelon hired 

Hexagon sequence of events diagram
24

SECTION I: HISTORY - HEXAGON

from industry.) He also brought in Leslie Dirks as project 

engineer. In addition, Wheelon proposed to McCone that 

the CIA sponsor two competitive design efforts for the 

film-handling system for the Fulcrum camera. At the same 

time, Wheelon initiated spacecraft and recovery vehicle 

competitions. Itek won the camera competition. General 

Electric (GE) became the spacecraft contractor and Avco 

the reentry vehicle designer. These CIA efforts touched off 

a bureaucratic donnybrook with the NRO and Department 

of Defense (DoD) that threatened the very fabric of the 

U.S. National Reconnaissance Program (NRP).

McMillan and the NRO believed Wheelon and the CIA had 

exceeded their authority and gone far beyond preliminary 

design concepts. McMillan took sharp exception to CIA's 

development of a spacecraft and a Satellite Recovery 

Vehicle (SRV). Such development, McMillan believed, was 

contrary to the Third NRP Agreement that gave the NRO 

specific responsibility for the spacecraft and SRV. McMillan 

protested that the CIA should limit its activity to developing 

the sensors carried by the satellites. McMillan requested a 

suspension of further CIA efforts until the situation could be 

considered by the ExCom.26

Meanwhile, CIA officials learned that DNRO McMillan had 

authorized Secretary of the Air Force/Special Projects Office 

(SAFSP) to begin preliminary designs for a photographic 

payload that would include an optimal search and broadcoverage satellite system. McMillan authorized this SAFSP 

study in early 1964, even before the CIA's Fulcrum Project. 

These efforts became known as S-2. Eastman Kodak and 

Itek completed S-2 preliminary designs by September 

1964. Even after the formal approval of the CIA's Fulcrum 

project, McMillan approved further camera studies at 

Fairchild Camera and initiated studies for a new orbiting 

vehicle at both Lockheed and GE in support of S-2.

Relations between the NRO and the CIA continued 

to deteriorate. Even before Deputy Secretary Vance 

established a steering group to evaluate the most 

promising search and/or surveillance satellite and the CIA 

agreed to participate, cooperation between the CIA and the 

NRO became virtually nonexistent. When McMillan asked 

Wheelon to furnish a Fulcrum briefing to the steering group 

for “the new NRO Search/Surveillance Satellite system,” 

Wheelon refused. He replied that “he would have to await 

instructions from ‘his boss’ before agreeing to brief the 

steering group as requested.” Wheelon added that, “his 

organization was not persuaded that the steering group 

was a proper or good idea.” Given this attitude, the steering 

group accomplished little.

Hexagon system concept
25

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

In this fight, McMillan and his NRO staff stood virtually 

alone in attempting to defend the authorities of the NRO. 

Secretary of Defense McNamara and most of the DoD 

were preoccupied with Vietnam. The regular Air Force, or 

White Air Force, totally ignored space activities. The Air 

Force Space Systems and Air Staff were still smarting from 

being excluded from most satellite developments. Even 

SAFSP took a limited interest. Located in Los Angeles, 

California, SAFSP officers concerned themselves solely 

with operations. They saw their role as strictly “birding” 

(launching and operating satellites). Future systems were 

not their concern, nor was politics. They saw politics as 

strictly a function of their “Washington branch.” Moreover, 

coming from Bell Laboratories, McMillan had few inside 

connections either in Congress, the White House, or the 

Department of State.

To get around the DoD's steering group, McCone turned 

to Din Land and his Panel of experts to evaluate Fulcrum.27

Convening at Itek headquarters in Boston on 23 February 

1965, the panel heard presentations on Fulcrum as well 

as the other search system studies funded by the NRO 

(S-2) by Eastman Kodak, Itek, and Fairchild Camera. Itek 

officials startled CIA officials when they announced to Land 

that Itek was withdrawing its support from the Fulcrum 

program because of disagreements with the CIA over 

systems specifications.28

McCone and Wheelon had hoped and expected that the 

Land Panel findings would be the basis for early approval 

of Fulcrum by the ExCom.29 In order to preserve Fulcrum 

sensor work and the momentum of the project, Wheelon 

quickly arranged to transfer Itek's government-funded Itekdesign plans for the Fulcrum camera system to PerkinElmer of Norwalk, Connecticut. Perkin-Elmer had been 

working on a smaller back-up design for the CIA since 

June 1964.

The steadily growing hostility between the NRO and 

the CIA and the constant battles between Wheelon and 

McMillan brought the program to a near standstill. On 13 

July 1965, in a report to Vance and new DCI VADM William 

F. Raborn, Jr., McMillan indicated he intended to select the 

S-2 system for a new search satellite. Upon the advice 

of Wheelon, Raborn countered by asking Vance to delay 

any decision pending the Land Panel's report. On 26 July 

1965, the Land Panel finally issued its recommendation. 

It satisfied no one. The Panel recommended that all three 

camera system studies (the CIA effort at Perkin-Elmer and 

the NRO S-2 programs at Itek and Kodak) be funded for an 

additional three months.

At this point work on Fulcrum virtually came to a standstill 

as DCI Raborn and Deputy Secretary of Defense Vance 

worked out a new NRP Agreement—the fourth. Signed 

on 13 August 1965, the new agreement gave the CIA 

Hexagon factory to launch sequence
26

SECTION I: HISTORY - HEXAGON

responsibility for developing the optical sensor subsystem 

of the advanced general-search satellite (Fulcrum) and 

the engineering development of the spacecraft, reentry 

vehicles, and booster to the NRO and the Air Force. Both 

sides hoped this carefully crafted agreement would provide 

the incoming DNRO, Alexander Flax, with the authorities 

and leverage to resolve the bitter, divisive debate between 

the NRO and the CIA over roles and responsibilities for the 

new satellite system. It did not.

McMillan departed the NRO on 30 September 1965, 

disappointed that the new agreement was less explicit in 

stating the authorities of the DNRO than the old agreement 

had been. The new agreement did not please many in the 

CIA either. Maxey, who headed the Fulcrum effort and was 

chief of the Special Projects Staff (SPS), resigned because 

he felt strongly that the new NRP pact was too restrictive 

on the CIA.31

HEXAGON DEVELOPMENT

Flax moved quickly to get the new system on track and 

mend relations with the CIA. Deputy Director, Central 

Intelligence (DDCI) Richard Helms also moved to develop 

a more cooperative relationship between the Agency and 

DoD. He wrote to Flax that the CIA was consolidating all 

CIA elements supporting the NRO into an organization 

headed by Huntington Sheldon, the Director of CIA 

Reconnaissance, and that all CIA satellite activities would 

be placed in a new Office of Special Projects (OSP) 

under John Crowley. Aiding the situation was the fact 

that Crowley, the new chief, and Flax got along well. 

Flax, in turn, established a Technical Task Group and a 

Project Management Task Group to study the various 

forms of program development and program partnership. 

Nevertheless, the bickering continued.

Faced with a lack of consensus on the “right” way to do 

the project, Flax devised his own plan for the management 

Hexagon SV-5 forward section with mapping camera module
27

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

and technical development of Fulcrum. On 22 April 1966, 

Flax submitted his plan to the ExCom for consideration 

and approval. Now called the HELIX program, Flax 

recommended a management approach that would make 

the CIA OSP responsible for the entire sensor subsystem 

and SAFSP responsible for the remaining system 

elements. He proposed making the Director, SAFSP, the 

project director for the entire system, stating that SAFSP 

was “the only NRP component possessing the personnel, 

facilities, operational resources, experience, and technical 

competence to be designated Special Project Director 

(SPD) for the new general search and surveillance satellite 

system.” CIA officials countered that the CIA's in-house 

technical personnel and its relationship with the contractors 

built up over the years, gave it the capability of program 

management commensurate with that of SAFSP.

Despite continuing CIA protests, the ExCom, meeting 

in executive session on 26 April 1966, approved Flax's 

HELIX/Hexagon program proposal as submitted.31 Finally, 

more than two years after the original Fulcrum planning, 

the ExCom gave formal authority for developing a new 

search and surveillance satellite system—Hexagon. Flax's 

compromises did not resolve all issues between the CIA 

and the NRO but they did reduce the “turf battles” and 

allowed development of Hexagon to proceed.

THE SENSOR SUBSYSTEM

The CIA awarded Perkin-Elmer the contract for the 

design, development, and fabrication of the camera 

system for Hexagon in October 1966, in a cost-plus-fixedfee contract. Realizing that the Hexagon contract was the 

largest single program ever undertaken by Perkin-Elmer, 

OSP chief, Crowley, traveled to Perkin-Elmer headquarters 

to urge the company's executives to use a new System 

Engineering/Technical Support (SETS) System developed 

by the TRW Corporation.32 Despite Crowley's concern 

and special effort to warn Perkin-Elmer of the immense 

size of the Hexagon project, by the end of 1966, work at 

Perkin-Elmer was already several weeks behind schedule. 

Just manning the program was a major problem. PerkinElmer's original proposal called for growth from 150 to 

600 people within four months and to 700 by the eighth 

month. This rate proved impossible to achieve, especially 

Hexagon vehicle on orbit
28

SECTION I: HISTORY - HEXAGON

given the long delays in security and clearance approvals. 

Perkin-Elmer's lack of extensive electronic-design 

experience and shortage of electronic engineers also 

created serious problems. In addition, the general PerkinElmer management structure was simply inadequate for 

the magnitude of the Hexagon program. In January 1967, 

Crowley decided the situation required drastic action. 

He invited the key Perkin-Elmer managers, including 

company president, RADM Chester W. Nimitz, Jr., USN 

(Ret) to CIA headquarters for a management planning 

session. Crowley told the Perkin-Elmer officials that he 

was “deeply distressed and vitally concerned” about the 

lack of progress and even more concerned about PerkinElmer's attitude toward deficiencies that had surfaced in 

both management and technology. Crowley's frank talk 

resulted in a management overhaul at Perkin-Elmer.

The Hexagon sensor subsystem developed by PerkinElmer consisted of a two camera assembly, the film 

supply, and four take-ups. Located in the Hexagon satellite 

mid-section, the camera assembly contained a pair of 

panoramic cameras mounted in a frame. One camera 

looked forward on the satellite vehicle (camera A, port 

side) and the other looked aft (camera B, starboard side). 

Each camera had a 60-in focal length, f/ 3.0 folded Wright 

optical system. This optical system, which contained both 

reflection and refracting optical elements, was mounted in 

an optical bar.

Perkin-Elmer's optical bar involved two, 1-m diameter 

tubes each containing a 75-cm (30-in) optically flat mirror. 

This was mounted at a 45-degree angle to reflect the 

ground images passing beneath the satellite and through 

a corrector plate into a 91-cm (36-in) concave main mirror 

at one end of the tube. Images collected in the main 

mirror were then focused through a hole in the flat mirror 

and into a compound lens, located behind the flat mirror. 

The compound lens then projected the images onto the 

film platen at the opposite end of the optical tube. As 

the satellite moved through space, each optical bar tube 

rotated about its longitudinal axis in opposite directions. 

This provided a panoramic image, up to 120 in wide. Each 

optical bar was longer than the payload part of Corona. 

Just to test the tubes, Perkin-Elmer built an entirely new 

facility at Danbury, Connecticut.

Early on, Perkin Elmer had difficulties with the 91-cm (36-

in) main mirror. Initially, the West German firm supplied the 

mirror blanks, which were quartz optical surfaces fused 

to ceramic cores. The first blanks exhibited faults in the 

bonding of the face plates to the cores. These first, fused 

quartz, blanks were also very heavy and brittle for use 

in space. CIA and Perkin-Elmer engineers searched for 

a different material that was lighter weight, with a lower 

coefficient of expansion.

Beryllium, a relatively rare and lightweight metal, met all 

their requirements. It was one third as heavy as aluminum, 

had a very low coefficient of linear expansion, resisted 

oxidation, and was capable of being polished to a very 

high degree of reflectance. Its reflectivity extended beyond 

the visible spectrum into the infrared area, where many 

other mirrors failed. Unfortunately, beryllium was toxic. 

Inhalation of beryllium salts caused a reaction similar to 

chlorine poisoning.

Despite the hazards, Perkin-Elmer undertook a program 

to develop a beryllium folding mirror for the twin-60 

cameras. It soon abandoned the project as too expensive 

and dangerous. Eventually, Perkin-Elmer decided to use 

a heavier but less expensive and less dangerous product 

that had several advantages. It was of lightweight, almost 

100 lbs less per mirror blank then fused quartz, and it had 

a much lower coefficient of expansion. Its cost, however, 

was 20 percent greater than the German blanks. Hexagon 

managers reverted to the West German product.

THE MAPPING CAMERA MODULE

In order for imagery to be useful for measurement purposes 

(measuring distance and determining the size of objects 

on the ground), satellite altitude and position information 

needed to be recorded at the exact moment a picture 

was taken. In the Corona system, this was accomplished 

by using a stellar-index camera, a separate unit, which 

took pictures of both the star fields and the ground, thus 

allowing analysts to determine vehicle altitude and position 

accurately. This made it possible to prepare maps from 

Corona imagery. The Defense Mapping Agency also 

desired a map making capability from Hexagon imagery. 

In July 1968 Itek became the prime contractor for the 

stellar-terrain camera and GE for the RV. This was nearly 

20 months after Perkin-Elmer won the contract for the 

main Hexagon cameras. First launch date was projected 

for April 1970.

The Itek Corporation had far less trouble with the 

mapping camera module than Perkin-Elmer had with the 

main camera. Itek developed and built a mapping camera 

module that contained a stellar-terrain camera with a 12-in 

f/6.0 metric lens with eight elements. It used 9.5-in film. The 

stellar camera, which imaged stars above sixth magnitude, 

had two 10-in f/ 20 systems—one looking out each side of 

the module. It used 70-mm film. The GE RV was simply an 

improved version of the vehicle originally developed for the 

Corona program, modified to accommodate the 9.5-in and 

70-mm film take-ups.

THE SATELLITE VEHICLE

It was not until 20 July 1967 that DNRO Flax finally 

approved a contractor, Lockheed, for the spacecraft. 
29

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

Under the leadership of program manager, Stanley I. 

Weiss, the general vehicle configuration for Hexagon soon 

began to emerge. Hexagon would be a satellite vehicle 10 

ft in diameter and with an overall length of nearly 47 ft. 

One section would be devoted to the satellite control unit 

(the brains of Hexagon), one to the sensor subsystem (the 

cameras), and a recovery section of four RVs. To grasp the 

sheer size of Hexagon, the spacecraft weighed five times 

more than the Corona payload—22,500 lbs compared 

to 4,280 lbs. It was designed to be well within the lift 

capabilities of the Titan III-D booster.

The spacecraft design and development experienced few 

major problems. In early 1971, however, Lockheed itself 

became involved in a serious financial imbroglio, which 

nearly brought about the collapse of the company. RollsRoyce Motors Ltd. of Great Britain was under contract 

to provide the jet engines for Lockheed's new widebody 

TriStar airliner. Rolls-Royce’s financial collapse threatened 

Lockheed's promised delivery of its TriStars to several 

airlines. This in turn created a cash-flow problem for 

Lockheed (Lockheed was already claiming heavy losses 

connected with its Air Force C-5A Galaxy aircraft).

In order not to delay the highly classified work then being 

performed by Lockheed for Corona and Hexagon, the 

firm spun off its missiles and space division. It became 

Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, a wholly owned 

subsidiary. It was, however, now protected if Lockheed 

found it necessary to declare bankruptcy. Eventually, 

the U.S. Government provided a $210 million loan to 

help Lockheed avoid bankruptcy. It, nevertheless, was a 

close call for some of the United States' most closely held 

programs.

Although progress on the various Hexagon components 

continued, mounting cost overruns and delays brought 

slippage to the projected launch schedule. By late 1967, 

Flax and the entire Intelligence Community began to fear 

that further slips in the Hexagon launch schedule might 

result in a period during which there would be no photo 

coverage of the Soviet Union.33

Bickering between NRO officials and the CIA continued 

as well as CIA and SAFSP fighting over the development 

of on-orbit operational control software for the system. CIA 

officials wanted to control the satellite from the Satellite 

Operations Center (SOC) in Washington, sending specific 

commands to the Satellite Test Center in California for retransmission to the satellite. This was the system used for 

the Corona program. SAFSP maintained that the complexity 

of the new system required that all control of the satellite be 

done by the Satellite Control Center (SCC) at Sunnyvale, 

California. In a compromise, Flax finally decided that the 

SOC in Washington would send a list of requirements with 

their priorities to the SCC where the actual target selection 

for a particular revolution would be made, given weather 

conditions and vehicle health. Although the CIA was not 

entirely happy with the decision, it was, nevertheless, a 

semi-victory for the Agency since the CIA now controlled 

the requirements, which drove the system.

ATTEMPTS TO CANCEL HEXAGON

From the origins of the Hexagon (Fulcrum) program, critics 

maintained that system requirements could be satisfied less 

expensively by improving Corona or by using some other 

less sophisticated system. When the cost of Hexagon at 

Perkin-Elmer alone rose dramatically in February 1968 and 

other contractors began showing similar cost increases, 

the critics intensified their efforts. In 1968, new Deputy 

Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze questioned the need for 

Hexagon. Echoing Nitze's concerns and confronted with 

escalating Vietnam costs, the Bureau of the Budget (BoB) 

recommended that Hexagon be cancelled in early 1968. 

Hexagon was the single most expensive item in the 1968 

through 1970 NRP. As an alternative to Hexagon, DNRO Hexagon SV on Titan III D booster
30

SECTION I: HISTORY - HEXAGON

Hexagon launch

Flax, asked the CIA for cost estimates for developing 

an Improved Corona system. The CIA reported that an 

improved Corona, without a complete redesign, (with costs 

estimated to be equal to those of completing Hexagon) 

could never provide the search resolutions needed for 

verification of arms limitation agreements (resolutions 

of 3 ft or better). After reviewing the CIA cost estimates 

for 20 Improved Corona satellites, an NRO study group 

recommended to the ExCom that Hexagon be continued. 

The ExCom agreed and nothing came of the BoB’s 

recommendation.34

The Presidential election in November 1968 and the 

inauguration of Richard M. Nixon as President in January 

1969 brought a series of personnel changes and another 

look at the Hexagon program. Melvin Laird became 

Secretary of Defense and John L. McLucas, a former 

DDR&E and head of the Mitre Corporation, replaced Flax 

as DNRO. In the spring of 1969, the BoB renewed its 

recommendation to cancel Hexagon.35

As Perkin-Elmer began to lay off employees in response 

to the BoB recommendation, DCI Richard Helms mounted 

a major effort to have Hexagon reinstated. He called upon 

Roland Inlow, who had been deeply involved in planning 

for the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) to study 

the impact of the loss of Hexagon on arms limitations 

negotiations. Inlow found that all SALT proposals being 

made by U.S. officials were predicated on the availability of 

large-scale search photography from Hexagon satellites. 

Helms urged Inlow to brief James R. Schlesinger, the 

BoB’s Director for International Relations, on his findings. 

Inlow did. Helms and Inlow also invited Schlesinger, Vice 

President Spiro Agnew, and DNRO McLucas for a briefing 

at NPIC on the Hexagon project. After hearing the briefing, 

Schlesinger and Agnew recommended to President Nixon 

that the Hexagon program be reinstated. On 15 June 1969, 

the BoB reversed its decision and reinstituted Project 

Hexagon. Full-scale work resumed on the camera system 

at Perkin-Elmer, but the cost continued to escalate.

ONE MORE CHALLENGE FOR PERKINELMER

One of the most difficult engineering problems confronting 

Perkin-Elmer and CIA engineers was the challenge of 

moving film at very high velocities over many rollers 

and around sharp bends to deliver it to the focal-plane 

platen and then transfer it to the take-up reels in the film 

buckets. The high speeds and shiny surfaces created 

many problems, including the familiar Van de Graaff effect 

which had plagued Corona. Another problem was the heat 

generated by the friction of the film as it rubbed over rubber 

rollers or on shiny metallic bearing surfaces. In prototype 

models, the film heated up, became gummy, and stuck to 

these surfaces.

Perkin-Elmer engineers, headed by Rod Scott, attacked 

the film transport problem by adapting a unique air-bag 

(a gas-cushioned bearing surface) approach Scott had 

designed for the Oxcart (SR-71) cameras. This method 

permitted moving the film through the spacecraft without 

it touching either rubber or metal until it reached the focalplane platen, and then not again until it reached the takeup reel. The 168-mm film, traveling at 6.6 m (21.6 ft) per 

second, left the supply spool, entered the film channel, 

traveled nearly 4 m to the focal-plane platen, stopped to 

accent images from the optical-bar lenses, and moved 

along another 6 m to the take-up reel. In between the filmsupply reel and the platen and between the platen and the 
31

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

take-up reel, the film was allowed to go slack in a buffer 

chamber known as a “looper” so that the torque of starting 

and stopping would not stretch or tear it.

LAUNCH

Despite the setbacks, all appeared ready for a first launch 

on 15 June 1971. One final glitch appeared when Lockheed 

attempted to move the flight vehicle from Sunnyvale to 

Vandenberg Air Force Base for launch preparation. The 

State of California restricted use of the vehicle transporter 

(a mammoth vehicle some 14 ft high, 14 ft wide, and 70 ft 

long) to daylight, weekday, and non-rush hours. It was 28 

May, the start of the Memorial Day weekend. The satellite 

could not be moved to Vandenberg until after the holiday.

The Hexagon spacecraft itself was as big as a locomotive 

and 16.7 m (55 ft) long, almost as large as NASA's 

Spacelab, and weighed several metric tons. It contained 

two giant, rotating optical-bar tubes, each with a 91-

cm mirror and a camera. There were also four Satellite 

Recovery Vehicles (SRVs) for returning film to earth and 

a 208,000-ft film supply. At 1141 Pacific Daylight Time 

(PDT) 15 June 1971, the first Hexagon, sitting atop a Titan 

III-D missile, roared over the launch pad. The Lompoc, 

California Record reported the launch and nicknamed the 

satellite “Big Bird.”

On 20 June 1971, during orbital revolution 82, the first 

film bucket separated from the satellite and reentered 

the earth's atmosphere in the Hawaiian recovery area. 

Recovery teams sighted the capsule and its badly damaged 

parachute. It hit the ocean but the recovery teams got to it 

before it sank. The film was immediately flown to Eastman 

Kodak in Rochester, New York for processing. An NPIC 

representative at Eastman Kodak remarked after reviewing 

the film, “My God, we never dreamed there would be this 

much, this good! We'll have to revamp our entire operation 

to handle the stuff.”

The second film bucket was brought back to earth on 

26 June and recovery teams successfully snatched it 

in midair. Both the first two buckets provided extensive 

coverage of Soviet missile sites and other sensitive 

targets. The U.S. Intelligence Community greeted the 

Hexagon re-entry chute
32

SECTION I: HISTORY - HEXAGON

product enthusiastically. Unfortunately, when the third RV 

deorbited on 10 July, its main parachute failed completely 

and the bucket made a high-speed impact into the Pacific 

Ocean. It sank in several thousand meters of water before 

the recovery team could reach it. A recovery team snatched 

the fourth film bucket without incident on 16 July.

Approximately 75 percent of the photography in the three 

recovered film buckets was free of clouds, a considerable 

improvement over earlier satellite photography. This was 

due to a revolutionary new system named the Hexagon 

Targeting Program (HTP). The HTP effort was a computerbased method for determining, prior to launch, the 

accessibility on the intended targets for each mission as 

well as the likelihood of their being cloud-free. The major 

features of the HTP included: the use of World Aeronautical 

Chart (WAC) divisions known as World Aeronautical Grid 

(WAG) cells, which were a uniform 12 by 18 nm, computer 

routines for forecasting cloud cover, and maintaining a 

WAC cell climatological history. Eventually, HTP became 

part of a much larger NRO effort known as TUNITY. It 

was used in coordination with the Air Force's advanced 

Defense Meteorological Satellite Program and increased 

the efficiency of Hexagon cameras to 90 percent.

During its 52-day mission (31 days active phase) this first 

Hexagon conducted 430 photo operations and produced 

an average ground resolution of 3.5 ft and a best resolution 

of 2.3 ft. It used 175,601 ft (1,350 lbs) of film. Of this 

123,601 ft (930 lbs) was recovered. In comparison, the 

first successful Corona recovery (August 1960) carried 20 

lbs of film. Later, Corona flights carried 40 lbs, the twocapsule version, 80 lbs. In the Gambit program, Gambit-1 

carried 45 lbs of film and 3,000 ft of film. Gambit-3 carried 

multiple types of film with differing weights that ranged in 

length from 7,500 to 10,000 ft of film. It also included two 

film return capsules, increasing the duration of Gambit-3 

missions.

The first Hexagon mission was an outstanding success. 

For example, the first return capsule contained coverage 

of more than two thirds of Soviet missile sites alone. The 

first mission was not without complications, however. 

Batteries on the first Hexagon overheated, reducing 

camera operations. Additionally, only the fourth return 

capsule was free of parachute malfunctions. The first and 

second capsules were captured despite limited parachute 

malfunctions. The third return capsule’s parachute failed 

completely and the capsule hit the ocean surface with such 

force that flotation devices also failed. The capsule quickly 

sank to the ocean floor, nearly 3 miles below the surface, 

before surface ships could retrieve the capsule. 

The second Hexagon mission, no. 1202, was originally 

scheduled to launch three months after the return of the 

final capsule from the first Hexagon mission. The problems 

with batteries and parachute malfunctions resulted in a 

longer delay, and the second mission was launched on 20 

January 1972. The first two return capsules were retrieved 

uneventfully. A film tracking malfunction of the aft camera 

left only the forward camera available for the final two 

capsules. Both were retrieved uneventfully in February, 

1972.

The third Hexagon mission, no. 1203, was launched 

7 July 1972. A modified parachute design for the return 

capsule was incorporated into this mission as well as 

some additional modifications based on the previous two 

Hexagon missions. Similar to the second mission, both of 

the first two return capsules were de-orbited and retrieved 

without difficulty. During imaging operations for the third 

capsule, an altitude control problem developed as well as 

film tracking problems again with the aft camera. Both 

problems limited successful imagery operations for the 

third and fourth return capsules, despite their successful 

retrieval. 

The fourth Hexagon mission, no. 1204, launched on 10 

October 1972, involved an extraordinary effort by CIA and 

NRO officials to test color film and analyze camera focus. 

This exercise deployed targets throughout the Southwest 

United States to evaluate Hexagon camera operations with 

color film. A 28-man team cleared sites and erected and 

dismantled various configurations along the ground trace 

of the Hexagon satellite so they were photographable as 

the Hexagon passed overhead. Known as ground-truthing, 

CIA and NRO engineers used the photographs of these 

targets to analyze the focus accuracy of the Hexagon 

optical system. NRO and CIA officials considered this 68-

day mission highly successful.

The fifth Hexagon flight, mission no. 1205, launched on 

9 March 1973, was the first to carry the separate Mapping 

Camera System. Both the stellar and the terrain cameras 

functioned well during the mission. Defense Mapping 

Agency analysts rated the results “outstanding.” Numerous 

small man-made features were easily detected and often 

identifiable; a baseball diamond, a small aircraft on a 

taxiway, individual homes with driveways and automobiles. 

This was quite remarkable for a 12-in focal-length lens at 

a 92-mile altitude. The stellar photography also provided 

adequate star images in both magnitude and quality.

A CHANGE IN MANAGEMENT

When President Nixon approved the CIA proposal for a 

follow-on imaging system as the next photo reconnaissance 

system in September 1971, Carl Duckett, DDS&T, and 

other CIA officials, began to look for ways to ensure that 

the new program was properly staffed. They asked DNRO 

John McLucas to consolidate all aspects of the Hexagon 

program under Program A (SAFSP) so that Program B 

(CIA) could concentrate on the new revolutionary system. 
33

CRITICAL TO US SECURITY: THE GAMBIT AND HEXAGON SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS COMPENDIUM

McLucas agreed and transferred Program B responsibilities 

for Hexagon to Program A. The transfer went smoothly and 

on 1 July 1973, Gen David D. Bradburn, Director SAFSP, 

formally assumed all responsibility for management of the 

Hexagon system, wiring the CIA “we will do our very best 

to continue the proud record.” The CIA’s Office of Special 

Projects was now free to focus on the next generation of 

imagery satellites.

The Hexagon program continued to fly with everimproving results after the transfer. Unfortunately, the 

Hexagon program ended on 18 April 1986. A catastrophic 

Titan 34D failure, nine seconds after lift-off, terminated the 

20th and final Hexagon mission. Nevertheless, during its 13 

year-life, Hexagon proved to be an invaluable intelligence 

collection tool.

SUMMARY 

Despite numerous delays and large cost over-runs, 

Hexagon met 70 to 80 percent of all the U.S. Intelligence 

Community’s surveillance requirements. Considering 

that the Soviet Union encompassed an area of almost 7 

million square nautical miles, the mature Hexagon system 

would image about 80 percent of this area, cloud-free, on 

a typical mission. During its lifetime, Hexagon played a 

key role in monitoring Soviet research and development, 

production, and deployment of strategic offensive and 

defensive weapons systems. It made possible the first 

SALT in 1972. Hexagon's broad area coverage capability 

provided U.S. officials a high degree of confidence, that 

the United States could detect any new Soviet installations 

or activities early in the construction phase. The ability 

of Hexagon to furnish high quality imagery of military 

installations also allowed U.S. intelligence analysts to 

develop and maintain very accurate, order-of-battle 

information on Soviet and Chinese forces.36 Entire Soviet 

military districts, for example, could, at times, be imaged 

on a single mission. These images provided current and 

accurate force-structure assessments. Hexagon's broad 

area coverage provided the U.S. analysts opportunities 

to monitor large-scale Soviet military exercises. In March 

1979, for example, when the Soviets staged a major military 

exercise in Mongolia, in response to the Chinese attack on 

Vietnam, Hexagon captured the Soviet mobilization.

Hexagon was also tasked to provide coverage of Soviet 

and Chinese nuclear test sites; often providing complete 

coverage of these test sites often in a single image. This 

allowed U.S. officials to closely monitor test preparations 

and assemble data on the tests themselves. Hexagon also 

played a key contributing role in U.S. economic forecasts 

and projections regarding the Soviet economy. During its 

lifetime, Hexagon provided economic intelligence on Soviet 

heavy metal production, oil and natural gas exploitation, 

nuclear production, and conventional electrical power 

capacity. It also photographed Soviet grain-growing 

regions allowing accurate U.S. predictions on Soviet grain 

production.

In addition to its coverage of the Soviet Union and China, 

Hexagon produced more detailed knowledge of third world 

development than any system before or since. Moreover, 

the Defense Mapping Agency and other government 

agencies that produced maps and charts were almost solely 

dependent on Hexagon for mapping source materials. Not 

a bad job for an over-sized “Big Bird.”

35

CONCLUSION
36

SECTION I: HISTORY - CONCLUSION

During the heart of the Cold War, the National 

Reconnaissance Office (NRO), with its Central Intelligence 

Agency (CIA) and Air Force components and their industry 

partners, designed, developed, built, and operated the 

Gambit and Hexagon photoreconnaissance satellite 

systems. The growing reality of a Soviet nuclear arsenal, 

the development of Soviet nuclear-tipped intercontinental 

ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and a vigorous Soviet nuclear 

weapons program, combined with an increasingly 

complex and divisive Vietnam conflict, created a global 

crisis atmosphere for U.S. policymakers during the 1960s 

and 1970s. A sense of extraordinary urgency swept over 

Washington as U.S. officials searched for intelligence on 

the Soviet Union and its allies.

This crisis atmosphere drove the NRO effort to 

develop the next generation of search and surveillance 

satellites and to provide U.S. decisionmakers with ever 

more detailed imagery. Building on the pioneer efforts 

and accomplishments of the Corona program, U.S. 

designers, engineers, scientists, and managers pushed 

photoreconnaissance and space flight technologies 

to their limit in order to meet the demand for more and 

better photographs from space of Soviet activities.

Most program officials felt the security of the United States 

depended upon their success.

The years of Gambit and Hexagon program development 

were marked by great vision, repeated disappointment 

and failure, and finally by extraordinary triumphs. Gambit, 

an NRO/Air Force/private industry effort strove to capture 

clear details of Soviet weapons activity. Under constant 

pressure to achieve results quickly and operating almost 

totally in a “black” environment, the Gambit program 

suffered from excessive compartmentation and secrecy. 

Corona program development, with its successes and 

failures, for example, remained virtually unknown to 

Gambit officials. This resulted in duplication of effort 

and long delays in design and testing time. Only the 

introduction of Corona technologies such as the stabilizing 

Agena second stage “hitchup,” the state-of-the-art rolljoint, the Lockheed developed “Lifeboat,” and Corona 

recovery techniques saved the early Gambit program 

from cancellation and catastrophic failure. Frustrated time 

and again with system problems, the Gambit team finally 

reached its goal of routinely providing U.S. intelligence 

analysts with high resolution imagery. It was a giant step 

from the fuzzy, 20- to 30-ft resolution imagery provided by 

the early Corona cameras. This imagery was even better 

than manned reconnaissance photography. It amazed 

U.S. photointerpreters.

Overcoming technical uncertainty, Gambit scientists 

and engineers not only brought a revolution to space 

photography but they made major improvements in 

satellite command and control systems, time on orbit, 

and target coverage. Its impact on U.S. intelligence 

capabilities was enormous. Combined with the imagery 

data from Corona and Hexagon, Gambit provided the U.S. 

Intelligence Community with over 90 percent of its hard 

data on the Soviet Union. For the first time, using Gambit 

imagery, U.S. officials had detailed factual information and 

accurate mensuration data to actually develop engineering 

drawings on Soviet weapons capabilities. This helped 

U.S. officials save billions of dollars in U.S. weapons 

development alone. President Lyndon Johnson expressed 

his appreciation for these satellites when in early 1967, 

he informed a meeting of American educators that these 

satellites “justified spending ten times what the nation had 

already spent on space.” “Because of this reconnaissance,” 

the President confided to the group, “I know how many 

missiles the enemy has.” President Johnson also knew, 

because of Gambit, the approximate capabilities and state 

of readiness of Soviet ICBMs.

Hexagon, like Gambit, was a daring technological 

challenge. An NRO/CIA/industry program, Hexagon 

became the ultimate film-return photoreconnaissance 

satellite system. It, like Gambit, suffered hard times during 

its development stages. Not only were there technological 

problems to overcome—camera and film design, reflective 

and refractive mirror construction, and film movement—

but Hexagon also suffered from constant bureaucratic 

struggles over who would control the program. The often 

bitter debates between the NRO and the CIA caused major 

delays in design and development time. This resulted in 

serious launch slippages and major cost overruns. Originally 

proposed as a cost-saving system to replace Corona and 

Gambit, Hexagon became the most expensive system yet 

built. Nevertheless, Hexagon proved to be an extraordinary 

success. It had the capability of providing stereoscopic, 

cloud-free photography over 80 to 90 percent of the SinoSoviet landmass on each mission. In addition, Hexagon 

had the unique ability to satisfy surveillance and mapping, 

charting, and geodetic data requirements. Hexagon 

imagery, by providing continuous direct evidence of Soviet 

activities, helped eliminate the surprise element for U.S. 

officials and increased the Intelligence Community's and 

U.S. policymakers confidence in the overall intelligence 

product. It provided the hard data for analysis. It also 

provided assurance to U.S. leaders negotiating arms 

limitation agreements with the Soviets.

Gambit and Hexagon proved to be of paramount 

importance to U.S. policymakers. With these systems, 

U.S. officials had detailed information on Soviet strategic 

weapons development and deployment. Any new Soviet 

ICBM complex or development, such as mobile missile 

deployment, was quickly detected. Soviet construction of 

antiballistic (ABM) sites, nuclear submarines, aircraft, and 

naval vessels, and Soviet ballistic missile launchings were 

all carefully monitored by Gambit and Hexagon. Conceived 

and built under a crisis situation, these systems stretched 

space technologies and ultimately performed well beyond 

their initial expectations. They were truly, “Critical to U.S. 

Security.” 
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ENDNOTES
38

SECTION I: HISTORY - ENDNOTES

1. Traditionally, photointerpreters divided reconnaissance photography into two categories. One was “search.” 

It was dedicated to finding something. Corona was a 

search system. Its cameras were designed to photograph 

large contiguous areas in a single frame of film. The second observation function was “surveillance.” Once it was 

determined there was something of interest there, the surveillance system provided detailed information on the particular target.

2. For a review of the missile gap controversy see 

Roy E. Licklides, “The Missile Gap Controversy,” Political 

Science Quarterly 85 (1970): 600-615. For a detailed 

review of the U-2 program see Gregory W. Pedlow and 

Ronald E. Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency 

and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and Oxcart 

Programs 1954-1974 (CIA, 1992) (S). In August 1957, 

the Soviets launched a long-range ballistic missile. On 4 

October 1957, they rocked U.S. policymakers by orbiting 

Sputnik I (the first artificial earth satellite; it weighed 84 kg 

or 185 pounds) and in November 1957 the Soviet Union 

announced the launching of another earth satellite weighing 900 kg or 1,980 pounds. See Gerald K. Haines, The 

National Reconnaissance Office, Its Origins, Creation, and 

Early Years (NRO, 1997), pp. 12-13, Cargill Hall “PostWar Strategic Reconnaissance and the Genesis of Project 

Corona,” and Robert A. McDonald, ed., Corona: Between 

the Sun and the Earth, The First NRO Reconnaissance 

Eye in Space (American Society for Photogrammetry and 

Remote Sensing, 1997), pp. 25-58. No U-2 operations 

were to be carried out after 1 May because the President 

did not want anything to disrupt the Paris Summit scheduled to begin 16 May 1960.

3. For a discussion of the shoot-down and the aftermath of the U-2 downing, see Pedlow and Welzenbach, 

pp. 177-187. The Soviets prepared an elaborate show trial 

for Powers which began on 17 August 1960. The Soviets 

sentenced him to 10 years in prison. On 10 February 1962, 

the Soviet exchanged Powers for captured Soviet spy 

Rudolf Abel.

4. Corona was to be a stop-gap effort until the much 

larger and complex Air Force W117L Samos Satellite became operational. See Hall, pp. 42-51; Haines, pp. 14-15; 

and McDonald, pp. 61-74. At the same time, Eisenhower 

approved plans for the CIA to develop a follow-on plane 

for the U-2.

5. Richard M. Bissell, Jr., with Jonathan E. Lewis and 

Frances T. Pudlo, Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From 

Yalta to the Bay of Pigs, (New Haven: Yale University 

Press, 1996) p. 137.

6. The Air Force had the task of developing a high-resolution “spotting” satellite.

7. In early 1958 President Eisenhower set up a Satellite 

Intelligence Requirements Committee (SIRC) within the 

Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC) to establish requirements for satellite reconnaissance. In July 1960, the 

United States Intelligence Board (USIB) (The IAC was 

the predecessor body to the USIB.) merged the Ad Hoc 

Requirements Committee (ARC), originally established by 

Richard Bissell as an intragovernmental unit to oversee 

the tasking requirements for the U-2, with SIRC to form 

a new unit, the Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance 

(COMOR). William M. Leary, ed., The Central Intelligence 

Agency, History and Documents (Birmingham, Alabama: 

University of Alabama Press, 1984).

8. Samos originally had two planned photographic 

capabilities E-1 and E-2. These involved the on-orbit exposure and processing of film, translation of that imagery 

into an electrical signal by means of a flying-spot scanner, 

and transmission of the signal to earth for recomposition 

as a picture. E-3 was the designator for a system which 

substituted photosensitive electrostatic tape for film; E-4 

was used to identify a proposed mapping/geodetic photographic system; E-5 was a recoverable satellite with a 

large recovery vehicle; and E-6 was a recoverable-film 

search system with several times the capability of Corona. 

E-1, E-2, and E-3 were readout systems, E-5 and E-6 were 

film-recovery systems. Only E1, E-2, and E-6 ever flew.

9. Oxcart was the next generation of manned reconnaissance aircraft. Although originally developed to overfly the Soviet Union, it never did. Improvements in Soviet 

radar and the SAM missile made such overflights impossible. The Air Force version of Oxcart was known as the 

SR-71 or Blackbird.

10. Kevin C.Ruffner, ed., Corona: America's First Satellite 

Program, (Washington, DC: CIA History Staff, 1995).

11. Kodak set up a special unit to deal with Gambit. Dr. 

Frank Hicks directed the program at Kodak. He reported to 

the director of Special Projects, Dr. Frederic C. E. Oder. The 

Special Projects organization reported to Arthur Simmons, 

director of research and engineering of the Apparatus and 

Optical Division. The Gambit project received the highest 

priority within Kodak because of its national priority. Earlier, 

as an Air Force officer, Oder was the original WS-117L 

project officer and was witting of the entire Corona effort.

12. Most of the Samos program's photo-oriented reconnaissance had been canceled and the E-6 program was 

experiencing grave technical problems—four failures in 

four tries.

13. Greer’s instruction to King emphasized these goals: 

1) stay within budget; 2) stay on schedule; and 3) obtain 

one good picture.
39

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14. Because of rigid compartmentation of programs, 

only Col Riepe in the Gambit program office had a working 

knowledge of the Corona program. Lacking any indication 

that unpressurized operation was possible, (The Corona 

experience with unpressurized operation had been employed successfully for two years.) Gambit officials assumed that the pressurization of the film cassette would 

have to be continued in the new recovery capsule.

15. The CIA program Lanyard at this point had some 

prospect of filling the proposed Gambit role.

16. Charyk resigned to become president of the newly 

formed Communications Satellite (Comsat) Corporation.

17. Corona operation continued reasonably successfully 

during the summer of 1965, only one major mission failure 

in three flights, but Corona did not return the detail that intelligence analysts needed to interpret Soviet force status.

18. See later discussion of Gambit-3.

19. When first considered, Gambit-3 was informally referred to as Advanced Gambit, and G3, or G-Cubed. G-3 

eventually became the accepted designator for the successor program, although upon the completion of the original Gambit program and the start of Gambit-3 operations 

that suffix was dropped and it became simply the Gambit 

program. For the sake of clarity, this study will continue to 

distinguish between the two systems using Gambit-1 for 

the first program and Gambit-3 for the follow-on.

20. The dominant cause for differences between targets 

programmed and targets readout in the entire Gambit-3 

program was cloud cover. The introduction of weather satellites helped, but the problem persisted as long as cloud 

cover data was delayed.

21. The dominant cause for differences between targets 

programmed and targets readout in the entire Gambit-3 

program was cloud cover. The introduction of weather satellites helped, but the problem persisted as long as cloud 

cover data was delayed.

22. The development of near-real time imagery systems 

made the Gambit-3 film return system obsolete.

23. 0ne way of obtaining greater resolution is to use a 

longer focal-length lens. The other is to improve “acuity” 

of the existing system by enlarging and enhancing the imagery. In the beginning of the Corona program there were 

finite limitations on the size of the lens because of the 

weight restraints of the booster vehicle. The optimum focal 

length was a 610 mm refracting lens. Throughout the 14-

year Corona program, the focal length of the system never 

changed—it was 610 mm for the KH-1, KH-2, KH3, KH4, KH-4A, and KH-4B cameras. Any increase in the focal 

length would have required a spacecraft with a larger diameter and greater payload capacity. It would have meant 

abandoning the heavy refracting-type lenses and developing reflecting-type systems that used mirrors and smaller 

lens cells. Given the limitations of the launch vehicles, the 

Corona team concentrated on improving the acuity of the 

610 mm system.

24. McMillan was at odds with McCone and Wheelon 

over a host of NRO/CIA issues. He wrote to Secretary 

of Defense, Robert McNamara, on 12 December 1963, 

that “the final price of peace with the CIA ‘considering the 

temperament of its leaders’ was at least to give the CIA 

carte blanche for development of a new search system.” 

McMillan believed that unless something like this was 

done, or the CIA management changed, there would be 

continued obstruction to the NRO and its activity.

25. Wheelon estimated that a single Fulcrum launch 

could return as much film as the Corona and Gambit programs and cost less.

26. The ExCom was made up of the DCI, John McCone, 

the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and the 

President's Scientific Advisor.

27. The Panel consisted of Land, chairman, Dr. Sidney 

Drell, Dr. Donald Ling, Dr. James Baker, Dr. Allen Puckett, 

Dr. Edwin Purcell, and Dr. Joseph Shea.

28. CIA and Itek squabbled over the angle through which 

the camera system would scan. The CIA demanded a 

120-degree scan. Itek officials felt this angle was too large 

and would seriously prejudice the Fulcrum design.

29. In fact, the Land Panel had made no recommendation on the new camera system by the time McCone resigned as DCI in April 1965. President Lyndon Johnson 

replaced McCone with Vice Admiral William F. Raborn, Jr.

30. Wheelon recruited a new Fulcrum program chief and 

John J. Crowley as Chief SPS. Crowley was, at the time, 

heading the Corona project.

31. The ExCom consisted of DCI Raborn, Deputy 

Secretary of Defense Vance and Presidential Scientific 

Advisor, Dr. Donald Horning.

32. Total Perkin-Elmer employment in the Norwalk, 

Connecticut, area was 2,800 (1,350 of these in the Optical 

Group, of which 150 were involved with Hexagon).

33. The number of Corona vehicles was now severely 

limited. There were only 11 left in the barn. They could only 

be stretched out so far.
40

SECTION I: HISTORY - ENDNOTES

34. The CIA reported that even an Improved Corona 

could never provide search resolutions much better than 

4.5 ft. The Budget Bureau questioned whether a 1.5 ft difference in resolution could possibly be worth the major 

cost it estimated it would take to complete the Hexagon 

program. The decision was already made, however.

35. The Bureau of the Budget was simply dismayed at 

the size of the satellite programs underway in the CIA, Air 

Force, and NRO.

36. The high quality of Hexagon imagery is often overlooked because the Gambit program, which produced 

imagery of the very highest quality, overlapped Hexagon. 

Nevertheless, Hexagon was capable of meeting most 

Intelligence Community requirements.
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SECTION II: 

SYSTEMS

REQUIREMENTS
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The United States’ call for imagery from space can be 

traced back to efforts to identify technological means 

for preserving the hard won peace achieved by winning 

World War II. The forerunner to today’s Rand Corporation 

produced the first study to identify how technology could 

be leveraged to obtain images from space. For nearly a 

decade, Rand continued to refine their analysis, leading 

the US Air Force to begin a formal satellite reconnaissance 

program in 1956 known as WS117L, and later as Sentry 

and then Satellite and Missile Observation System 

(Samos). Corona, Gambit, and Hexagon find their origins 

in this program.

As important as technical innovation was to development 

of space-based imagery, the purposes for the systems—

or requirements as they are often known—were as 

important. The Air Force established requirements as 

early as 1955 in the General Operational Requirements 

for a Reconnaissance Satellite Weapon System. We have 

included in this volume the 1958 version of the report 

which provides the earliest requirements for imagery from 

space. Some of those requirements include: warnings of 

ballistic missile attacks, assessment of adversaries’ military 

capabilities, support of US war plans, and identification 

of adversaries’ intentions. The document also describes 

desired technical requirements for such a system including 

visual, electronic, infrared, and mapping capabilities. 

These requirements would significantly influence both the 

Gambit and Hexagon programs.

We included a 1958 Air Force memorandum outlining 

the requirements for the Sentry—later known as Samos—

photoreconnaissance satellite. In this memorandum, the 

Air Force identifies specific kinds of strategic targets. The 

memorandum also includes technical requirements for 

gaining insight into the specified strategic targets. 

By July 1960, the United States Intelligence Board (USIB), 

chaired by the Director of Central Intelligence, Allen 

Dulles, fully endorsed a photoreconnaissance satellite. 

The USIB issued a report that uses the proposed Samos 

program to explain how satellite reconnaissance will meet 

requirements to better understand long standing strategic 

targets. The report emphasizes the unique contributions 

that an imagery satellite can make to reveal insight into the 

Soviet Union and other denied areas. 

The Eisenhower Whitehouse played a very prominent 

role in the development of photoreconnaissance satellites. 

In August 1960, James Killian, Eisenhower’s Science and 

Technology Advisor, issued a report that affirmed the need 

for imagery satellites. The report supported developing 

film return systems rather than film readout systems. Most 

importantly for Gambit, the report affirmed the need for a 

high resolution satellite in conjunction with Corona’s broad 

area search capabilities. 

By 1963 Corona had established a record of returning 

wide-area imagery. Gambit was poised to offer high 

resolution imagery. The defense and intelligence 

communities explored the question of whether or not to 

develop a new system to replace Corona—one with high 

resolution, but wide-area capability. Edward Purcell led a 

panel of experts to explore this question. Although they 

concluded that pursuing a new system to replace Corona 

was premature at the time, the CIA was not dissuaded 

from developing the Fulcrum system that would eventually 

become the Hexagon system. This early report lays out the 

parameters of the debate that followed concerning widearea imagery capabilities.

The USIB tasked the Committee on Overhead 

Reconnaissance (COMOR) to make a recommendation 

on developing a new satellite system with Gambit-like 

resolution and Corona-like coverage. The USIB reviewed 

the COMOR’s recommendation in a 29 July 1964 meeting 

based on an analysis of long-range requirements for 

photoreconnaissance. We have included the COMOR’s 

recommendations along with the decision memorandum 

from the meeting. The USIB agreed with the COMOR 

conclusion to continue the Gambit system improvements, 

but also pursue CIA’s efforts in developing a new search 

system. The USIB’s recommendations would serve as 

a strong basis of support for what would become the 

Hexagon program.

SECTION II: SYSTEMS REQUIREMENTS
43

LIST OF SYSTEMS REQUIREMENTS DOCUMENTS

1. Report: U.S. Air Force, General Operational Requirements for a Reconnaissance Satellite Weapon 

System, 26 September 1958...................................................................................................................................44

2. Memorandum: Air Force, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Major General James H. Walsh, 

Intelligence Requirements for SENTRY, 10 November 1958 ..................................................................................49

3. Report: CIA Director Allen W. Dulles, Intelligence Requirements for Satellite Reconnaissance 

Systems of Which Samos is an Example, 5 July 1960............................................................................................55

4. Report: Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Report of a 

Special Panel on Satellite Reconnaissance, 25 August 1960 .................................................................................74

5. Memorandum and Report: Edward Purcell to the Director of Central Intelligence, Panel for Future 

Satellite Reconnaissance Operations, 3 July 1963 .................................................................................................82

6. Memorandum and Attachments: United States Intelligence Board, Long-Range Requirements for 

Satellite Photographic Collection, 27 July 1964 ....................................................................................................104

7. Memorandum: United States Intelligence Board, Long-Range Requirements for Satellite 

Photographic Collection, 31 July 1964 ..................................................................................................................133

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SECTION III: 

PROGRAM

INITIALIZATION
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The Air Force was responsible for initiating Gambit as 

part of the Satellite and Missile Observation System 

(Samos) program. Samos was mostly an overt program 

with several components including film retrieval and film 

readout systems. The film retrieval elements would fully 

mature in the form of the Corona and Gambit programs. 

The film readout elements, beset by multiple difficulties, 

would eventually wither. The only exception was National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) use of 

Samos technology for lunar imaging to support the Apollo 

program. Hexagon initialization really began in the Central 

Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) Directorate of Science and 

Technology. There, CIA scientists worked with Itek and 

later Perkin-Elmer to develop the Fulcrum imaging system. 

CIA development efforts caused significant tension with 

the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Eventually 

CIA and NRO leadership reached a mutually acceptable 

accommodation where the CIA developed the optics and 

camera system and the Air Force was responsible for the 

development of the other major system components, with 

overall responsibility assigned to CIA’s Program B housed 

at the NRO. 

Since the Gambit systems can trace their origins 

directly back to the Samos program, we have included 

the Operational Order for Samos. The Order includes 

the assignment of Brigadier General Robert Greer as 

Director of the Samos Project Office. Greer would also 

oversee the early development of the Gambit system. The 

document also includes the structure and responsibilities 

of the Samos program and relationship to other Air Force 

elements. 

By the end of 1960, the policies for the Samos program 

office were well developed. We have included a 

memorandum with a classified attachment that summarizes 

the governance structure for the Samos program as well 

as the integration of the Gambit program. The document 

provides early and concise insight into the efforts and 

systems that comprised the Samos program. 

Security has always been a significant concern for 

national reconnaissance satellites. The Security Guidance 

of an Unclassified Nature Relating to SAMOS describes 

the unclassified purposes of the Samos program, basic 

configuration and other technical details, and the uses of 

military assets supporting the program. More importantly, 

the document reveals how the Samos program was 

presented to the public, allowing Gambit to hide in plain 

sight as an element of that program.

Gambit traces its origins to early camera system proposals 

from Eastman Kodak known as Blanket and Sunset Strip. 

We included early company correspondence that confirms 

initial contact with what would become the Air Force’s 

Program A housed in the NRO. Eastman Kodak would 

eventually supply the Gambit Camera systems as well as 

provide film processing for all US intelligence community 

film return satellite imagery systems.

In other correspondence, Eastman Kodak identifies 

preliminary schedules for the Blanket and Sunset Strip 

programs as well as budget estimates and capabilities 

estimates. The package also includes recommendations 

for organizational and management structures to 

support the development of the then challenging space 

reconnaissance systems. 

By late 1961, Blanket and Sunset Strip had evolved 

to Project Cue Ball. We include a project summary that 

provides significant details of the program that would 

eventually become Gambit. It includes an overview of the 

program, the program management approach, schedule 

estimates, as well as cost estimates. The document 

includes descriptions of the industrial contractors 

supporting the project and the facilities used in the project. 

The document was released shortly after the formation of 

the NRO in September 1961. 

Gambit would be succeeded by the Gambit-3 program. 

The original Gambit program provided high resolution 

imagery that became critical to intelligence analysis on a 

host of issues. NRO’s Program A developed the Gambit-3 

to achieve even higher resolution and longer mission 

duration. We include an early program management 

plan that contains an overview of the program, technical 

aspects of the program, as well as schedule and finance 

information. 

By the mid 1960’s Corona’s successful capture of wide-area 

imagery allowed the United States significant advantages 

in searching for threats in the broad expanses of the Soviet 

Union and other denied areas. The Corona success also 

led to development efforts for wide-area search capabilities 

with even higher resolution than Corona could provide. We 

include a CIA program document that details CIA’s early 

efforts to test such a system known then as Fulcrum. The 

CIA’s effort in the first phase tasking would eventually 

lead to the Hexagon system and some significant tension 

with the Air Force in getting there. The phase one testing 

would assess Fulcrum’s film handling capabilities, camera 

system and optics, facilities needed to support the system, 

and design and engineering requirements. 

CIA’s Fulcrum project caused tension with the NRO, 

despite the agreed upon approach for testing Fulcrum 

described in the previous document. We include a 

program memorandum to the DCI that describes an 

earlier memorandum from the Director of National 

Reconnaissance who raised concerns about Fulcrum to 

the CIA’s Deputy Director for Science and Technology. The 

CIA and NRO disagreed over whether or not the phase 

one testing was for design purposes or for development 

purposes. This document provides the CIA’s internal 

response to the NRO concerns. 

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When Alexander Flax became Director of the NRO in the 

fall of 1965 he inherited an impasse between the NRO 

and the CIA over the Fulcrum system. In his 29 April 1966 

memorandum to Air Force and CIA program leaders, Flax 

describes the resolution of the impasse where the CIA 

would assume responsibility for the optics and camera 

system and the Air Force would assume responsibility for 

the remaining elements of the program. This document 

provides significant details on the anticipated technical 

capabilities of the new system. 

LIST OF PROGRAM INITIALIZATION DOCUMENTS

1. Organizational Instruction: Operational Order for the Satellite and Missile Observation System, 

Lieutenant General Bernard A. Schriever, undated...............................................................................................142

2. Organizational Instruction: The Basic Policy Concerning SAMOS, Memorandum from Major General 

R. M. Montgomery, 29 December 1960*...............................................................................................................178

3. Security Instruction: Security Guidance of an Unclassified Nature Relating to SAMOS, Colonel 

Harry L. Evans, undated........................................................................................................................................183

4. Letter: Kodak’s Arthur B. Simmons to Air Force Undersecretary for Research and Development 

Joseph V. Charyk, Preliminary Schedules for Blanket and Sunset Strip, 22 July 1960 ........................................187

5. Report: Major General O.J. Ritland, Project Cue Ball: Outline Development Plan, 9 November 1961 .......200

6. Report: Colonel William G. King, Program Management Plan, Project G-3, 1 February 1966....................226

7. Report: CIA Directorate of Science and Technology, Preliminary Project Fulcrum Phase I Tasking, 

1 July 1964 ............................................................................................................................................................243

8. Memorandum: CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology Albert D. Wheelon to the Director 

of Central Intelligence, Project FULCRUM, 30 September 1964 ..........................................................................248

9. Memorandum: Director of the National Reconnaissance Office Alexander Flax to Director of Special 

Projects, SAF and Director of Reconnaissance, CIA, System Operational Requirements for the New 

Search and Surveillance System, 29 April 1966....................................................................................................252

10. Letter: President of the Perkin-Elmer Corporation Chester W. Nimitz, Jr., Cover Letter for Design 

Definition of Hexagon Optical Sensor, 21 July 1966 .............................................................................................279

* Pages including full-page redactions and blank pages have been removed from this document.

In a 21 July 1966 cover letter for the Perkin-Elmer Hexagon 

optical sensor design proposal, Perkin-Elmer President 

Chester Nimitz, Jr. highlighted significant elements of his 

company’s proposal. Those highlights include: establishing 

a separate optical technology division, acquiring a new 

facility committed to the Hexagon program, and recruitment 

of an additional professional personnel to support the 

effort. Nimitz also highlights characteristics of the system 

including: 2.7 foot resolution from 95 miles above the earth, 

a thermal design that yielded a favorable environment for 

optics, and an optical design that provided for a generous 

focus tolerance. Perkin-Elmer would provide the system to 

the CIA and successfully contribute to the overall success 

of the Hexagon program.

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SYSTEMS

CAPABILITIES
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We have selected the documents for this section to 

highlight the capabilities of the newly declassified Gambit, 

Gambit-3, and Hexagon systems. The documents describe 

the individual camera systems and were developed to 

help producers and consumers of imagery intelligence 

understand the camera systems’ capabilities. 

We included the National Photographic Interpretation 

Center’s KH-7 Camera System Part I because this 

document presents general technical information for early 

exploitation of photography from KH-7. The document 

provides details on the strip, stellar, and index cameras 

that composed the integrated KH-7 camera system and 

flew on the Gambit system. The document highlights 

measurement capabilities as well. 

LIST OF SYSTEMS CAPABILITIES DOCUMENTS

1. Technical Document: KH-7 Camera System (Part I), National Photographic Interpretation Center, 

July 1963 ...............................................................................................................................................................287

2. Technical Document: The KH-8B Camera System (Third Edition), National Reconnaissance Office 

and National Photographic Interpretation Center, October 1970 ..........................................................................305

3. Briefing Book: Project Hexagon Overview, National Reconnaissance Office, 25 January 1978* ..............334

* Pages including full-page redactions and blank pages have been removed from this document.

The NRO and NPIC collaborated on a very similar 

document for Gambit-3. The KH-8B Camera System 

contains detailed information on the main strip camera 

as well as the cameras used to position the satellite—the 

terrain and stellar cameras. A comparison of the KH-7 and 

KH-8 camera system books reveal the significant advances 

that were made with the operation of the Gambit-3 system.

We opted to include the NRO’s Project Hexagon 

Overview because it contains a very thorough description 

of Hexagon acquisition, operations, and search capability. 

The document contains descriptive diagrams explaining 

functions of Hexagon camera systems and is one of the 

single best documents we found in our review for explaining 

the overall Hexagon system.

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447

SECTION V: 

SYSTEMS

CONTRIBUTIONS
448

This set of documents describes the intelligence 

capabilities of the systems as well as their successes. 

Gambit and Hexagon were each designed for specific 

intelligence purposes. However, they worked together by 

providing more flexible and persistent imagery coverage 

for countering the threats posed by U.S. adversaries 

including China and the Soviet Union.

The first document in this section is a 1967 report 

prepared for then Director of the National Reconnaissance 

Office (DNRO), Alexander Flax, which summarizes the 

Gambit program. The report is rich in historical details, 

system capabilities, and management approaches. The 

report summarizes the growth in capabilities as the 

system matured, the technical problems encountered, and 

procurement aspects such as the incentive fee structure 

and costs. 

DNRO John McLucus requested a similar report for 

Gambit-3, also known as program 110. Although the report 

was prepared early in the life of the Gambit-3 program, we 

included it in this compendium because it was modeled 

after the earlier Gambit report. The two together provide 

a unique opportunity to compare the systems at this point 

in time. Like the Gambit report, we also find rich details of 

the programs uses and early successes. The report also 

addresses intelligence value, satellite operations, technical 

issues, and procurement costs.

American space companies were essential partners in the 

NRO’s successful satellite programs. We have included 

two corporate documents from Lockheed Missiles and 

Space Company. The documents describe the successful 

launch of late Gambit vehicles. In a letter from Lockheed’s 

Reginald R. Kearton to DNRO Flax, Kearton identifies 

intangible reasons for the Gambit including cooperation 

and management harmony between the military and 

contractors. He identifies tangible factors of success 

including effective design, effective launch preparations, 

and realistic cost estimation. 

In an interesting memo concerning Hexagon, a National 

Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) manager 

describes the innovations that Hexagon prompted in the 

exploitation of imagery. The memo identifies innovations 

in equipment, management, and personnel management. 

The memo also identifies how Hexagon influenced 

consideration and analysis of intelligence targets. 

Finally, we included the second volume of The KH-9 

Search and MC&G Performance Study. The study reviews 

KH-9 performance and briefly summarizes the satellite 

system, the evolution of search requirements, and names 

specific examples of contributions made by KH-9 to the 

mission. The study concludes that Hexagon, in general, 

satisfied the most important intelligence requirements.

LIST OF SYSTEMS CONTRIBUTIONS DOCUMENTS

1. Report: Analysis of Gambit Project, 24 August 1967* ................................................................................449

2. Report: Analysis of Gambit (110) Project, Brigadier General William G. King, 28 April 1970* ...................487

3. Report Excerpts: Program 206-II System Performance, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space 

Company, undated ................................................................................................................................................ 511

4. Letter: Major Factors Contributing to Program 206-II Success, written to Alexander Flax, 

13 November 1966................................................................................................................................................513

5. Memorandum: Innovations and Trends in Exploitation in the Western Geographic Division, IEG 

caused by the KH-9 System, 20 March 1973........................................................................................................517

6. Report: The KH-9 Search and MC&G Performance Study (Volume II), National Photographic 

Interpretation Center, October 1977*.....................................................................................................................520

* Pages including full-page redactions and blank pages have been removed from these documents.

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587

SECTION VI: 

PROGRAM

CONTROVERSIES
588

The Gambit and Hexagon imagery satellite systems offered 

the nation unparalleled capabilities at the time they were 

developed. They also resulted in a range of controversies 

in the very secret world in which they were born. The Air 

Force used the publically acknowledged Samos program 

to provide cover for Gambit. Samos was beset, however, 

with a number of problems that would eventually lead to 

the termination of the program. Various organizational 

elements wanted to gain some role in the Gambit program, 

resulting in additional tensions. The Hexagon program 

began as an independent effort in the Central Intelligence 

Agency (CIA) to develop a new generation of imagery 

search satellites. The CIA’s independence caused concern 

and consternation within the National Reconnaissance 

Office (NRO) and the Air Force. The documents in this 

section represent some, but not all, of the concerns and 

conflicts that arose with the Gambit and Hexagon systems.

The Samos satellite program faced some very significant 

obstacles including development of new technology and 

new processes. By 1960, the Samos program was failing 

to meet program goals. On 1 July 1960 the Air Force 

Reconnaissance Panel and Samos Working Group met to 

discuss a revised Samos development plan. The minutes 

report from the meeting summarizes the urgency to 

address the difficulties encountered in the Samos program 

including significant attention from Dr. Joseph Charyk, 

Under Secretary of the Air Force, the Secretary of Defense, 

and the President of the United States. The concerns were 

magnified by a high level disagreement over the Air Forces’ 

technical approach including doubts about the planned 

primary dependence upon readout photography. The 

minutes reflected that the overall problem was how “to get 

the Samos program off dead center.” Samos would later be 

terminated by Under Secretary Charyk who was serving 

as the Director, NRO (DNRO). The Gambit program which 

was imbedded in the Samos program would be retained.

Plans for the Gambit program originally called for a 

land-based recovery of Gambit film. Program managers 

proposed this approach since it would permit recovery in 

the continental United States. The land based recovery 

approach introduced a number of technological challenges 

in order to protect the film upon landing. The protective 

mechanisms also added considerably more weight to 

the system. In a memorandum included here, Dr. Charyk 

discusses a land based recovery versus mid-air retrieval 

recovery. The memorandum affords insight into his 

decision-making processes. Dr. Charyk opts for the mid-air 

retrieval over the Pacific Ocean that had worked for Corona. 

This decision allowed significant weight reductions in the 

Gambit vehicle and proved to become a reliable means of 

recovery.

We have included a memorandum on efforts by the 

Military Air Transport Service to assume responsibility 

for the recovery of film return capsules. The Air Force 

Systems Command had demonstrated proficiency at 

mid-air retrieval by the time DNRO McMillan wrote this 

memorandum. In the memorandum he indicates that little 

would be gained by the proposed takeover, but much could 

be harmed. The mid-air recoveries required highly trained 

pilots and specially modified aircraft. McMillan explains 

that merger into a larger organization would do nothing to 

improve either crews or equipment. 

DNRO McMillan became increasingly frustrated during 

his tenure with efforts outside the NRO to develop 

national reconnaissance systems. In an early letter to the 

CIA’s Deputy Director for Science and Technology, Bud 

Wheelon, McMillan addresses the establishment by CIA 

of a joint working group for satellite photography efforts. 

Although cordial, McMillan requests that the CIA curtail 

efforts in meeting some of the working group objectives, 

especially with respect to the NRO’s emerging Gambit 

and SR-71 programs. McMillan also seems to curtail 

access to Air Force facilities responsible for assembly and 

launch of the spacecraft. The letter serves as an exemplar 

of future conflicts between McMillan and CIA leadership 

where McMillan tries to rein in CIA space imagery efforts, 

especially with the Hexagon program.

Perhaps one of the most dramatic days in either the Gambit 

or Hexagon program was 24 February 1965. On that day, 

the leadership of Itek Corporation very surprisingly decided 

to discontinue their development efforts for the Fulcrum 

program follow-on. We have included three memorandums 

that describe the events on that day. The Itek leadership 

was able to meet with DNRO McMillan, and Polaroid 

Corporation President Din Land to explain their decision. 

McMillan happened to be attending a panel meeting nearby, 

chaired by Land to consider the options for pursuing a new 

wide area search satellite system. The memorandums for 

the record from McMillan and Paul Worthman capture the 

drama of the day. They also illustrate the level of animosity 

that had developed between NRO senior leadership and 

CIA’s senior leadership over the Fulcrum program.

By the summer of 1965, the NRO and the CIA had agreed 

on “ground rules” for moving ahead with development 

of a new wide-area search satellite. Those ground rules 

are described in a memorandum from Fulcrum program 

manager, Jackson Maxey to the CIA’s Deputy Director 

for Science and Technology. Both organizations agreed 

to fund, at approximately the same level, efforts to further 

develop concepts for the new system, but not purchase 

hardware. As noted earlier, the CIA was pursuing the 

Fulcrum program using a new camera system. The Air 

Force was examining modifications to Gambit that would 

allow it to perform wide-area search missions. The efforts 

would continue, pending a recommendation from the 

panel chaired by Din Land to decide the best approach for 

procuring the new wide-area search system. 

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Dr. Alexander Flax began serving as DNRO on 1 October 

1965. By the middle of his first month as DNRO, Flax 

received a task group report on proposed management 

of the new wide-area search satellite. One of his first 

challenges was to settle the dispute over how the CIA 

and the Air Force should participate in the development 

of the new system. We have included three memos that 

address division of responsibility for system development 

and management. Dr. Flax received viewpoints at 

the beginning of November 1965 from CIA’s program 

manager, the Air Force’s program manager, and from the 

NRO staff director. Each offered assessments on how the 

labor could be divided most effectively to develop the new 

system. Flax carefully weighed the positions advocated by 

the NRO, Air Force, and CIA. By the spring of the following 

year he would recommend that CIA develop the sensor 

for the system and that the Air Force provide all other 

support for the new system, first known as Helix and then 

as Hexagon.

After resolving concerns about the management of the 

Hexagon system, the CIA and NRO would face questions 

about whether the cost of Hexagon was worth the additional 

capabilities offered by the system. In 1968 and 1969 there 

was a significant exchange of letters with the Bureau of the 

Budget (BoB) over this basic question. We have selected 

two letters to illustrate the basics of the arguments on both 

sides. Acting Director of Central Intelligence, Rufus Taylor, 

in his December 1968 letter explains the new capabilities 

that will be offered by Hexagon including higher resolution, 

time stamping, and the ability to verify Soviet forces as 

well as strategic nuclear capabilities. In his March 1969 

letter responding to Director of Central Intelligence 

Richard Helms, the BoB’s Robert Mayo, reviews the BoB 

assessment that Gambit and Corona have near sufficient 

capabilities for satisfying intelligence requirements. The 

argument would continue for the next several months until 

President Richard Nixon decided in June, 1969 to preserve 

Hexagon’s funding. 

While NRO and CIA leadership addressed Hexagon 

budget issues with the BoB, the leaders also faced 

questions about the Hexagon program schedule and 

likelihood of success. In 1969, DNRO, John McLucas 

asked his deputy, Robert Naka, to assess the likelihood that 

Hexagon would be on schedule and the likelihood of initial 

success. Naka’s review panel would issue three reports 

before the first successful Hexagon launch in June 1971. 

We have included the first report where Naka concluded 

that the system would likely launch within six months of 

the planned December 1970 initial launch and that it would 

very likely succeed. Naka and his panel proved to be right 

on both accounts. The two additional reports can be found 

at NRO.gov. 

The competition and tension between CIA and the Air 

Force continued into the 1970’s. The final document 

included in this section highlights both. CIA program 

manager Robert Kohler provides reliability assessments 

of the Corona, Gambit, and Hexagon systems. In his 

assessment, Kohler determines reliability based on 

percentage of film returned rather than percentage of 

recovered capsules. Using this approach, he concludes 

that the Air Force’s Gambit systems were less reliable than 

the CIA’s Corona and Hexagon systems. The competition 

and tension between the Air Force and CIA programs 

at the NRO would continue until they were merged into 

functional organizations in the early 1990’s.

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SECTION VI: PROGRAM CONTROVERSIES

LIST OF PROGRAM CONTROVERSIES DOCUMENTS

1. Report: US Air Force, Minutes of Joint Meeting of Reconnaissance Panel and SAMOS Working 

Group, 1 July 1960 ................................................................................................................................................591

2. Memorandum: National Reconnaissance Office, Approval to Re-Orient Program 206 to Air Retrieval 

Over Pacific Area, 19 September 1962 .................................................................................................................603

3. Memorandum: Director of the National Reconnaissance Office Brockway McMillan for the Vice 

Chief of Staff, USAF, Space Recovery Responsibility, 18 October 1963 ..............................................................609

4. Letter: Director of the National Reconnaissance Office Brockway McMillan to Central Intelligence 

Agency Deputy Director of Science and Technology Albert Wheelon, Concerning the Establishment of 

the Satellite Photography Working Group, 18 November 1963............................................................................. 611

5. Memorandum: Colonel Paul E. Worthman Memorandum for the Record, Telephone 

Conversations with Representatives of the Itek Corporation, 24 February 1965 ..................................................615

6. Memorandum: Colonel Paul E. Worthman Memorandum for the Record, Itek Discussions with 

Dr. McMillan and Dr. Land, 25 February 1965.......................................................................................................617

7. Memorandum: DNRO Brockway McMillan Memorandum for the Record, Discussion with Itek 

Leadership and Pullout from Fulcrum Follow-on, 25 February 1965.....................................................................618

8. Memorandum: Fulcrum Program Manager Jackson D. Maxey to Deputy Director for Science 

and Technology, Ground Rules for the New Search System Competition, 2 August 1965 ...................................623

9. Memorandum: John Martin, SAFSP Director to Director of the National Reconnaissance Office 

Dr. Alexander Flax, Comments on Alternate Management Arrangements for the New Photographic 

Satellite Search and Surveillance System, 4 November 1965 ..............................................................................625

10. Memorandum: Huntington D. Sheldon CIA’s Director of Reconnaissance to the Director of the 

National Reconnaissance Office Alexander Flax–CIA Comments Concerning Alternative Management 

Arrangements for the New Photographic Satellite Search and Surveillance System, 4 November 1965.............634 

11. Memorandum: Brigadier General James T. Stewart, Director of NRO Staff Department of the 

Air Force for Dr. Alexander Flax, Task Group Report for Alternative Management Arrangements for 

the New Photographic Search and Surveillance System, 5 November 1965 .......................................................636

12. Letter: Acting Director of CIA Rufus Taylor to Director of Bureau of the Budget Charles Zwick, 

Concerning Memorandum Regarding FY1970 Hexagon Funding, 20 December 1968........................................640

13. Letter: Robert Mayo Bureau of the Budget to Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms, 

Concerning Assessment of Hexagon Contributions, 22 March 1969*...................................................................644

14. Report: Deputy Director of the National Reconnaissance Office Robert Naka, Report of the 

Hexagon Review Committee, 4 September 1969 .................................................................................................653 

15. Letter: CIA Program Manager Robert Kohler, Concerning the Reliability of Corona, Gambit, and 

Hexagon Film Return Systems, 20 February 1973 ...............................................................................................665 

* Pages including full-page redactions and blank pages have been removed from this document.
591

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SECTION VII: 

PROGRAM

CONGRATULATIONS
672

When the first imagery was reviewed from the Corona, 

Gambit, Gambit-3, and Hexagon film return imagery satellite 

systems, intelligence analysts, national reconnaissance, 

and policymakers praised each advance in piercing the 

iron curtain. There are numerous recorded compliments 

for these remarkable systems, and many more unrecorded 

comments. 

We have selected four congratulatory documents for this 

compilation. The first is a letter of congratulations from 

Director of Central Intelligence, Richard Helms, for the first 

successful launch of the Gambit-3 system, which gave 

the nation high resolution satellite imagery capabilities. 

The next two memorandums are from Director of 

Central Intelligence William Casey and Director, National 

Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Pete Aldridge commending 

NRO teams responsible for the highly successful launch of 

the 17th Hexagon mission. 

The final document might seem like an unusual choice, the 

transition plan for Hexagon from the Central Intelligence 

Agency (CIA) program at the NRO to the Air Force 

program at the NRO. It is a compliment in a way. First, 

it demonstrates that despite controversies and tensions, 

the elements of the NRO worked effectively to support the 

nation’s intelligence and national security needs. Second, 

it represents an organizational accommodation to allow the 

reallocation of resources to focus on the next generation of 

imagery satellites that have proven, and continue to prove, 

a key asset for keeping the American people safe and 

secure in an unpredictable world.

LIST OF PROGRAM CONGRATULATIONS DOCUMENTS

1. Letter: Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms to Director of the National Reconnaissance 

Office Dr. Alexander Flax, Congratulations on First KH-8 Mission, 18 August 1966 .............................................673

2. Letter: Director of Central Intelligence William Casey, Commendation for the Operation of Hexagon 

Mission 1217, 3 January 1983...............................................................................................................................674

3. Memorandum: Director of the National Reconnaissance Office Edward C. Aldridge, Letter of 

Appreciation from the Director of Central Intelligence William Casey, 7 January 1983.........................................675

4. Report: National Reconnaissance Office, Hexagon Transition Plan, March 1972.......................................676

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