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4.

AHistory of

Satellite Reconnaissance

Volume I

PREPARED FOR

THE NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE

. Reproduction in part or totaHsnot authorized

without express approval of the Director, NRO.

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by

Robert Perry

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A HISTORY OF SATELI4ITE4M0Q1414/AISetAN6E •

Volume I CORONA'

•

Revised Octobeir 4.973

firorti earlieydrafti

1964, 1967, and 1972

•

4..14 ... Volume

kt

• • •• •

'N.

. •

• Cla5sifiscl EilKAtj,

Exempt from general declassification

' Scheilute of Executive (>ier 11652

Exemption category Iss 582)J

.AutcMetically declassified on

IMPOSSIBLE TOI*TSRMINE 

I consists of 262144igeS;

2

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Preface to Volume I

This volume of A History of Satellite Reconnaissance is principally

concerned with the Corona program, although it necessarily deals with

predecessor reconnaissance satellite activities (Project Feedback, the

• Advanced Reconnaissance System, Weapon System 117L, "Samos, "

"Sentry, " and several other short-lived activities), with concurrent and

alternative programs (the several Samos E-series projects, Argon,

Lanyard, and various Corona variants), and with successor programs

(chiefly Gambit and Hexagon). The Samos or WS 117L programs, under

their several names, are treated in Volume II. Volume III contains the

histories of the Gambit and Hexagon programs to 1973, the date of this

note. A fourth volume, concerned with non-photographic reconnaissance

satellites, was also in preparation at that time. Volume V, intended to

detail the policy issues and organizational activities of the National

Reconnaissance Office, carries the treatment of those topics through

1965; as of 1973, no firm plans for additional coverage had been made.

The preparation of this and other volumes of this history began

in 1963 at the suggestion and under the initial direction of Major General

Robert E. Greer, then head of the West Coast activities of the National

• Reconnaissance Office. It was carried on, though spasmodically rather

than at a steady pace, under the sponsorship of his successors in that

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post, chiefly Major General John L. Martin, Jr., Brigadier General

W. G. King, Major General Lew Allen, and Brigadier General David D.

Bradburn. An early and constant supporter of the project was Colonel

Paul E. Worthman, whose association with overflight reconnaissance

extended from the original balloon-lofted Genetrix cameras of 1954

through the U-2, Corona, Oxcart, Gambit, Hexagon, and the many

lesser programs of the National Reconnaissance Program, until his

retirement in 1969. A listing of the many other contributors to the

history would occupy several pages. Their names appear in the citations

that follow each chapter, an inadequate but necessary acknowledgement

of advice, assistance, and information. I was from time to time

assisted in research and writing b formerly of

the Rand Corporation, and by Robert A. Butler of Technology Service

Corporation; of Technology Service Corporation detected

and corrected a frighteningly large number of textual and substantive

errors that escaped my notice and that of early reviewers. Notwithstanding such assistance, I remain wholly responsible for whatever

errors of omission or commission that escaped the scrutiny of critics

and associates. I am also responsible for a textual structure which

assumes the reader's familiarity with many aspects of the United

States space prbgram that perhaps were memorable mostly to specialists

iv
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and experts. This history is concerned with events that for the most

part have not been otherwise discussed in any continuing narrative.

' The circumstances of its preparation did not allow for a full explanation

of peripheral events described in generally available publications.

Had it been otherwise, these volumes might have been many times

bulkier and much less marked by'assurnptions of prior knowledge.

extenuation, I can but note that even Gibbon made such excuses.

ROBERT PERRY*

March 1974

(At no time during the preparation of this volume was the author

formally employed by or assigned to any element of the National

Reconnaissance Office or the Central Intelligence Agency. Between

1962 and 1964 he was head of the Air Force History Office of the Space

Systems Division, Air Force Systems Command, operating in support

of the Directorate of Special Projects, Office of the Secretary of the

Air Force, Space Systems, by virtue of a special arrangement between

that office and the Commander, Space Systems Division. From 1964

to 1971 he was a member of the Senior Staff of the Rand Corporation,

working with the Directorate of Special Projects with the agreement

of the President of the corporation. From 1971 to 1973 he functioned

as a special consultant to the Directorate under a contract between

that organization and Technology Service Corporation, Santa Monica,

California. Throughout the period from 1962 to 1973, research and

writing were performed on a part-time basis, with frequent and sometimes lengthy gaps between periods of active work.)

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Preface 

Foreword vii

Notes on Sources ............ . xxv

•

I BACKGROUND 1

Notes 28'

II CORONA - PHASE I 32

Notes 103

III THE MATURATION OF CORONA (1961-1972) . 111

Notes 226

Illustrations have been separately bound in an Appendix volume.

vi

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Foreword to Volume I

Although largely concerned with Corona, this volume also includes

discussions of the origins of satellite reconnaissance and of the interactions between the Corona program and various other of the overflight

•activities of the National Reconnaissance Program and its organizational

predecessor s, including the Central Intelligence Agency.

The antecedents of Corona and its adolescent years are treated

in Chapters I and II, respectively. Chapter III opens with a cursory

review of Corona activities before 1961, but is mostly concerned with

the operations and subsequent evolution of the Corona system through

its final mission in May 1972. Although they are interrelated, each of

the three chapters can stand alone.

Some matters of considerable importance to Corona are dealt

with inadequately or not at all in this volume. Each omission of that

sort was deliberate. Issues of management policy, program proprietorship, and reconnaissance program organization were frequent intruders

in the Corona program, but because they had a unity of their own, and

because such issues generally involved far more than Corona, their

treatment has mostly been relegated to Volume V. So with cover and

security matters; .although some incidents and events directly relevant

vii

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to concealment of Corona program activity have been. described in

this volume, those topics are not explicitly discussed. Such specialized

aspects of satellite reconnaissance operations as vulnerability, countermeasures, and the exploitation of returned photography have also been

considered only in passing. Technical matters like the carriage of

"piggyback payloads, " improvements in photochemistry and film, and

the development of reentry and recovery machinery have been little

mentioned. They require specialized historical coverage and are not

integrals of Corona .

Some readers may wish to proceed directly to Chapter In, which

covers Corona matters from the time of first successful operation

to the end of the program. To ease that process, this foreword includes

two specialized summaries, one dealing with program nomenclature

(which proved in the end to be far more confusing than even the most

dedicated obscurer of program reality could have wanted), and the

second with complexities of program structure and conduct to 1966,

after which they became much less confusing.

Nomenclature

Code names have been a fixture of the U.S. security system

since the mid-1930s, whdn.they were applied to contingency war plans.

They proliferated during World War II, achieving levels of faddishness

viii

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not surpassairuntif-the 1960s, when every operation more complex

than moving bookcases from one office to another acquired some

exotic nickname. So many were the variants of Operation Bootstrap

and Project Forecast that the important nicknames and codes could

scarcely be distinguished from the wholly frivolous. Corona may be

uniquely distinguished in that respect. It was never frivolous, and

in an activity that lasted more than 14 years, counting from conception

to final flight, the Corona system of 1972 continued to carry the name

first formally applied to its ancestor of 1957. It had little more in

common with that ancestor than its name, and even that was tampered

with from time to time. Covert, classified, and unclassified names

and designators for Corona appeared, were briefly used, and disappeared

with disconcerting frequency. To moderate the confusion that would

surely arise were names either introduced without explanation or explained

as they occurred, it is advisable to begin with a review of program

designators and titles.

All of the many model variations of Corona fell basically into

three fundamental versions and two payload variants. The first Corona

was a single-camera, single-recovery-capsule system; the second a

single-capsule, dual-camera stereo system; and the third a dual-recovery

capsule, dual-camera stereo system. With three exceptions, all versions

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Those exceptions were transitory; Mural, Argon, and Lanyard,

each discussed below.

Between April 1961 and 24 January 1962, the name Mural was

used to identify the original stereo-camera variant of Corona. During

that brief period, program managers proceeded on the assumption

that the follow-on to the original single-camera program would occupy

its own security compartment and needed to be segregated from its

predecessor. The possibility that Mural might be developed and

operated by the Air Force, with only peripheral CIA participation,

was a factor, but at the time there was considerable worry that association of Corona nomenclature with what was then represented to be the

scientific-satellite "Discoverer" program would compromise U.S.

credibility. The U-2 embarrassment of May 1960 could not be easily

forgotten. In any event, as Mural moved toward operational readiness

it became increasingly apparent that any effort to disguise its ancestry

was certain to be futile, and in January 1962 Mural was merged into

the existing Corona security package. •

Before Mural appeared, three different camera configurations

were flown under the Corona nomenclature: "C, " "C', " and "C'"."
confusion with the Mural-2 or M-2 nomenclature used to identify an

**

early concept of what later became the Corona J-4 proposal. Mural-J 

eventually became Corona-J . With the appearance but non-acceptance

Both Itek and Fairchild proposed C" designs; as noted later, Fairchild's

design was more attractive. The C" proposal was also known, briefly,

as C-61.

**

In fact, virtually nobody active in the M-2 evaluation remembered

the earlier appearince of M2 . Historians and file clerks were the

principal victims of the confusion.

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The names all derived from the informal but common practice of

conversationally.referring to Corona by its initial. The first improvement of the original camera, "C, " was known as C' --"C-prime" in

conversation. Proposals for C" and C" ( RC-double-prime" and

"C-triple-prime") cameras appeared in 1959 and 1960, the first a

Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation (FCIC) design, the

latter advocated by Itek (which had manufactured and done most of

the design for the original C and the C' cameras). Itek's C" proposal

found acceptance; C" disappeared.

After Mural (which during 1962 and most of 1963 was called

Corona-Mural and Corona-M to distinguish it from the predecessor

• C' and C" models), there appeared proposals for a dual-recovery-

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capsule version of Corona. It first was known as Mural-J and was

transiently called M2

(for Mural-squared)--which led to some later
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of a proposal for a modest improvement of Corona-J under the informal

designator Corona 3-2 , the original of the dual-capsule systems was

called Corona J-1, a designation that became meaningful rather than

symbolic upon adoption of the modifications that distinguished the last

operational Corona variant, Corona J-3 . Corona J-4 proposals appeared

in various guises and under several transitory identifiers at intervals

between 1962 and 1969, but the term had no official standing.

One of the payload variants was the mapping camera program

called Argon, but also sometimes identified as Corona-A . It was

compartmented separately from Corona until 1965, nominally because

it differed from the basic Corona: reconnaissance satellite in detail

and function, but also because it had Army rather than Air Force

or CIA funds sponsorship.

In addition to the mono, stereo, and mapping camera systems

flown under Corona bylines, yet another photographic instrument,

known by the code name Lanyard, used Corona hardware as its foundation. Lanyard, an adaptation of a camera originally developed as part

of the Samos E-5 program, was carried forward until its October 1963

cancellation partly as a backup for the Gambit system and partly as a

•

candidate replacement for COrona, although it would have ill-served

either role. Sometimes identified as Corona-L, the Lanyard stereo

system embodied an accommodation of various Corona camera

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subsystems to re-engineered Samoa E-5 optics; it utilized a modification of the .Thor-Agena booster-spacecraft combination developed for

Corona and the Corona film recovery system.,

Although codeword nomenclature was invariably used for Corona

and its variants within what became the BYEMAN security system, a

great many classified and unclassified designators were employed over

the years to identify the several Corona models and variants in dealing

with people not cognizant of the program's real purpose. "Discoverer"

was the first unclassified program designator; it disappeared from

official use in 1962 but, like "Samos, " remained a favorite of the press

for several years thereafter. The pretense that Discoverer was either

a scientific statellite or an engineering development satellite had been

relatively easy to maintain while most missions ended in failure. But

once the launch, orbit operations, and recovery techniques being

nominally tested in Discoverer had been debugged and successful

missions became the rule rather than the exception, it was increasingly

difficult to maintain the credibility of such a fiction. Pacification of

•

the scientific community became particularly awkward. Too many

scientists wanted to know when Discoverer would begin carrying their

various bulky and weighty scientific experiments, as had rather vaguely

been suggested in 1958, or at least when they would begin receiving

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some of the biological and astrophysical data presumably being collected by way of Discoverer missions. By late 1962, the representation

that Discoverer was a scientific and engineering research vehicle was

rapidly losing its appeal as a cover story. It was therefore abandoned.

Discoverer XXXVII, launched on 13 January 1962, was the last Corona •

to carry the name. It was also the last mono (C t ") camera mission.

All later Corona operations were casually announced as "Department

of Defense satellite launches, ' as were all other military space operations, whatever their real nature. Fortunately for all concerned, NASA

satellites which really were what they pretended to be began to-return

quantities of scientifically interesting data in the early 1960s, and that

too tended to distract attention earlier focused on Discoverer.

Within the defense community generally, and to a lesser extent

within the Corona program, the "white" designator used most often as

a program identifier once Discoverer disappeared was "Program 162."

However, at various later times the numerical designators 241, 622A,

Program 12, and Program.75 were also applied to Corona . In 1959. and

1960, it was briefly known as "Program IIA, " and Argon as "Program IA."

In the separate TALENT-KEYHOLE security category (covering the

product of satellite reconnaissance operations), the code KH-4 was

used to identify Corona-Mural mission products. Other KH codes,
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including KH-2, and KH-3, identified predecessor products

**

of the C , C' , and C s " cameras, respectively.

Individual mission numbers were also used in series that

readily identified Corona operations to most cognizant reconnaissance

program participants. Mission numbers in one of four series identified ,

all of the satellite reconnaissance operations that involved a Thor

booster, an Agena spacecraft, and one or more Corona reentry capsules.

The first series began with 9001, (the mission publicly called

Discoverer IV) and continued through 9066A (the last Argon flight). It

included all Corona operations through the end of the Corona-M series

as well as all flights with Argon cameras. The second mission number

series ran from 1001, the first Corona-J (dual capsule) mission, through

1052, the final Corona J-1 operation. The third, which was used solely

for Corona J-3 operations, began with 1101 and continued through 1117,

the final Corona program flight of May 1972. Lanyard operations were

numbered 8001, 8002, and 8003.

Numbered source citations are consolidated at the end of each section.

**

KH-1 applied only to mission 9009, the only successful operation to

use the original Fairchild-Itek camera system; KH-2 applied to the

products of missions 9013, 9017, and 9019, all of the successful C'

missions; the KH-3 designator covered the products of all Corona C" 

operations; KH-4 applied to Corona-M mission products; KH-4A

products resulted from Corona 3-1 operations; and KH-4B terminology

applied to the products of Corona J-3 missions.

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The 9000, 9000, 1000, and 1100 mission numbers overlapped and within

series were not necessarily used sequentially, by launch date. Some

•

additional disorder in 9000-series program records occurred because

of the irregular use of the suffix letter "A" to identify Argon operations,

and because in formal program records some mission numbers appeared

twice, both with and without the suffix. (The mission numbered 9014 in

Corona program records was listed as an Argon operation, while the

separately listed 9014A was not; 9066A was an Argon mission, and there

was no separate 9066. )* In any case, the suffix designators were not

consistently used in all Corona reporting documents even though the

Argon program records listed all cartographic camera operations by

mission number with suffix. Interspersed through the late 9000-series

mission numbers and the early 1000-series numbers were the three

Lanyard missions--8001 through 8003.

• In the narrative that follows, the term Corona is used as a

generic. Where necessary, the subset identifiers C, C', C lu , Mural,

Corona-M, Corona-J or Corona J-1, and Corona J-3 are used to single

•

out specific elements of the overall program. As appropriate, missions

are identified by mission number and date of launch. That practice has

been followed in the interests of clarity even if the source documents

The mixup was in record keeping, not in real designation. There was

only one mission 9014, and it did carry an Argon camera. It should

have been entered, in all cases, as 9014A.

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actually refer to "Program IIA, " "Program 162, " or some other of

the many transient identifiers used in 14 years of Corona activity. .

Argon operations were not really part of the Corona program

but generally were treated as such because of equipment and operational similarities. To perform its cartographic function, Argon

flew much higher than Corona and used a much shorter (3-inches

focal length) lens and a different camera mechanism, but in most

outward respects it was indistinguishable from a Corona-C. or C' .

Between 1961 and the end of 1964, 13 Argon launches were attempted.

Six missions were accounted successful in some degree, and the

remainder failures. Notably, six of the first seven mission attempts

failed, but only one failure occurred (on 26 April 1963) in six launches

. during the last two years of Argon operations. 2

 Mission numbers,

included in the original Corona series, were 9014A, 9016A, 9018A,

9020A, 9034A, 9042A, 9046A, 9055A, 9058A, 9059A, 9065A, and 9066A.*

The several Samos photographic reconnaissance systems

proposed or developed at intervals between 1955 and 1963 are discussed

in Volume IL They are occasionally mentioned in connection with

These mission numbers were for Arson missions and should not be

counted in any Corona accounting, although summaries written in

1968 and after frequently ignored that circumstance, most people

having by then forgotten about Argon.

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DECLASSIFIED BY: C/IART —TOP-SSCIRSTDECLASSIFIED ON: 7 MAY 2012 Corona development tn-tne chapteffiu that follow. In order to avoid

confusion, it seems necessary to identify them here. All carried

"E" designators followed by a number, as E-1 and E-5. (There were

IIA, "B, " and other designators, but not in the photo satellite series.)

E-1, E-2, and E-3 were readout satellites. E-1 was built and flew

once; E-2 was constructed but cancelled before flying, and E-3 never

passed the preliminary development stage. The appearance of Corona

made them functionally obsolete. E-4 was a mapping camera alternative to Argon, built but never flown, and made obsolete with the

development of a mapping capability in stellar-indexing cameras first

flown with Corona. E-5 was to be a surveillance system and E-6 a

search system complementing Gambit; both flew and both were technical

failures, but in any case Gambit and Corona successes made them

valueless.

Gambit was, of course, the only successful American photoreconnaissan e satellite development of the 1960s other than Corona.

The develop ent of the P-35 weather reconnaissance satellite is

described in ifolurne II. It had what could be technically described

as photo-reconnaissance capability, but only in jest. So with NASA's

weather satellites, chiefly Tiros.

References to other reconnaissance programs are self-ekplanatory.

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StructureInalettim

Basic modes of conducting the Corona program were established

by 1961 and did not change greatly thereafter. The Thor booster and

Agena spacecraft used in all Corona operations were procured and

launched "in the white" and were funded under ordinary Air Force

budgets. (The Army funded most of Argon.) Thor and Agena research

and development programs were funded and conducted "in the white, "

though occasionally classified as to design detail and operating capability.

The reconnaissance payload and payload-peculiar equipment were

developed and procured covertly, "in the black," mostly with special

Central Intelligence Agency funds. "Piggyback" payloads were purchased

by their several sponsors. Pre-launch mating of the payload, booster,

and spacecraft was performed as a covert operation in a secure facility

at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Mission control and recovery operations

were covert. Obviously, complete concealment was impossible because

missile launches, radio transmissions, and extensive aircraft operations

could not be wholly curtained from public observation. Their purposes

could be disguised, however, and for the most part were, for more than

a decade. Recovery operations received occasional and unwanted

*

BYEMAN security procedures were developed as one of the offshoots

of the Coroni program. All the available evidence indicates that they

were entirely adequate.

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attention, but once U.S. satellite launches had become commonplace

there was surprisingly slight public interest in the possible reconnaissance missions of those identified as "DoD launches."

Occasionally, of course, there were embarrassing trespasses

on Corona security. In April 1961, for instance, the San Francisco

Examiner , in commenting on some testimony before a Senate committee

concerning the need for a B-70 strike reconnaissance aircraft, observed

that "amazing intelligence work . . . by the cameras of the Discoverer

satellite . . ." had not overcome the need for manned systems. Not

quite a year later the London Daily Mirror credited Discoverer with

having "recently" brought back reconnaissance photographs of Russia.

But these were speculative items. Perhaps the most disturbing of

early security leaks was a column by Joseph Alsop that appeared in

the New York Herald-Tribune (and other papers) in December 1963.

Alsop, who characterized himself as Richard Bissell's "oldest friend, "

briefly summarized much of the early history of Corona, mentioning

Major General 0. J. Ritland's involvement and identifying August 1960

as the date on which the U.S. first recovered photographic evidence

that no Soviet intercontinental missiles were yet emplaced. He

As detailed in Chapter I, Bissell and Ritland were indeed responsible

for much of the program's success, and August 1960 was the key date.

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credited Bissell's enterprise with having led to a major change in the

strategic posture of the United States. 3

 But again there were no indications of lasting damage, and Corona went on much as before.

The management of the several phases and aspects of the Corona

program varied from time to time. The original Corona program was

managed almost entirely by Air Force officers, some officially assigned

to the Central Intelligence Agency but most to the Air Force Ballistic

Missile Center (of the Air Research and Development Command) or its

•

organizational descendents. The CIA role was initially confined "almost

exclusively" to "top-level general support, contracting services, and

security factors. "

4 With the appearance of Mural, the development

and configuration selection aspects of the program became responsibilities of CIA field and headquarters representatives, many of whom were

Air Force officers on detached service. Between 1963 and 1966 the

question of Corona management responsibility was an open issue that

frequently caused friction between the CIA and the Director of the

National Reconnaissance Office. It did not become regularized again

until the approval of Hexagon development in April 1966 finally relegated

Corona to the status of a terminal system largely managed by the

Special Projects Office in Las Angeles. 

*

The involved and disputive question of NRO authorities and responsibilities involved much more than Corona, of course. The matter is

discussed elsewhere in this history.

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Argon management generally resembled that of Corona except

that the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) was

a member of the configuration control board and exercised considerable

authority in the decision process. Lanyard was managed by a program

office reporting to the Directorate of Special Projects, the West Coast

' operating arm of the National Reconnaissance Office.

Contractual arrangements were as varied, and frequently as

controversial, as were program management responsibilities. The

precursor Corona camera was designed by Professor Walter Levison

of Boston University (later a founder of Itek), under contract to the CIA.

Its technological antecedents stemmed from the earlier development of

a camera for the U-2 and the still earlier Genetrix camera used in

free balloon reconnaissance of the Soviet Union in the mid-1950s. The

CIA originally expected Fairchild Camera to design and produce the

C camera, but Bissell's judgment and USIB (United States Intelligence

Board) and CIA preferences caused Itek to become the camera system

designer, and Fairchild a subcomponent designer and manufacturing

subcontractor (later an associate contractor). Fairchild participation

largely vanished with the 1960 decision to adopt the Itek-designed C'"

camera rather than the C" version Fairchild favored. Lockheed •••••n•••

performed the. spacecraft-camera integration work under contract

to the CIA.

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with the appearance of Corona-Mural, the earlier and less

formal arrangement became a tightly structured contractual relation-

.

ship. Lockheed performed system engineering and technical direction

functions under the nominal cognizance of the Directorate of Special

Projects but under the contractual control of the CIA. Itek was an

associate contractor rather than a subcontractor to Lockheed. So

was General Electric, manufacturer of the reentry capsule and

associated subsystems. As late as March 1961 the CIA suggested

that complete responsibility for Corona-Mural should be transferred

from the CIA to the NRO. Dr. J. V. Charyk, then Director of the NRO,

concluded that Corona would phase out shortly, being replaced by the

Samos E-5 system, and that reorganization of existing relationships

for so brief a period would be wasteful. However, complete responsibility for Lanyard was assigned to the NRO, to be exercised by the

Directorate of Special Projects. The substitution of the Aerospace

Corporation for Lockheed as system engineering and technical

• direction contractor for Corona was proposed as early as 1962 but

remained an issue between the CIA and the NRO through 1965. 5

Thor launch vehicles were purchased under an open contract between

Douglas and the Air Force.

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The 1966 1966 resolution of Corona management controversies made

the Director of Special Projects, NRO, system program director for

Corona with authority over system and subsystem development and

with authority to create a unitary System Program Office to manage

details of the program. The Director of Reconnaissance, CIA, controlled and supervised development and production of the payload (then

Corona-J) but reported directly to the Director, NRO (as did the

Director of Special Projects, NRO). 6
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NOTES ONO SOURCES

NPIC Technical Publication NPIC/ TP-1/62, "Modification of

KH-4 Keyhole Camera System, " Feb 62; NPIC/TP-2/67, "The

KH-4A Camera Systems, " Mar 67; NPIC/TP-17/63,

1 June 63.

See NRP Satellite Launch History, a printout of stored data on

Argon, Corona, Gambit, and Lanyard programs updated at

regular intervals. The copy cited here was current through

Oct 72. Argon is treated in greater detail elsewhere in this

history.

San Francisco Examiner , 15 Apr 61, p 18; London Daily Mirror,

5 Mar 62; New York Herald-Tribune, 23 Dec 63, J. Alsop column.

Memo, A.H. Flax, DNRO, to C. Vance, D/SecDef, 25 Apr 66,

subj: Reactions to Proposal on New General Search System;

summary notes by J. V. Charyk, DNRO, 1962, in NRO files.

The records on Corona management and contracting are, to

say the least, voluminous, particularly for the 1964-1965 period.

Basic arrangements were variously specified. See: personal

notes, J.V. Charyk, DNRO, 1962, in NRO files; MFR, Col P. E.

Worthman, Corona progm ofc, 30 Apr 60, in SAFSP files;

msg 1477, Worthman to CIA, 8 Nov 60; msg 1651, SAFSP to CIA,

8 May 61, msg CIA to LtCol C. L. Battle, Corona ofc,

29 Apr 61; meg CIA to MGen R. E. Greer, Dir/SP,

16 Aug 62; msg 0323, LMSD to BMD, 6 May 60; mss ,3555,

R. Bissell, CIA, to MajGen O.J. Ritland, BMD, 16 Sep 60; msg 3555

9468 and 9559, CIA to Battle, 22 Mar and 6 Apr . 61; MFR, LtCol

R.J. Ford, SAFSP, 25 May 61; MFR, Worthman, 21 Mar 61;

memo, Charyk to D/Dir, Res, CIA, 2 Apr 62, no subj, and

D/Dir, Res, CIA to Charyk, 5 Apr 62; draft study, "NRO Functions

and Responsibilities, " prep by NRO staff, 22 Nov 61, all in SAFSP

and NRO files. See alio, .memo, Flax to Vance, 25 Apr 66;

memo, Flax to Dir/Recce, CIA, 22 Jun 66, subj: CORONA

Management of NRO/NRP Problems, prep by Worthman, Dir,

Plans and Policy, NRO Staff, 1 Sep 69, in NRO files. The 1964-

1965 period has been extensively treated in Vol V, which should

be consulted.

6. Memo, Flax to Dir/Recce, CIA, and Dir/SP, SAF, 22 Jun 66;

msg Hq CIA to Corona progrm ofc, 10 May 66, both

in NRO files.

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I BACKGROUND

As early as May 1946, Project RAND had formally suggested to

the Army Air Forces the advisability of developing a satellite and--in

one application--using it for reconnaissance. Although nothing useful

emerged from the resulting discussions--the Army and Navy differed

sharply on who should have responsibility for space vehicles--RAND

renewed the suggestion again in February 1947 and by the end of that

year, following creation of an independent United States Air Force,

service specialists at Wright Field had endorsed the general thesis.

Principally because no money was available for such an undertaking,

nothing more venturesome than a continuing study program was

immediately authorized. However, at the urging of Wright Field's

Engineering Division, which was concerned by the possibility that the

Navy might actually construct and launch a small satellite, the Air

Force early in January 1948 formally staked a token claim to responsibility for all space vehicles. Largely because they had no valid grounds

for objecting, the other services let the dictate stand by default.'

Progenitor of The Rand Corporation, but then a special element of

the Douglas Aircraft Corporation.

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By early early 1951, RAND was sponsoring design work on such

components as a television system and an attitude sensing device,

both vital to any later reconnaissance satellite. In April 1951, RAND

officially defined the technical and engineering characteristics of such

a satellite, proposing television transmission of photographs to ground

stations. Over the next two years, six individual contractors conducted

feasibility and design studies of reconnaissance satellite components

and subsystems. Concurrently, the Atomic Energy Commission--at

the urging of the Air Force--began work on small auxiliary power

reactors capable of functioning in orbit.

In May 1953, Air Force headquarters made the Air Research

and Development Command responsible for management of the reconnaissance satellite proposal, and five months later RAND formally

urged that command to begin planning for the early start of system

development. Receptive project officers in the command headquarters

had by January 1954 succeeded ' in transforming RAND's "Project

Feedback" proposal into a tentative development called the "Advanced

Reconnaissance System--Weapon System 117L." In a final summary

report of March 1954, RAND recommended that the Air Force undertake "the earliest possible completion and use of an efficient satellite

•

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reconnaissance vehicle" as a matter of "vital strategic interest to

the United States." On 27 November 1954, ARDC headquarters

published a system requirement which officially established a satellite

2

development program.

System management responsibility was initially assigned to

Wright Air Development Center but in October 1955, after preliminary

design and development contracts had been let, ARDC transferred

custody to its Western Development Division, created about a year

earlier to manage the revitalized ballistic missile development. The

close relationship between the satellite and its prospective booster,

the Atlas missile, chiefly prompted the decision.

The first complete development plan for a reconnaissance

satellite, proposing full operational capability by the third quarter

of 1963, appeared on 2 April 1956. (A plan for an "interim" satellite

with "scientific" applications had been prepared in January.) Exclusive

of facilities, development cost was estimated a The

first year of system work, fiscal 1957, would requir

'Over the preceding 10 years had been expended on the

program, including RAND studies and all component developments.

For obvious reasons, progress had been agonizingly slow. With

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approval of the development plan (24 July 1956) and issuance of a

confirming development directive (3 August 1956), the financial

•stringency seemed to be passing, but the initial funds allocation for

fiscal 1957, when it appeared, totaled only111.3

Nevertheless, Western Development Division on 29 October.

1956 issued a letter contract to Lockheed Aircraft Corporation which

made that firm the prime contractor for WS 117L. Design studies had

originally been solicited in December 1954, when Wright Air Development Center moved to invite the participation of 18 individual contractors.

The violent objections of RAND Corporation to such a shotgun approach

caused a last-minute change of plans and the original invitations were

suppressed. (Only one had actually been mailed and it was recovered,

unopened.) On orders from Air Force headquarters (prompted by

RAND's insistence that "unique and unusual" security was vital), the

Air Research and Development Command directed that only Lockheed,

Bell Telephone Laboratories, Glen L. Martin Company, and RCA

receive bid invitations.

Bell declined to participate. The Air Force funded design

studies by the other three, the trio of proposals being received by

Western Development Division in March 1956, after transfer of program

authority from Wright Field. A selection board (which included as

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members Lieutenant Colonels W. G. King and V. M. • Genez, both

later to play very prominent roles in satellite reconnaissance) rated

Lockheed's proposal highest and in a 20 March 1956 report urged use

of a strip camera for the photography, favoring that over a panning

camera because of simpler lens design, the relative ease of focusing,

shutter simplicity, and a less complex film transport system. The

delay from March to October in letting a contract had been caused by

funds shortages; even after the award to Lockheed, work had to be

conducted at about one-tenth the planned rate. 4

For the next several months, desperate efforts to secure additional funds and to obtain a high-level endorsement that would permit

increasing the pace of the prograin were consistently unavailing. Air

Force Secretary D. L. Quarles responded to news of the contract

award by ruling that neither mock-ups nor experimental vehicles

should be built without his specific prior approval. The entire project

seemed endangered by demonstrations of homage to the "space for

peace" theme that had become a credo of United States policy in 1955

and by the concurrent emphasis on cutting all "non-critical" funds out

of the the defense budget.

After futilely attempting to re-interpret secretarial directives

to the advantage of the WS 117L program, Major General B. A. Schriever,

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and using low-risk technology and he took very seriously the administration's

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Western Development Division commander, concentrated on an

effort to secure further increments of fiscal 1957 funds. The original

$39.1 million request was scaled down to $24.9 million in August 1956;

five months later, Air Force headquarters released enough money to

bring the available fiscal 1957 funds total to $10.million.

Schriever then introduced the suggestion that WS 117L be

employed as a "backup" to the faltering Vanguard scientific satellite.

It brought no relief. Proposals for the use of the WS 117L satellite

in the International Geophysical Year program had first been heard

in 1955 but had been repeatedly rejected on the grounds that it was

contrary to national policy to use military hardware in "peaceful"

space programs. In April 1957, a final increment of $3.9 million

was released to the Western Development Division, raising the total

available for fiscal 1957 to $13.9 million. The prospect that no more

than $35 million would be provided for fiscal 1958, against a "minimum

requirement" for $47 million, cast further gloom on the program. 5

The obstacles that Schriever faced were two: Quarles' attitude,

and the quixotic "space for peace" homily that so facinated the national

administration. Quarles was not actively hostile to the satellite

program as such, but he had developed strong views about reliability
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commitment to eliminate "non-critical" defense expenditures. The

technology to be embodied in the 117L satellite was largely unproven,

no satellite had ever been orbited, and little was known of problems

that might arise in a weightless, airless environment. Nor was the

need for satellite overflight generally acknowledged. To budgetconscious pragmatists, therefore, the entire thesis of satellite

reconnaissance seemed shaky. In such reasoning Quarles found ample

justification for his stubborn refusal to approve the start of a meaningful development program. He was more than willing to allow relatively

low-cost studies to proceed--but further he would not go. The fact

that the administration was wrestling with a growing financial crisis--

which later that year would cause the government to postpone payments

due on defense contracts in order to relieve pressure on the established

national debt limit—gave additional weight to the arguments of the

economy bloc.

Perhaps equally critical to the future of the WS 117L program

was the intransigence of administration advisors on the "space for

peace" policy. In April, 1957, Schriever faced squarely up to this

question, instructing his 117L program chief--Colonel F. C. Oder--to

conduct an exhaustive study of the basic problem. 6

The difficulty was not a simple one. In many respects it

stemmed from the mid-1955 decision that the United States would

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participate in the International Geophysical Year satellite activity

but that such pirticipation would be limited to non-military "hardware."

Whatever its merits, and the administration judged that the public

relations benefits would be considerable, the policy effectively

eliminated ballistic missiles from consideration as boosters and

caused independent development of what became the Vanguard.

Although not clearly drawn, the issue ultimately stemmed from

uncertainty about the legality of satellite operations under international

law. So long as policy makers in the national military establishment

doubted the technical feasibility of satellite operations, there was no

point to considering how space vehicles were affected by passage over

national borders. Even when technical feasibility was conceded, the

absence of a realistic, funded development program made such discussions academic. It is not surprising, therefore, that concern for the

jurisdictional complications that might arise from satellite operations

was largely confined to a small circle of space flight devotees and to

a few specialists in international law. With minor exceptions, most

•

secretariat-level policy makers considered the entire subject to be a

• preposterous waste of time and money. Nevertheless, the introduction

of paramilitary vehicles into space, particularly if they were to have a

known reconnaissance capability, ran counter to the instincts of the

State Department and hence of the administration.

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Both the RAND Corporation and the Air Force had researched

the question of space flight and international law between 1947 and 1954,

but there was no evidence that such findings as emerged influenced

decisions on either the Advanced Reconnaissance System deVelopment

or on the International Geophysical Year satellite program. When

WS 117L was finally approved for development in 1955, the problem was

again glossed over, since it seemed probable that at least six years

would elapse before the first operational vehicle was launched.

In July 1955, as part of a determined United States effort to

arrive at a technique of arms control acceptable to the Soviet Union,

the President proposed "mutual air reconnaissance" as a means of

policing international disarmament. A somewhat similar concept had

been embodied in the 1946 "Baruth Plan" for international control of

nuclear weapons. Predictably, the Soviet Union endorsed the idea

"in principle" and found excellent reasons for opposing its application.

The traditional Soviet deference to "airspace sovereignty" was unquestionably a factor. Yet three months earlier, in April 1955, the

Soviets had openly announced their intention of orbiting various scientific

satellites--and had identified "photographic equipment" as a portion of

the proposed cargo. The United States followed suit, in July 1955, with

an announcement of its own scientific satellite. Apart from an

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inconspicuous mention of American interest in military satellites

in a 1948 report by the Secretary of the Air Force and a considerable

volume of speculative writing about potential satellite applications,

nothing much had been said on either side about the implications of

reconnaissance overflights by orbiting vehicles. Probably because

the "mutual air reconnaissance" scheme stalled at the platitude stage,

specific vehicles were never discussed. (Both the U-2 and a highaltitude modification of the RB-57 were in development, however.)

One of the background figures responsible for the "aerial

inspection" ploy was Richard S. Leghorn, an Eastman Kodak official

recently returned to civilian life after active duty service as an Air

Force colonel during the Korean call-up. As early as January 1955,

he had publicly, if indirectly, suggested that satellite reconnaissance

techniques might make inspected disarmament feasible. In October

1955 he prepared and privately circulated a specific proposal that

satellite reconnaissance become the "inspection mode" in arms control.

Both because of his work with Kodak and through his Pentagon connections--he had served under Schriever in the Advanced Plans Section

of the Air Force headquarters--he was familiar with WS 117L technology.

Russia's obvious mistrust of the original Eisenhower inspection

• proposal convinced Leghorn that negotiating a mutually acceptable
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inspection agreement with the Soviets would be "virtually impossible."

Assuming that WS 117L would be funded at a respectable level and

thus would lead to an operationally eligible reconnaissance satellite

by 1959-1960, Leghorn suggested that the WS 117L or a similar vehicle

be used for covert overflights of the Soviet land mass. In July 1956

he updated his earlier paper and sent a copy to Schriever, by then the

commander of the Western Development Division.

Overflight, whether covert, overt in the face of Soviet protests,

or openly conducted under the sponsorship of some international

agency, was by 1955 very nearly an essential of national security for

the United States. Like espionage, overflight was a customary, if

seldom acknowledged, instrument of peacetime military activity.

Literally hundreds of instances had been recorded starting with French

and German penetrations of border defense zones in the pre-1914 period.

Aircraft violations of international boundaries were among the most

frequent causes of ambassadorial protests and apologies during the

late 1930s. Inciden s involving both Russian and American aircraft

were common to the fringes of both the iron and bamboo curtains

during the late 1940s. Neither side ever admitted a deliberate policy

of aerial espionage, but its existence was indisputable.

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a surprise attack made that nation more dependent than the Soviet

Union on overflight-derived information for warning of possibly

hostile concentrations. The Soviets did not accept the validity of

that reasoning, but it nonetheless remained an element of United States

military readiness. The principal advantage of overflight, of course,

would be to provide targeting information nowhere else obtainable and,

under favorable conditions, to furnish at least a low-grade warning of

Soviet preparations for attack.

Aircraft range limitations and their vulnerability to conventional

air defense measures made deep penetrations of Soviet air space infrequent and dangerous. The enormous breadth of the Soviet Union

diluted the worth of shallow penetrations. Some indication of the value

of border-to-border passes was provided by a succession of balloon

overflights that finally ended in February 1956 after four years of

surprising success. The program (Genetrix) had been conducted under

cover of an upper-atmosphere research project nominally managed by

the Air Force Cambridge Research Center. Over the several years

of its existence, Genetrix employed a variety of cameras and produced

a wealth of information on such diverse subjects as precise altitude

control of balloons during long periods and techniques of recovering

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parachuted camera capsules by air catch. Although the United States

consistently denied an overflight intention, the effort was ostensibly

canceled because of the violence of Russian protests (which were

heightened by use of similar balloons to release propaganda materials

deep behind the iron curtain).

In actuality there were more practical reasons for halting the

balloon operations. One factor was that about as much information

had been gathered as seemed feasible without risking a violent response. ,

Another was that by late 1955 Soviet air defense forces were routinely

destroying Genetrix balloons. Although by then the launch group could

have successfully operated the balloons at altitudes above the reach of

contemporary Soviet weapons, that option was discarded because of

the danger that it might motivate the Soviets to develop weapons effective

against U-2 aircraft which were scheduled to begin their high-altitude

penetrations shortly thereafter.

A determined effort to create an aircraft-mode reconnaissance

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capability with a potential for greater selectivity and accuracy than the

random-path balloon operations had begun in 1954. It included the "big

wing" B-57 aircraft and the still-embryonic U-2 as well as more

ambitious ultra-high-altitude winged vehicles, both manned and unmanned.

Satellite reconnaissance was not included, mostly because of contemporar)

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defense department department opinion that it was only theoretically feasible

and at best could not be of practical use before the mid-1960s.

Leghorn's endorsement of satellite reconnaissance was based

on the thesis that an orbiting camera would be more difficult to disable

than cameras carried in balloons and aircraft. He suggested also

that an unpublicized series of successful satellite reconnaissance

flights might reasonably be followed by a discreet diplomatic approach

to the Soviet Union, the presentation of copies of the reconnaissance

"take, " and a private agreement that the Soviets were free to reap

any propaganda credit they chose if they would but propose interferencefree satellite inspections as an international modus vivendi. 7

Although Leghorn's ideas were well known to both Schriever

and his WS 117L chief, Colonel Oder, they were of little more than

academic interest until the spring of 1957. Then the funds crisis,

the increasing frustrations of the "space for peace" catchphrase,

Quarles' insistence on more studies and less hardware, and general

defense department hostility to "space research" *

 drove Schriever

*

During the immediate pre-Sputnik months of 1957, a considerable

quantity of Air Force time was devoted to reprogramming all spaceassociated projects to obscure any connotation of space flight interest.

Stubborn prciject officers and staff planners carefully constructed
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-110P-neiterand Oder to consider all conceivable alternatives to the "normal"

development cycle they had been pursuing.

In that milieu, Schriever in April 1957 instructed Oder to

devise a policy approach that would improve the status of the Air

Force satellite program. Colonel Oder promptly began an analysis

of national policy considerations affecting the actual use of satellite

reconnaissance, an examination of security factors that would have

to be accommodated in announcing the Air Force program to the

public, and a consideration of possible scientific applications of

the WS 117L vehicle.

Convinced of the desperate need for a device that would permit

acceleration of the satellite program—at least to the pace originally

proposed--Schriever also discussed his quandary in some detail with

Colonel W. A. Sheppard, and

Leghorn. They were generally agreed on the seriousness of the

situation, but for the moment were unable to suggest an approach that

would overbear stubborn administration objections to an adequately-.

funded satellite program. 8

"high altitude research" camouflage around all that could be preserved.

The alternative, precisely defined by defense department statements

on "useless activity, " was cancellation. A corresponding amount of

r eprogramming effort was necessary in the immediate post-Sputnik

period, when "space" suddenly became a respectable word once again.

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While such deliberations were continuing, General Schriever

made yet another effort to secure needed funds through established

channels. The first annual revision of the WS 117L development plan

went forward in April, but within a matter of weeks it had become

apparent that in fiscal 1958 as in previous years the program would

probably be funded at a level well below that considered acceptable

by program managers. Discussions of money and of possible schedule ,

adjustments marked May and early June. The existent development

plan then called for initial launches during 1960 and full operational

status five years later, but that schedule was totally dependent on

finding money to support accelerated development during fiscal 1958.

In mid-June, General Schriever met with the President's

Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities to re-justify

the status of the satellite reconnaissance program, the critical need

for satellite-obtained intelligence, the advantages of a military over

a civilian-managed approach, and the rationale for continued Air

Force conduct of the program. Shortly thereafter, the increasingly

grave financial crisis obliged the project office to submit a revised

development plan that incorporated an "austere" as well as a "desirable"

budget request. By late July, spending ceilings had been imposed which

•

limited Lockheed to a maximum of $4.8 million for the first half of the
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fiscal year and to a possible total of $10 million for the entire year.

Colonel Oder had earlier defined a $46.9 million requirement as the

minimum needed to maintain hopes for a first launch by 1960.9

Well in advance of official notification that program funds

would be virtually nonexistent during fiscal 1958, Colonel Oder had

informally proposed an alternate approach to General Schriever.

Concluding that in some degree the persistent funding difficulty was .

tied to the administration's determination not to undertake an expensive new program that, if it became publicly known, might ultimately

lessen chances of arriving at a satisfactory settlement with the Soviet

Union, Schriever quietly endorsed the alternate proposal, which he

called "Second Story. "

*

The "Second Story" concept was built around three preconditions:

covert overflight, participation of the Central Intelligence Agency, and

program acceleration. It involved an announced cancellation of the

WS 117L program, overt establishment of a "heavyweight" Air Force

scientific satellite project as a follow-on to the marginal Vanguard,

and covert re-establishment of the reconnaissance program under

Colonel Oder's secretary invented the name to identify the file of

working papers which had to be kept apart from other WS 117L documents.

"Second Story" implied a cover legend rather than an upper floor,

although it was occasionally written "Second Storey."

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cognizance of the Central Intelligence Agency--but with the Western

Development Division retaining technical management responsibilities.

By the time of Schriever's June meeting with the President's

intelligence board he had privately informed Lieutenant General D. L.

Putt (Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff, Development) and Air Force

Assistant Secretary R. E. Horner of the "Second Story" concept.

Concurrently, Leghorn secured an expression of interest from Dr.

J. R. Killian, the President's Science Advisor. Schriever and Dr.

Edwin Land (an Intelligence Board associate) broached the scheme to

R. M. Bissell, assistant to CIA Director Allen W. Dulles. Schriever

and Oder had become well acquainted with Bissell during Oder's 1952

assignment to CIA.

Early in August 1957, when such discussions were going forward,

it was generally believed that the Soviets would orbit a scientific satellite somewhat larger than Vanguard but probably smaller than the

WS 117L vehicle. If that assumption were accepted, adoption of the

"Second Story" approach would leave undisturbed the official "space

for peace" motif, would permit the eventual accumulation of significantly more scientific data than Vanguard could collect, would demonstrate

the continuing technical superiority of the United States, and still would

permit the collection of highly useful intelligence information. i° It

•

seemed to have some attraction for everybody concerned.

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Effort was not entirely diverted to "Second Story" during the

late summer of 1957, but sporadic attempts to obtain relief from the

WS 117L expenditures ceiling were repetitiously unsuccessful. Early

in September, General Putt secured permission for the start of work

on mock-up of the Lockheed upper stage vehicle and for fabrication

of hardware items that had to be purchased well in advance if an

experimental satellite were to be flown during 1960, but restatements

of the fiscal 1958 funding requirements--and their endorsement by •

the Air Council--had no effect. The purse remained closed.

The satellite program was not alone in that situation. Virtually

every major development effort, including ballistic missiles, was

affected. Expenditure limitations were imposed on all major military

programs so that the administration would not be forced to ask Congress

for a higher ceiling on the national debt, an expedient which the

Treasury Department viewed with considerable distaste, particularly

in an election year.

In such circumstances, "Second Story" offered perhaps the

only realistic hope. Its key was ostensible conversion of the existent

WS 117L effort into a scientific satellite program. General Schriever

tentatively approved an action schedule which called for General Putt

to "request" and BMD to submit a new scientific satellite proposal

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before 1 September. Assuming unimpeded flow of the subsequent

actions, the- covert CIA program would come into being several

weeks later, side-by-side with the "scientific satellite" that had

"replaced" the WS 117L.

The arguments supporting such a course were impressive--

at least to those who felt, with Schriever and Oder, that the technical.

feasibility of a reconnaissance satellite had been clearly established

by more than a decade of study and experimentation. All of the key

technical .ingredients were available from the current program. The

United States had conducted covert reconnaissance in the past and was

planning more for the future. It certainly should be possible, therefore, to begin covert satellite reconnaissance by 1960 and to maintain

continuous surveillance of the Soviet. Union thereafter. Schriever and

Oder were confident that the group which had so skillfully managed

the intercontinental ballistic missile program could successfully

administer the "Second Story" effort.

Conceding that covert operation of a photographic satellite

could not be indefinitely sustained, Oder suggested that the basic

vehicle be publicly identified as a weather surveillance satellite to

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handled by personal contact among Bissell, Land, Schriever, and

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the arms control efforts of the United States were successful, the

•

reconnaissance components could be surfaced as newly devised

•

"improvements" and applied to an international arms control system.

The necessary ingredients, as Oder and Leghorn saw it,

•

were Presidential confirmation of a high priority, followed by

adequate funding; approval of the political approach; and, finally,

cancellation of the WS 117L and substitution of either clandestine or

a "very secure" Air Force reconnaissance satellite program. 12

The schedule Colonel Oder had proposed early in August

proved impossible to maintain, but before the end of that month

Schriever had briefed Dr. Killian and had exposed the total scheme

to Major General A. J. Goodpaster, the President's military aide,

and others at the White House level. The Schriever group also made

informal contact with the Department of State and renewed discussions

with Bissell and his associates in the Central Intelligence Agency. 13

The "Second Story" proposal had been entirely concocted

within Schriever's own division and had not thus far been introduced

into "normal" channels. General Putt and his immediate aides had

been the principal contacts in Air Force headquarters. Through Putt,

•

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Schriever scheduled a formal meeting with State and CIA for late

September, by which time he planned to have the "Second Story"

proposal in a form suitable for line-of-command submission.

While in the Pentagon on 10 September, General Schriever

prepared an official letter to Lieutenant General S. E. Anderson,

Air Research and Development Command chief, recommending

conversion of WS 117L to a scientific satellite. Colonel Oder personally took it to General Anderson that afternoon, seizing the

opportunity of its delivery to brief him on the background of the

proposal and its real purpose. Unfortunately for the schedule earlier

mapped out, General Anderson instructed his headquarters staff to

prepare and coordinate an endorsement to Air Force headquarters.

For several days the ARDC group debated the merits of various

responses and then produced an unenthusiastic comment letter which,

in the later view of at least one "Second Story" supporter, was worse

than no response at all. a Consequently, the "formal" proposal

Schriever had wanted Anderson to send to the Air Force chief of

staff proved both'Iate and ineffective. 14

The possibility that the Anderson "endorsement" was composed by

officers who were unaware of its actual motivation cannot be dismissed, but neither can it be satisfactorily explained. It is far

more likely that Anderson's staff acted out of native dislike for a

scheme that would have removed yet another major program from

ARDC control--as had happened with the whole of the ballistic

missile effort.

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By late September, the complications inherent in "coordinating"

the Proposal with all the authorities involved in scientific and military

satellite programs had thoroughly impeded progress toward Schriever's

goal. Early that month, he had learned of a Department of Defense

decision to re-activate the "Stewart Committee" which had recommended

the original Vanguard program and had later rejected Army and Air

Force back-up proposals. It appeared that the Stewart Committee was

to be the chief executive agency in selection of an advanced scientific

satellite. In its turn, the revived Stewart Committee planned to call

on the services to submit proposals of such advanced satellites. The

invitation was to be issued between November 1957 and January .1958. 15

General Schriever also learned that "an influential DoD consultant"

was preparing a memorandum for W. M. Holaday, the Defense Department's Director of Guided Missiles, calling for establishment of a

national policy on space exploration and unfavorably analyzing the

feasibility of a WS 117L scientific satellite. Arguments against the

"scientific 117L" included the lack of agreement within the Air Force

on the value of such a satellite, the security complications inherent

in a scientific satellite using military hardware, and possible interference of a scientific satellite program with the military satellite

effort.

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Of course, the "Second Story" as refined summarily disposed

of such objections by transforming the WS 117L reconnaissance activity

into a covert project, but advice of such a course obviously had not

reached the "influential consultant." Moreover, the tenor of the

pending memorandum was in agreement with existent administration

policy.

In order to secure acceptance of the "Second Story" approach,

it would be necessary for the Ballistic Missile Division (renamed in

August 1957) to prepare a detailed scientific satellite proposal which

the Air Secretariat could present to the Defense Department (thus

demonstrating Air Force unity on its desirability), to plan an acceptable

information release policy, and to prove to all concerned (including the

Stewart Committee) that a scientific variant of the WS 117L satellite

would benefit the military program. It seemed unlikely that all those

steps could be taken before 1 November. 16

On 4 October 1957, the appearance of Sputnik I cancelled much

• of the rationale of the "Second Story" approach. Almost immediately

•

thereafter, General T. D. White, Air Force Chief of Staff, told the

Air Staff to drop consideration of a scientific satellite and to concentrate

on accelerating the basic WS 117L program. Defense Secretary C. E.

Wilson, notoriously anti-satellite in his outlook, was retiring from

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office and his replaceme nt, Neil McElroy, was expected to approve

a substantial program expansion. Essential funds, long delayed by

dissension over the feasibility of and the real requirement for a reconnaissance satellite, could be expected shortly. However, a subsequent

attempt to convince the Deputy Secretary of Defense, D. A. Quarles,.

that WS 117L should be accelerated was generally unsuccessful, and

under pressure from Quarles, Air Force Secretary J. H. Douglas

• hedged his earlier approval of program acceleration. Putt, working

desperately to overcome secretarial inertia, secured permission

from Douglas to present the issue directly to McElroy for resolution

and simultaneously urged General Anderson to submit a plan for an

early Air Force "space spectacular" which would enhance the possibility

of securing appropriate WS 117L funding. 17 At the same time, General

White, disregarding command channels in the interest of speed,

instructed BMD to propose a new ballistic missile and space program

at a funding level of $300 to $500 million above the current fiscal 1959

ceiling, thus increasing the level of effort to ". . . the maximum

possible in terms of technical and operational capabilities . "18

The optimism of the Air Staff and of General White proved

justified. On 29 October, after Putt briefed him on the WS ll7L

program, Defense Secretary McElroy reversed the Quarles decision

of 16 October and asked to be advised on how the satellite program

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could be accelerated. Three days later he authorized the Air Force

to proceed "at the maximum rate consistent with good management. " 19

For the moment, "Second Story" was submerged in a welter of

proposals, acceleration plans, and suggestions for "interim" satellites,

both scientific and military. In part because of the consternation

caused by Sputnik and by immediately subsequent failures in several

hasty and overpublicized attempts to orbit "something" made in the

United States, WS 117L acquired the support so long withheld. But,

beneath the surface there flowed an undercurrent of reluctance to

sponsor an "open" reconnaissance satellite program which, by

antagonizing the Soviets, would weaken the prospect of relaxing .

world tensions and reaching agreement on other points at issue.

Additionally, there were psychological obstacles to securing uninhibited

approval of a major space program. The President resented inferences

that his administration had been lax in supporting earlier space and

missile proposals, so there was continued reluctance to approve

program accelerations which indicated that "crash efforts" were

necessary to overcome earlier lapses. Finally, notwithstanding the

evidence at hand, the conviction persisted at high levels that the entire

space program was more a matter of public relations than of engineering, that nothing useful could come of an investment in satellite

• development. 20

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Even though WS 117L had finally been, approved and funded,

it was apparent that much remained to be done before the United

21 States acquired a satellite reconnaissance capability.

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NOTES ONON SOURCES

See Origins of the USAF Space Program 1945-1956, R. L. Perry,

SSD, Oct 1962.

SR No 5, 27 Nov 54; RAND Rpt R-262, 1 Mar 54; Status Rpt,

Project Feed Back, prep by LtCol V.M. Genez, Hq ARDC,

14 Dec 63; ltr, MajGen D.N. Yates, Dir/R&D, USAF, to CG

ARDC, 22 May 53, subj: Project Feed Back, all in SP Samos

files; see also Perry, Origins . . ., and USAF Space Programs 

1945-1962, prep by USAF Hist Div (M.Rosenberg, R. L. Perry)

for Gene B.A. Schriever, Cmdr AFSC, and W.F. McKee, VCS

USAF, Dec 62.

Ltr, MajGen A. Boyd, D/Cmdr Weap Sys, ARDC, to CMDR WDD,

7 Nov 55; Dev Plan, WS 117L, 2 Apr 56; memo, LtGen D. L. Putt,

DCS/D, USAF, to D/SOD (for SAF signature), 7 May 57, subj:

Air Force Satellite Program; Dev Dir No 85, Hq USAF, 3 Aug 56;

ARDC Sys Dev Dir, WS 117L, 17 Aug 56; see also USAF Space

Programs 1945-1962, sec 1; memo, MajGen J.E. Smart, Asst

VCS USAF, to Asst SAF (R&D), 31 May 57, subj: Advanced Reconnaissance System.

Ltr contr AF 04(647)-97, 29 Oct 56; USAF Space Programs 1945-

1962 ; ltr, LtGen D.L. Putt, DCS/D USAF to Cmdr ARDC, 10 Dec

subj: Requirements for Additional FY 1957 Funds for WS 117L

Visual and Ferret Systexns, 19 Sep 58; memo, prep by LtCol V. M.

Genez, Hq ARDC, Dec 54, subj: Background on the Selection of

Contractors to Conduct the ARS Design Studies; TWX RDTSI 1-14-E,

ARDC to WADC, 20 Jan 55 and TWX WCXGG-2-651-E, WADC to

ARDC, 8 Feb 54, in SP. Samos files.

Ltr, MajGen B.A. Schriever, Cmdr WDD, to DCS/D USAF,

30 Jan 57, subj: Planning and Funding Requirements for WS 117L;

ltr, LtGen D.L. Putt, DCS ARDC, 6 Mar 57,

no subj; memo for record, DCS/D staff, 16 Jan

subj: Visit to Western Deve opment Division on WS 117L; draft

memo for SOD prep by DCS/D USAF for signature of SAF, 7 May

57; memo, D.C. Sharp, Asst SAF/Mat, to DCS/M, 11 Apr 57,

no subj..

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Interview, F. C. E. Oder (Col, USAF, Ret),. 15 Mar 63, by

R.L. Perry.

Leghorn's proposal is contained in a memorandum dated 26 Jul

56 which is annotated to show that it represents a modernization

of a 17 Oct 55 memo. Titled "Political Action and Unauthorized

Overflight of the USSR, " it is preserved in a special file maintained by SAFSP. The copy was given to Col F. C. E. Oder, then

Dir/Proj WS 117L, in Mar or Apr 57. Oder (interview 15 Mar 63)

is the source for the information concerning Leghorn's contributions to the "open skies" proposal of 1955. Information on the

"open skies" proposal and its fate is drawn from Facts on File,

XV, 21-27 Jul 55 and 22-28 Sep 55. Leghorn openly proposed •

satellite inspection in two U.S. News and World Report articles:

"No Need to Bomb Cities to Win War, " 28 Jan 55, and "U.S. Can

Photograph Russia From the Air Now, " 5 Aug 55. Details on the

reconnaissance vehicle proposals and programs of the mid-50s

(except the U-2, which was a clandestine development) can be

found in various histories of Wright Air Development Center,

particularly July-Dec 54 and Jan-Jun 55. RAND Corp published

a closely held summary of overflight experience in RM-1349:

Case Studies of Actual and Alleged Over-flights, 1930-1953,

15 Aug 55; "open" information on the 1954-1956 balloon flights is

found in Facts on File, XVI. 8-15 Feb 56.

Draft chronology of Corona program, prep by A. Rockefeller,

BMD Histn, from matls in Corona files main by Col F. C„ E. Oder,

Dir/WS 117L Prog, Apr 59; tape recording of discussion of Corona 

prog, made 9 Mar 59, involving Oder, Rockefeller, and Col W. A.

Sheppard, notes taken from orig recording by R. L. Perry, 6 Nov 62.

Hereafter cited as Corona Chronology and Corona tape, respectively.

Corona Chronology, Apr 59; Corona tape, 9 Mar 59; memo, Col

F.C.E. Oder, Dir/WS 117L Prog, to MajGen B. A. Schriever,

Cmdr WDD, [1 Aug 57 , no sub", in Oder papers; WS 117L Dev

Plan, 16 July 57; ltr, D/Asst for GM, ARDC, to

DCS/D USAF, 13 Jul , su rogram Planning Guidance for

WS 117L, and ltr, LtGen D.L. Putt, DCS/D USAF to Cmdr ARDC,

3 Sep 57, same subj, in Hq USAF Hist Div files.

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Corona Corona Chronology, Apr 59; Corona tape, 9 Mar 59; ltr, J. F.

Cassidy, Staff Dir, Pres' Bd of Consultants on Forn Intel

Activities, to MajGen B.A. Schriever, Cmdr WDD, 20 May 57,

no subj, in Ford files; memo, Oder to Schriever, 11 Aug 573;

Oder interview, 15 Mar 63.

Memo, BrigGen H.A. Boushey, Asst Dir/D&D, to DCS/D USAF,

13 Nov 57, subj: Information for Senate Investigating Committee;

ltr, BrigGen O.J. Ritland, V/Cmdr BMD, to Dir/R&D, USAF,

19 Sep 57, subj: WS 117L FY 1958 Fund Requirements; ltr, Putt

to Cmdr ARDC, 3 Sep 57, all in Hq USAF files.

Corona Chronology; memo, Oder to Schriever and atchs,

Tr Aug 573.

Corona tape, 9 Mar 59; memo, Col F. C. E. Oder, Dir/WS 117L

Prog, to MajGen B.A. Schriever, Cmdr WDD, 27 Aug 57, no

subj, in Oder files.

Oder interview, 15 Mar 63; ltr, MajGen B.A. Schriever, Cmdr

AFBMD, to LtGen S.E. Anderson, Cmdr ARDC, 10 Sep 57, no

subj, in Ford files; Corona Chronology, Apr 59; Corona tape,

9 Mar 59.

Ltr, Col USAF Liaison Officer, NRL Vanguard

Proj, to MajGen B.A. Schriever, Cmdr AFBMD, 9 Sep 57,

no subj; Ford files; Corona tape.

Ltr, to Schriever, 9 Sep 57; Corona tape.

•Ltr, LtGen D.L. Putt, DCS/D, USAF, to LtGen S.E. Anderson,

Cmdr ARDC, 17 Oct 57, no subj.

TWX, AFCGM-51210; C/S USAF to AFBMD, 8 Oct 57; Corona

Chronology.

Memo, BrigGen. H.A. Botishey, D/Dir R&D, to DCS/D, USAF,

13 Nov 57, subj: Information for Senate Investigating Committee;

C/S USAF Policy Book, 7 Feb 58, .both in USAF Hist Div files.

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See New York Times, Oct 10, 17, 21, for articles reflecting

the viewpoints of key administration officials on Sputnik and

the need for an expanded United States space program. See

also John Emmet Hughes, The Ordeal of Power , for a firsthand account of White House reaction to the Sputnik furor.

Ltr, Putt to Anderson, 17 Oct 57, is the best surviving record

of executive reluctance to abandon pre-Sputnik attitudes

concerning space enterprise.

Bissell's reflections, as recalled some 15 years later, have

been summarized in CIA Intelligence Journal, July l973..

31

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II CORONA--PHASE I

Trailing after Sputnik I and Sputnik II came a succession of

proposals for accelerating the WS 117L program and for "regaining"

the "pre-eminence" of the United States in space. Perhaps because

•

the disaster-haunted Vanguard program absorbed public attention

almost to the exclusion of concern for military programs, Congressional inquiries into the American space effort did not focus on WS 117L.

Attempts to fix responsibility for the "space gap" became so entangled

with partisan politics, interservice rivalries, and the fecundity of the

Defense Department in creating new committees, czars, councils,

boards, and agencies to deal with the "space program" that they were

meaningless.

While the Navy was desperately attempting to overcome the

effects of three years of pennypinching in Vanguard and the Army

vainly sought permission to orbit satellites earlier built in violation

of secretarial directives, the Air Force was the recipient of suggestions

from several quarters that the Thor intermediate range ballistic

missile, scheduled for availability sooner than the Atlas, be used to

boost a satellite into orbit.

The earliest formal proposal of that sort emerged in the report

of a special ARDC committee in October 1957. On the day following

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issuance of the Quarles' "go slow" directive, Lieutenant General

D. L. Putt-directed Lieutenant General S. E. Anderson to assemble

an ad hoc group to consider possible USAF space contributions that

would counter the effects of Sputnik I on world opinion. Headed by

the noted nuclear physicist, Edward Teller, the group submitted a

report which included in its recommendations for a series of space'

probes and moon shots a suggestion that Thor boosters and makeshift

second stages be used to orbit 200-300 pound satellites at an early

date. 1

 The recommendation stemmed from Rand Corporation studies

summarized for presentation to the Teller Committee.

Presentation of the Teller Committee findings and related Air

Force recommendations to the -Armed Forces Policy Council on

5 November 1957 stimulated a lively discussion within that body.

Rand's proposal to use Thor as an interim booster evoked considerable

enthusiasm. Air Force Assistant-Secretary R. E. Horner, encouraged

by the optimism of the meeting, submitted a formal memorandum to

the Secretary of Defense one week later, on 12 November, elaborating

on the Thor-boosted satellite scheme. Horner emphasized that a

Thor-boosted interim reconnaissance vehicle could be operational by

April 1959, whereas the Atlas-WS 117L program had been so affected

by earlier funds shortages that late 1959 or early 1960 seemed to be

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its earliest possible launch date. (Neither the Atlas nor the WS 117L

reconnaissance subsystem could be ready before 1960.) Horner

reported, on the strength of the Policy Council discussions and

presentations to the Council, that a combination of Thor with a

modified WS 117L upper stage could place a 300-pound reconnaissance

device in a 150-mile orbit.

Concurrent with the Horner recommendation, Rand circulated

the first written discussion of its proposal for an interim reconnaissance system based on a combination of the Thor booster with the

Aerobee-derived upper stage used in the Vanguard program. Advance

copies were distributed on 12 November 1957, the day of the Horner

memorandum. In addition to use of Thor as a booster, Rand urged a

technique of spin stabilization for a third-stage, camera-carrying

element of the system. (The concept had been invented by Merton

Davies, one of several Rand scientists who contributed to the study.)

Rand also suggested abandoning the WS 117L readout concept for the

interim system, urging a mode of payload deboost and water landing

to permit recovery of. the entire third stage.

Even though the Rand proposal was new to many who first

heard it in late 1957, it embodied elements of several earlier suggestions, each prompted either by desperation at the inadequacy

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of the the financial support for the satellite program or by misgivings about

some of the technical details. The basic notion of combining a

ballistic missile with an Aerobee upper stage had originated at

Wright Field in 1955, when it was proposed as the Air Force alternative to Vanguard. In that instance a combination of Atlas with an

Aerobee upper stage had been suggested as the best means of boosting

a relatively large scientific satellite into orbit. The use of recovery

rather than readout techniques had been suggested, and studied, at

least as early as December 1956, when the Ballistic Missiles Division

had asked Space Technology Laboratories to analyze the technical

aspects of such an option. Rand researchers had examined the piospects

in some detail through the summer of 1957; the revised version of Rand's

12 November study eventually suggested a complete family of recoverable

3

satellites.

Apparently quite independent of the Rand and Teller recommendations, General Electric on 29 October suggested to headquarters of the

Air Research and Development Command (and very possibly, through

other channels, to the Central Intelligence Agency) that a "pioneer"

system could be put together using the Thor booster, a General Electric

Hermes rocket (for a second stage), and a third stage built around a

horizon-stabilized recoverable satellite. One month later, on 27

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November, General Electric followed up the initial suggestion with

a more detailed proposal which outlined a camera subsystem, a

recoverable capsule subsystem, propulsion, command and control,

program planning, and a management approach. The original camera

concept embodying an eight-inch lens capable of resolving 350-foot

objects had by November, become an f3.5, 18-inch lens used with

Microfile film to provide resolution of 75-foot objects. The capsule

design, bearing an obvious likeness to General Electric ballistic

missile reentry bodies then in development, was intended to freefall into the ocean, at which point the ablative shell would crack and

the recovered elements would remain afloat encased in a foam rubber

ball.

Although the General Electric scheme was further elaborated

in a 4 January 1958 brochure, it apparently had little influence on the

program then being considered on the West Coast. Colonel W. A.

Sheppard, intimately concerned with satellite proposals, later said

he had absolutely no recollection of having encountered the General

Electric brochuie. A high General Elictric official insisted that the

idea had been submitted to BMD in October 1957. In the frenzy of

the first 100 days following Sputnik many such proposals could have

been received, filed or mis-routed, and forgotten. Additionally, the

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Bmij group was by mid-November rather firmly committed to its

own approaCh. 4

That approach, undoubtedly influenced by the Teller Report,

the Horner memorandum, and the Rand study, appeared as a BMDLockheed plan for-the acceleration of the entire WS 117L program.

DiscUssions between Lockheed and BMD officials preceded the dispatch of an informal Lockheed proposal on 26 November. It was

considered in some detail immediately thereafter, particularly in

the course of a 5 December meeting at BMD. Lockheed urged the

adaptation of the WS 117L upper stage to the Thor missile as the first

step in a program acceleration. Taking issue with Teller Report and

Rand conclusions that the Aerobee upper stage promised earlier

availability than the WS 117L upper stage, Lockheed proposed a "more

realistic" system embodying elements of the Rand-proposed camera

technique, the Horner vehicle concept, and Teller committee suggestions for schedule acceleration. On 23 December, General Schriever

asked Lockheed to prepare a formal proposal along such lines, and on

6 January 1958 Lockheed actually completed and forwarded a rather

comprehensive development plan. 5

One aspect of the Lockheed propoial was particularly applicable to a clandestine satellite reconnaissance program, an approach

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revived at BMD early in December. General Schriever's November

correspondence with Lockheed had included some mention of the

highly sensitive U-2 program and Lockheed's success in pushing

that reconnaissance aircraft system to early completion. Lockheed

had also called attention to its relatively recent experience in the

development of a covert reconnaissance vehicle. Brigadier General

0. J. Ritland, BMD's Vice Commander and a key figure in the U-2

development, was, like Schriever and Oder, on familiar terms with

R. M. Bissell and other officials of the Central Intelligence Agency

who were most concerned in - reconnaissance overflight opZrations.

(Ritland had managed U-2 development under Bissell's direction.)

Thus Ritland was a principal in early December discussions between

Schriever and important policy figures in Washington: Bissell of the

Central Intelligence Agency, Dr. Edwin Land of Polaroid Corporation

and the Boston University optical research laboratory (Land had also

been a member of the Technological Capabilities Panel of the Office

of Defense Mobilization), Dr. J. R. Killian, and Major General A. J.

Goodpaster. That group quietly considered the political and technical

aspects of the satellite reconnaissance problem and concluded that

the best course for the nation was to sponsor a covert program employing the Thor-WS 117L vehicle. The combination was generally described

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as the Thor-Hustler, the rocket in the WS 117L upper stage being

derived from the XRM-81 motor originally designed for the "powered

pod" missile of the B-58 Hustler bomber. Much later, the upper

stage acquired the more lasting name "Agena."

Concurrently, on the strength of detailed instructions from

General Schriever, Colonel F. C. E. Oder began drawing up a

revised "Second Story" cover plan based on staging an "open" ThorHustler scientific satellite program to cloak reconnaissance over-

.

flights. In the sense that Killian and Goodpaster were spokesmen

for the White House and would undoubtedly be able to commit the

administration to support such an effort, their acceptance of this

scheme shortly before Christmas of 1957 constituted an unofficial

but highly significant endorsement. Bissell's agreement, and

acceptance by the Central Intelligence Agency of the covert program

approach, closed the sloop. 6

Oder's modified "Second Story" proposal involved the creation

of an interdepartmental reconnaissance system coordinating committee

which would secure approval of a complete covert operation, prepare a

political action plan, define a comprehensive security system, and •

decide how to handle public information aspects of the activity. The

• Central Intelligence Agency, Department of State, and Department of

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the Air Force were obvious participants. The key element was to

be a very tight security wrap around the reconnaissance phase and

a concurrent, highly-publicized scientific satellite effort based on

the Thor-Hustler combination.

The BMD-Lockheed proposal of an "open" Thor-Hustler

reconnaissance satellite reached the "official channels" stage late

in January, after the covert approach had been approved in principle

but before any special measures had been taken to put it into effect.

Lockheed's 6 January submission, somewhat refined, was transformed

into a formal request for amendment of the basic WS 117L development

plan and sent forward to ARDC and USAF Headquarters on 23 January.

It had the highly enthusiastic support of several of the most brilliant

junior members of the BMD staff, who considered it a logical--even

obvious--means of accelerating the reconnaissance satellite program

and therefore vigorously lobbied for its acceptance. 7

Thus both an "open" and a covert program were being considered, in different channels, by late December 1957, and a month

later both had been "approved" at the lower echelons. They were

obviously incompatible, and one of the difficulties faced by sponsors

of the covert approach during January was subduing the "open" plan.

For practical purposes, only the covert program had a real chance

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of final acceptance. The political climate was such that no open

attempt to orbit a reconnaissance satellite in the near future could

secure support, and experience had demonstrated that the objectives

of major programs generally became known to the public even if

protected by strict normal security measures.

There was no important technical distinction between, the ThorHustler system being considered openly and that proposed covertly.

(Lockheed's 6 January presentation had listed the Thor-boost version

as "Program IIA, " the title by which the open program was thereafter

generally known.) Both incorporated the Rand-originated concept of

a spin stabilized panoramic camera, though the Lockheed modifications

were significant.

Both the Program IIA advocates and the "covert approach"

group spent most of January 1958 in working out details of their proposed

programs and in settling on financial, management, and technical

recommendations. Additionally, the covert operation supporters

continued their search for a cover story that would explain why the

perfectly feasible Program IIA proposal should not be approved

precisely as submitted. (At that point the Program ILA option involved

launching five engineering test satellites and five spin-stabilized

photographic-payload' satellites, actual test operations being scheduled

to start in October 1958. ) 8

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On 1 February, the Secretary of the Air Force again asked

the Secretary- of Defense to approve the Thor-Hustler program

originally suggested the previous November and now formalized as

Program IIA. Two days later, President Eisenhower directed that

satellite, ballistic missile, and ballistic missile defense programs

be mutually accorded the "highest national priority." If the covert

plan was to go into effect before an "open" program received approval,

action would have to be rapid and effective.

Although the details still were not firm, General Schriever

was by then-convinced that the concept of concealing a Central Intelligence Agency activity under a scientific-satellite Thor-Hustler

program was entirely valid. He felt that the best way out of the

existent impasse was to disapprove Program IIA on some plausible

•

grounds and to authorize development of a recovery capsule as a

"first step" toward manned space flight, actually carrying on with

"Program IIA" under cover of the recovery capsule program. The

missing elements then included Defense Department approval, agreements with the Central Intelligence Agency on participating and

support arrangements, and formal Presidential endorsement. Lesser

but nevertheless important uncertainties included an appropriate

management scheme, security measures, and personnel arrangements. 9

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The pieces began to fall into place by late February 1958.

. On the 26th of that month, Schriever informed Oder and J. H.

Carter of Lockheed that a forthcoming directive from Defense

Secretary McElroy would disapprove Program IIA, but would

concurrently authorize use of Thor with the WS 117L upper stage to

test airframe components and to conduct a recoverable capsule

biomedical program. (The memorandum had actually been written

10 by Bissell, Ritland,and Sheppard.)

On the basis of such advance information, Schriever instructed

Carter to assemble "black" estimates on system specifications and

costs, made Oder responsible for coordination with the Central

Intelligence Agency, and ordered transfer of payload contract costs

from BMD to the Central Intelligence Agency. (General Electric and

Fairchild Camera had earlier begun working, under Lockheed, on

the Program IIA spin-stabilized payload.) The cover story was to

be a Lockheed contract to develop the "biomedical" capsule. 11

An unrehearsed complication was the injection of the Advanced

Research Projects Agency (ARPA)• into the scheme. ARPA had been

proposed the previous December as a "super agency" which by controlling the various military space system developments would

eliminate interservice rivalries. On 24 February, McElroy formally

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approved the WS 117L program acceleration recommended in November

but also specified that it would be conducted under ARPA direction.

ARPA, although theoretically functional, actually possessed neither

personnel nor facilities at that point. Nevertheless, on 28 February

the newly. named director of ARPA, R. W. Johnson, signed the key

WS 117L directive that Bissell, Ritland, and Sheppard had written.

The paper disapproved development of the proposed interim WS 117L

recoverable system (Program ILA), but authorized the Air Force to

use Thor boosters for test firings of the second stage WS 117L vehicle

for engineering tests and for biomedical experiments in support of

manned space flight objectives. 12

Some confusion characterized proceedings during the latter

part of February and the first two weeks of March. Of considerable

importance was the fact that Oder and Sheppard had gradually developed

reservations about the wisdom of a spin-stabilized reconnaissance

vehicle. As early as 18 February Oder had urged General Schriever

to fund a preliminary stable-bOdy approach, suggesting that both the

stable body design and a camera configuration proposed by Itek Corporation were improvements over the spin stabilization and the Fairchild

camera then being supported as part of Program UA. Additionally,

Air Force headquarters in early March advised BMD that the

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Thor-boosted "reconnaissance test vehicle" approach had been

endorsed by the Department of Defense and that formal development

plans for an operation called "Nightshift"--the proposed nickname

for early Thor-boosted WS 117L launches--should be drawn up for

early submission to the Air Force Ballistic Missile Committee.

The "Nightshift" proposal had been devised within the Air Staff as

a means of obtaining early Air Force entry into a "satellite club"

that still was limited to the Navy Vanguard and the Army Explorer.

Unaware of the scheduled covert program, Air Staff officials were

intent on securing permission for launching something developed

by the Air Force; whether it had a reconnaissance function or was

a "scientific" satellite carrying odds and ends of instrumentation

seemed of little consequence. 13

Once circulated, the Johnson directive had the effect desired

by General Schriever; it made "Program HA" a system designed for

covert development and covert operation. Johnson's letter had other

effects as well. The BMD specialists who had enthusiastically •

adopted the scheme of "interim satellite reconnaissance" based on

the use of Thor boosters and WS 117L upper stages were completely

taken aback. Innocent of knowledge that the "cancellation" was but

the first and most critical step in what was to be an accelerated

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covert program, and convinced by logic that "Program IIA" was the

most sensible approach to an early reconnaissance satellite, they

were appalled by Johnson's ruling and by the unprotesting acquiescence

of responsible Air Force officials. • One or two had an inkling of what

had actually happened, but not until they were inducted into the covert

operation as much as 18 months later were they sure of the rationale. •

14 For the moment, they had no outlet for their distress.

Schriever and Oder were meeting with Central Intelligence

Agency and Lockheed representatives on the afternoon of Z8 February

1958, when a copy of the Johnson directive first reached BMD. They

completed arrangements to inform General Electric and Fairchild of

what was afoot and reviewed the preliminary BMD analysis of proposals

for camera and vehicle subsystems earlier submitted under "Program

IIA" auspices. Both the technical approach and the management

pattern were gradually taking shape. 15

Four distinct proposals for vehicle-reconnaissance system

development had emerged from the Program IIA considerations.

Lockheed and Rand both favored spin stabilization employing a

Fairchild transverse panoramic camera with film drive synchronized

to vehicle rotation rate. Lockheed, however, urged that only a

ballistic-missile type nose cone be recovered, while Rand favored

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recovery of the entire orbital vehicle. Both proposals assumed use

of Fairchild cameras capable of resolving 60-foot objects.

General Electric and Itek proposed stable-body vehicles

carrying panoramic cameras. General Electric thought ground

resolution of 25 feet could be obtained; Itek, that seven-foot resolution .

• was possible. General Electric paralleled Lockheed in favoring data

capsule recovery, while Itek supported the total-vehicle recovery

concept originated by Rand. **

Itek had come into being in 1957, principally through the efforts of

Richard Leghorn, Professor Duncan McDonald Boston University's

Physics Research Laboratory), and (Eastman Kodak).

On 1 January 1958, Itek acquired the.personnel and facilities of the

Physics Research Laboratory with funding support provided by the

Rockefeller interests. Boston University had long been uneasy at

the transition occurring in the Physics Research Lab, which had

become more of an industrial research facility than a campus establishment through the instrumentation of contracts largely with the

government. The resignation of Professor McDonald, who had been

the chief figure in laboratory activities for some years, decided the

University to withdraw from the field. The resulting arrangement,

by which Itek acquired the laboratory, equipment, contracts, and

personnel, made Itek a very strong contender for new research and

development contract awards, the company having assimilated (in

Colonel Oder's judgment) "some of the nation's best camera people."

Itek personnel had directly participated in the development of the

balloon reconnaissance cameras as well as in the U-2 camera program.

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**

That basic disagreement extended into the design of the first recoverable WS 117L (Samos) vehicles; the eventual Samos E-5

recoverable payload included the camera, the E-6 included provisions

for film-only recovery.

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In the opinion of the BMD analysts, the choice between spin

stabilization and stable body configurations should be based on

earliest availability, and spin stabilization appeared to have the

advantage. Either the General Electric or the Itek system was

adaptable to the WS 117L upper stage if the entire stage were stabilized. Of the lot, the Itek 24-inch focal length camera design seemed

most promising in terms of ground resolution and growth potential.

Itek also appeared to have the most attractive research facilities,

the former Boston University Physics Research Laboratory. 16

Before a final decision could be taken in technical matters,

certain critical management items required disposal. Most were

satisfactorily arranged in a series of meetings between 26 February

and 15 March. The Central Intelligence Agency was charged with

security control, and thus with principal conduct of covert activity

as such. Bissell, as the responsible official in the intelligence

agency, was obviously in need of a "very knowledgeable WS 117L man"

to assist him; Schriever and Oder made available Oder's assistant,

Captain R. C. Truax (United States Navy), under cover of a Truax

assignment to ARPA. The intelligence agency agreed to brief both

General Electric and Fairchild on the covert program in advance of

formal notice to Fairchild that the IIA program had been "cancelled."

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In order to establish the proper "black" environment, it would be

necessary to overtly cancel the Fairchild agreement and to re-orient

the General Electric effort toward development of a "biomedical"

capsule.

With receipt of the Johnson directive, one other step became

possible: the Central Intelligence Agency on 10 March 1958 assigned

the code title Corona to the covert program.

Bissell arranged with the proper Washington authorities to

delay circulation of the Johnson directive until Fairchild and General

Electric could be advised of the background factors. BMD had agreed

to pay Lockheed the basic costs of the "cancelled" IIA program as

they involved these contractors. Officially, BMD would pay "under

protest, " since all three firms had proceeded on Program IIA on the

strength of informal agreement only. 17

A 15 March meeting between Bissell and Ritland, in Washington,

confirmed the earlier BMD decision to use the "Hustler" (Agena) upper

stage for Corona rather than the Aerobee stage from Vanguard. It

was also agreed that Bissell's interest in WS 117L would be authenticated by a formal assignment to keep CIA Chief Allen Dulles briefed

on the progress of that "major collection system." Even within the Central

Intelligence Agency, Corona was to be a closely held secret.

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The choice both of a technical approach and of specific contractors, during March 1958, was not without a degree of further

confusion. The starting point was the Program IIA arrangement.

As a result of preliminary actions during that January, Lockheed's

verbal commitments to Fairchild (camera subsystem) and General

Electric (reentry body) were along the lines of the Rand proposals

and the prevailing CIA opinion. But continued expressions of BMD

unease plus advice from Central Intelligence Agency technical

specialists who had their own copies of all the proposals apparently

caused Bissell to have second thoughts. On 15 March, Bissell told

Ritland that special meetings were scheduled for 17 and 18 March to

discuss the advisability of funding a "back-up" alternate to the

primary Fairchild-General Electric approach.

The group that met at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 18 March

included three members of the President's Science Advisory Committee,

two Central Intelligence Agency officials (including Bissell), three BMD

officers (Ritland, Oder, and Truax), and Dr. Herbert F. York of ARPA.

Its task--decided only one day earlier--was to select a "back-up"

contractor. After hearing detailed presentations from Itek, General

Electric, Fairchild, and Eastman Kodak, the panel concluded that

Itek was best qualified to develop an alternate camera system for

n

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-irOP-SEGRETCorona. Going further, the group recommended that Itek and Lockheed, with assistance from General Electric, if needed, should

develop a gas-jet-stabilized vehicle with Lockheed having systems

engineering and technical direction responsibilities.

The differences between the Itek proposal and the "primary"

Fairchild camera subsystem compelled attention. Essentially, Itek

• wasproposing a 24-inch camera with theoretical resolution on the

order of 15 feet, while Fairchild was urging a camera with 60- to

100-foot resolution. Principally because of that difference, the

Central Intelligence Agency in late March began to look more favorably

on the Itek than the Fairchild proposal but continued to advocate concurrent development of spin stabilized and stable-body techniques.

The first formal project plan prepared by the CIA (on 9 April) contemplated development of the Fairchild camera in the Rand-conceived

spin stabilized orbital body, with a stable-body Itek camera following

on somewhat later. Truax, reflecting Oder's notions, and with the

support of several CIA technical specialists now engaged in the program,

urged reversing those priorities. The 9 April draft was revised two

days later, but did not merely propose allocating major emphasis to

Itek and the stable-body configuration; rather, it provided for dropping

the spin-stabilized configuration and the Fairchild camera altogether.

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That decision, which surprised Oder and Ritland (who had

reservations about the wisdom of concentrating all effort on a single

line of approach), was the product of a subdued but intense three-week

debate that followed the 18 March meeting and was not ended until a

second revision of the 11 April draft program directive passed

Bissell's scrutiny and was forwarded to General Goodpaster on

16 April. The debate had two facets. One was a question of technical

policy: was it wise to abandon spin stabilization while there remained

considerable uncertainty about the achievability of a stable-body

photographic satellite? There was no real doubt about the feasibility

of using spin stabilization, although the quality of the resulting photography was far from certain. The second issue was whether spin

stabilization might not provide a good cover for the development of a

stable-body satellite, concealing the potential of the latter. Colonel.

Oder held to the view that pursuit of the more conservative Fairchild

approach was". . . worth a limited effort. "18 But Oder, one of the

original proponents of the Itek approach, was not inclined to press

the issue unduly. • There was general agreement between BMD and

CIA technical specialists that the Itek proposal had greater technical

appeal, that Itek had better facilities than Fairchild (or General

Electric), and that spin stabilization had inherent disadvantages when

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compared to body stabilization. Bissell felt that the Itek approach

would cost less, and he was particularly impressed by the greater

resolution potential and performance growth potential of the Itek

camera. There is little doubt that reliance of the Itek approach on

the availability of the Lockheed upper stage for WS 117L had considerable influence on Oder's (and Schriever's) ready acceptance of

Bissell's judgment; continued development of what was to become

the Agena was essential to the eventual appearance of the WS 117L,

on which Air Force space hopes still were concentrated. The factors

that caused a complete reversal of judgment between 18 March and

18 April, when President Eisenhower verbally approved Bissell's

16 April proposal, were far more complex than mos t of those who

reviewed and approved the decision ever realized. 19

By early April, therefore, a technical approach, cost estimates, and an operating plan were in existence. CIA Director Allen

W. Dulles, Defense Secretary Neil McElroy, and Presidential Science

Advisor 3. R. Killian then presented the matter to President Eisenhower

personally for final approval. Their sponsorship was convincing, and

Corona received the President's endorsement.

*

 The rationale was

*

However, only 10 launches were initially funded, as against the 12

proposed in the 16 April Corona development plan.

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that reconnaissance was vital to national security, that the U-2

program could not be expected to continue indefinitely, and that

the Soviet Union would not countenance an "open" reconnaissance

satellite operation. A covert operation concealed under a ciciak of

scientific research would permit the United States to deny the

actuality with sufficient plausibility to satisfy sensitive neutrals

and timid allies. At worst, clandestine reconnaissance would be

feasible until the WS 117L system began initial flight trials, and by

that time it might be possible to confront the Soviets with a fait

accompli, thus nullifying political action to prevent WS 117L operations.2°

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Early Problems

Management of Corona proved complicated if only because it

involved so many agencies and contractors. ARPA reviewed and

funded the overt effort, insured adequate support, arranged for sea

recovery (a Navy operation), and kept the Defense Department advised.

BMD developed and provided all hardware that could be related to a

cover or supporting program and provided facilities and personnel

for launch and track operations. The Central Intelligence Agency

defined covert program objectives, established and policed security

policy, maintained liaison with the Department of State, developed

the covert hardware items, and insured that covert and overt technologies were compatible. Lockheed Missile Systems Division (under

contract to both the intelligence agency and BMD) served as techical

director of all equipment but the camera, capsules and support equipment; developed the orbiting upper stage; and checked out everything

but the booster, camera and recovery system. Itek developed the

camera under subcontract to Lockheed, and General Electric subcontracted for the recovery capsule. Douglas furnished the Thor boosters.

BMD was satisfied that the technical evaluation had been

adequate and that the program was sound. The next step was to issue

proper letter contracts to Lockheed as quickly as possible so that

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launch schedules (tentatively approved on 18 April) could have some

expectation of validity. The principal tasks connected with this

aspect of the Corona program were completed by 9 May, with

Lockheed's issuance of summary work statements to both General

Electric and Itek. (Itek promptly subcontracted with Fairchild for

the manufacture of the camera itself. )21

Another critical requirement, the provision of working space

where Lockheed personnel could actually assemble the "black" hardware into operationally ready satellite vehicles, was also satisfied

between April and July. The agreed operational procedure--ostensible

engineering flights followed by "biomedical" flights followed by

"advanced engineering tests"--afforded a legal and plausible requirement

for tight security, particularly in stabilization technology. Much of the

cost, moreover, could be concealed in such items, and many of the

basic components could be manufactured and tested "openly." For

the remainder, Lockheed decided to conduct operations in a leased

Hiller Aircraft Corporation plant which was in close proximity to the

main Lockheed facility. Lockheed explained to Hiller that the work

to be carried on in the Hiller buildings was company proprietary and

thus was not to be disclosed to anyone--including other sections of

Lockheed. Some Hiller people were hired, but most of the population

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of what came to be known as the "Skunk Works" was transferred

from the Lockheed payroll, although all employees were actually

paid by Hiller.

Conscientious Air Force plant representatives and Lockheed

supply personnel presented an early problem, derived from the need

for moving expensive equipment and materials to a place that had no

legal existence, but the Corona people devised "secondary" cover

stories which satisfied iniquiries. There was no real need for

elaborate deceit, chiefly because no one would expect Lockheed to

be doing work in the Hillr plant, and no connection linked Hiller

with any space projects. 1 The "company proprietary" explanation

satisfied others who were curious. Within the company itself, prolonged absences of personnel were explained by references to a

"company program." Itek, General Electric, and Air Force people

who were known by Locl+eed personnel to be associated with reconnaissance programs macte only the most circumspect visits to the

"Skunk Works." Even the wives of the Lockheed employees did not

know where their husbands actually worked. A further step was the

compartmentation of assembly work at Lockheed; most workers engaged

in but a single, segmented phase of the vehicle assembly process. 22

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In July, Lockheed officials issued an "inhouse" statement

that the recoverable payload for Thor-WS 117L flights would include

"in addition to normal instrumentation, recording devices for the

advanced engineering tests." Responsibility for these devices was

assigned to a special department with the explanation that ". . .

the existing shortages of space at the Palo Alto plant and . . . the

sensitive nature of the experiments" made it necessary to expand

into new facilities. "Instrumentation development" and the assembly

and checkout of nose cones and payloads would be concentrated in the

"additional facilities." Lockheed officials cautioned that extreme

project secrecy was essential to prevent an anti-vivisectionist outcry

over the scheduled biomedical experiments. Fully cognizant project

personnel also understood that the phrase "recording devices" could

be used to explain the presence of camera equipment in a "biomedical

capsule" if an explanation became necessary.

A special cryptographic teletypewriter network linked BMD

to the Lockheed "Skunk Works" and those facilities to CIA's Washington

•

headquarters. The establishment of "mail drops" under fictional names

permitted the secure transmission of bulky reports and technical

documents. CIA security specialists constructed a special briefing

form to be signed by all military and contractor personnel exposed to

program details. Permission to brief additional personnel on Corona

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was reserved reserved to CIA headquarters. It shortly became apparent,

however, that both ARPA and ARDC headquarters staffs contained

more knowledgeable people than were authorized there, principally

because high-ranking officials had yielded to the compulsion to

inform their immediate superiors and their immediate staff assistants .. (Brigadier General R. E. Greerrwho encountered the same

"compulsion" problem when he took the Samos program underground

two years later, concluded that it was a prime syndrome of any

23

covert effort.)

Confirmation and approval of the 10-vehicle flight schedule

by mid-June and general distribution of the "scientific payload"

cover story brought a new complication. Biomedical specialists,

overjoyed at the possibility of stuffing various organic samples into

recoverable satellite capsules, developed an overpowering interest

in the Thor-WS 117L. Even though Brigadier General Don Flickinger,

the Command's biomedical chief, was cognizant of Corona he could

not forcibly fend off those of his people who insisted on participating

in program management without provoking undesirable curiosity. By

June, flights number 3, 4, 6, 8, and 10 had nominally been scheduled

for biological specimens, flights 1 and 2 for engineering tests, and

flights 5, 7, and 9 for "advanced engineering tests." Actually,

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cameras were to be carried in all of the "advanced engineering"

satellites and some of the "biomedical" test vehicles. Both Air

Force and Lockheed personnel appreciated that new problems

might arise when it became apparent that all of the "biomedical"

flights were not actually returning biomedical specimens. 24

One of the basic difficulties in the program was that . wellmeaning people convinced they were advancing the interests of the

Air Force insisted on tinkering with one or another aspect of the

"open" Discoverer program. Generally, the Corona managers at

BMD were able to limit the ill effects by calling on the Central

Intelligence Agency to apply quiet pressure to the danger spots.

Sometimes it proved necessary to brief one or more people who had

no role to play in Corona itself but whose influence was necessary

to keep events from unfolding in undesired directions. A case in

point was the July 1958 Department of Defense suggestion of deploying

all Thor missiles and using all of the Army-developed Jupiters as

satellite boosters. Since Jupiter was essentially incompatible with

the WS 117L upper stage, the danger to Corona was obvious: at least

a nine-month delay in schedules, re-engineering of payloads, reduction

in orbital weights, and reliance on non-standard boosters. In this

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for no more was heard of that particular gem.25

level" to insure that the suggestion was withdrawn before it could

become a matter of debate. Apparently the maneuver was effective,

instance , Colonel Sheppard immediately contacted Bissell with a

request that the CIA official take action "at the highest possible

—* ...

Sometimes it was difficult to decide whether to stifle such

undesired assistance or to draw secondary benefits from it. Such

was the affair of the highly respected reconnaissance expert who, as

Colonel Sheppard put it, was complicating matters by "going around

convincing people we should be doing the things we in fact are doing

in the [Corona]program. "

26 The affair had its useful aspect, however,

since it was inconceivable that one so highly placed could be unaware

of actual reconnaissance programs, and his ill-timed propaganda must

also have served to convince many that the Air Force was indeed concentrating on WS 117L rather than the Thor-boosted satellite.

Another interesting problem Colonel Sheppard encountered was

that the program director fOr the Thor-WS 117L "experimental and

biomedical" satellite vehicle kept "insisting that the overt part of the

system be designed rationally to support the overt missions." In this

'1

On 8 April, General Schriever made Sheppard the Air Force Corona

chief. Oder, associated with the WS 117L reconnaissance program,

had to be removed from direct participation because of the danger that

his association with reconnaissance would weaken the Corona cover plan.

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instance there was no alternative to making him aware of the covert

plan. How else-could one explain designing the satellite vehicle for

horizontal rather than vertical flight attitudes which were logical

for biomedical experiments but impossible for film recovery purposes,

or why it was undesirable to air-condition a specimen chamber when

the truthful reason was that the chamber in question must covertly be

made light tight. 27

The technical decisions which largely determined the future of

the program for the next two years were made in the period from

April through October 1958. The key contracts were in being, at least

in letter form, by the end of May: CIA with Lockheed, and Lockheed

with General Electric, Itek, and Fairchild.- At that point, it appeared

that reentry stability was the only major technical uncertainty,

although engine tests, vehicle control, and guidance still were matters

of concern. The recovery method had been selected (air catch, with

water recovery following if the air catch failed for any reason), and a

test and training program covering recovery aspects was taking shape.

In actuality, the process of selecting a recovery technique,

assembling capable personnel, and locating equipment was much less

difficult than it might have been. The basic methodology had been •

perfected four years earlier in the course of the Genetrix program,

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the balloon reconnaissance operation that ended in February 1956.

Colonel Paul Worthrnan, who later became the Air Force director

for Corona, had been instrumental in devising the 119L capsule

recovery process and with others who had experience in that operation was able to assist in reactivation of the flight organization. The

equipment had gone into storage after the cessation of activity in 1956

and essentially required no more than refurbishing to qualify it for

re-use. The difference between hooking and reeling in a package

parachuted from a high-altitude balloon and performing a similar

operation for a package descending by parachute after reentry from

orbit was not enormous.

In the case of Corona it would be most difficult to conceal

the fact of a capsule recovery, particularly if, as seemed probable,

several hundred people were involved in interlocked shore, sea, and

air operations. Briefing such vast numbers on Corona seemed rather

impractical, so the air-sea recovery portion of Corona became an

overt element. The fact that Some publicity on the more newsworthy

aspects of such a recovery activity would provide additional cover for

Corona--assuming that the "package" itself could be adequately protected—was another attraction.

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Through "normal" channels--though with a fair amount of

under-the-table pre-- Flanning--BMD secured the authority to operate

a recovery squadron without hindrance from any other command. A

contingent of C-119J aircraft equipped for air recovery was drawn

from the Tactical Air Command, essentially complete with air and

ground crews at least in part familiar with the requirements of -the

original Genetrix operation. General Orders activating the contingent

as the 6593d Test Squadron (Special) took effect on 1 August. Initially,

the squadron squadron moved to Edwards Air Force Base to begin intensive

training and practice. Both balloons and high-altitude aircraft were 111

used to release "training capsules" for C-119 retrieval. Within a few

months, in time to meet the schedules for first capsule recovery, the

squadron was to move to Hawaii, the center of the planned recovery

area. Other essentials, including tracking stations in Alaska and

Hawaii as well as that at Vandenberg Air Force Base, the sea-borne

task force to provide an optional recovery mode if air catch failed, - I

and a plan for returning a recovered capsule to "black" channels after

its "white" recovery, were arranged relatively early. The matter of

who should operate the tracking stations, particularly that at Kaena 1

Point, Hawaii, and the question of how to stage a "shell game" that

would let the real capsule vanish enroute to the mainland caused some.

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--11.0P-MEGMETlater difficulty, but during the summer of 1958 nothing of the sort

was accurately foreseen. 28

Of more immediate concern was a serious controversy

between Lockheed and General Electric which threatened the stability

of program management. 29 The apparent difficulty was inability of

the two to agree on a work statement for General Electric, although

the real problem was more deep-seated. During the early weeks of

April, General Electric had urged upon Lockheed and the Air Force

its own proposals for a separate third stage--which General Electric

would design and build. The proposal, much like that submitted in

the October-November-January brochures, proved unacceptable .

because of design misconceptions and the difficulty of mating the

General Electric-proposed third stage to the Lockheed second stage.

Although an Air Force-Central Intelligence Agency ruling on the final

design presumably resolved the issue in May, again in June the two

customers found their contractors at odds. To the Corona managers

at BMD it appeared that they were jockeying for position, each

company attempting to insure a favorable position for future programs.

In a sense, General Electric held that Lockheed wanted General

• Electric to deliver basic hardware which Lockheed would thereafter

engineer, modify and install; while Lockheed maintained that General

•

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Electric wanted to deliver a sealed package for Lockheed to load

and launch without question. Rather bitterly, each contractor pressed

his viewpoint on the agency and the missile division. Not until late

June was the issue satisfactorily resolved and the respective roles

of the prime and the subcontractor defined in'work statements

acceptable to both. 30

Lockheed, General Electric, and Itek designed their systems

and subsystems basically in conformance with a philosophy jointly

agreed upon by the agency and the Air Force. Of the available

technical approaches, that which offered the best potential for success

during the period of prospective operation was almost always adopted.

Reliance on existing techniques or relatively simple extensions of the

current state-of-the-art was universal. Reliability through simple

design rather than an attempt to derive "the last few percentage points

in perfection of product" was a consistent policy. Proceeding on this

basis, Lockheed was able to report the total system design ready for

initial review on 14 May, design freeze on 26 July, and release of

engineering drawings on 23 October. 31 By all indications, the technical program was proceeding at a reasonable pace and without unanticipated difficulty.

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As much could not be said for all the program management

aspects of Corona. Starting about September 1958, a succession of

difficulties and uncertainties began to plague Corona managers. In

part they were the natural but nonetheless unwelcome offshoots of a

tightly s cheduled program with unusually important objectives.

Another . portion, however, derived from the peculiar alignment of

technical and managerial responsibilities which saw BMD, ARPA,

CIA, and several high officials in the Administration sharing authority.

In particular, the ill-defined role of ARPA in the Corona program

proved troublesome.

As ARPA had assumed control of the entire military space

effort during the summer of 1958, the tendency of that agency to redirect space programs toward objectives which frequently had not

been those of the military served to complicate management. Moreover, as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

gradually acquired control of the obviously "scientific" and "research"

aspects of the national space effort during the summer of 1958, ARPA

both resisted that trend and attempted to create an alternate program

which would give the agency a significant and lasting role in space

operations. WS 117L funds provided the largest portion of fiscal 1958

ARPA resources and constituted the most valid justification for a

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large fiscal 1959 ARPA budget, and the Thor-Hustler (Corona) program

nominally fell under the aegis of WS 117L. ARPA's tendency to redirect

WS 117L toward new objectives indirectly affected the immediate conduct

of Corona itself, but ARPA's attempt to exercise direct control over

portions of the Corona program, largely by manipulating the purse

strings, was considerably more critical. Finally, as the fiscal 1960

budget cycle entered its closing phases, the matter of continuing a

form of Corona into calendar 1960 became of increasing concern. If

Corona proved successful, a matter which could not be judged until

the first satellite reconnaissance photographs were actually examined,

its continuation was logical. The question of its continuance as a

covert operation--the matter of whether cover could be successfully

maintained past the period of "engineering" and "biomedical" flights--

versus its reincarnation as a highly secure but overt activity, had to

be faced eventually.

The original Corona approval of April 1958 had been based on

10 vehicles funded by ARPA from WS 117L program money. The Air

Foice-CIA plan, however, called for a minimum of 12 shots on the

assumption of one-third successes and the need for a minimum of

four successful reconnaissance flights to provide adequate coverage

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—40110-91110HITof the Soviet Union. In June, Colonel Sheppard had convinced Air

Force Secretary James A. Douglas of the need to provide enough

additional money (through ARPA) to keep ahead of the "lead time

problem" and to insure a continuing flow of Thor boosters and

Lockheed second stages. On 2 July, Douglas responded with an

open directive to BMD which expanded procurement authority as

32

Sheppard had urged.

The 14-vehicle program thus constructed accommodated the

12 scheduled Corona flights and two engineering or biomedical

tests. It lasted only until 6 August, when BMD learned of ARPA

instructions that the "Thor-WS 117L" program was to be expanded

by 9 vehicles additional to the 10 officially authorized. (Biomedical

payloads were specified in the ARPA directive, though with the

proviso that "special payloads . . . to investigate and measure

certain suspected space phenomena" might later be substituted. ) 33

The new addition essentially provided for seven real biomedical

payloads in addition to the 12' Corona packages. Its timing and the

fact that ARPA was then attempting to retain control of the "Man in

Space" program that subseqiiently went to NASA, indicated that ARPA

intended to use the Thor-WS. 117L program, if possible, as a counterweight to the announced NASA biomedical program.

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By virtue of these and related changes, the total WS 117L

program had risen -by September 1958 from a budget level (for

fiscal 1959) of $107 million to a total of $296 million. Of this total,

$215 million was shown in the current proposed development plan

for WS U7L and the remainder was required for purchase of

additional Thor and Atlas boosters. ARPA apparently intended at

least $8 million to go for biomedical research and $18 million to

long-lead items. Anothenlinot shown in the "open"

totals, was CIA money supporting "black" Corona procurements.

In this maze of figures, which one participant flatly called

"chaotic, " ARPA Director Johnson in August identifieMEI

.._

as "open" Corona money, concluding that an addition in

fiscal 1960 would see to the purchase of the 19 scheduled vehicles as

well as programmed engineering changes. He also suggested that

CIA bear a larger portion of the cost, arguing that the Corona effort

was principally for CIA benefit.

On 1 October, revised Corona program costs reached Bissell.

The total there shown was the bulk of the increase

arising from the re-estimates by Lockheed and its subcontractors.

The 18 April plan approved by the President had coats nditures of $7 million for "black" hardware and R&D, plu for

Thor and Agena develop • ocurement. That total

reflected an increase o over the first (9 Apr cos estimates.

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ARPA had questioned the validity of the cost increase, protested its size, and passed the matter to the CIA. Bissell, in his

turn, was startled into a violent protest. Citing the fact that the

funding estimates of April, used in obtaining approval for Corona,

had totaled he told General Ritland that if McElroy,

Dulles, and Killian had been aware of the prospective costs in April .

they would never have recommended the program to Eisenhower.

Displaying the effects of having just been scored by Killian, Bissell

told Ritland that "Corona [is] simply not worth...[i111

ARPA funds plu in] CIA funds." Dulles, Killian, and

McElroy were slated to discuss the entire affair with the President

in the immediate future, he added, and it seemed probable that

. complete cancellation of Corona will be considered."

Bissell concluded that Corona was being charged for undefizable development costs that actually belonged to the remainder of

WS 117L, urged that the two programs be disengaged for funding

purposes, and made some rather unflattering references to "rubbery

accounting systems" and "juggling costs." In a separate message to

Colonel Sheppard later that day, Bilsell—somewhat less emotional

than had earlier been the case--said sadly that "all of us concerned

with Corona have some embarrassing explaining to do."

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Apart from being thoroughly accustomed to substantial differences between early estimates and actual program costs, Ritland

and Sheppard were less alarmed than Bissell because they were closer

to and more aware of the remarkable convolutions of the program

during the preceding six months. To explain the situation to their

CIA counterparts, they detailed program fluctuations and broke down

the cost totals to show that changes in the level of engineering effort

and in the scope of the program had caused price increases. Sensitive

to the implications of reprogramming and aware of the potential for

mischief implicit in such funds juggling as ARPA was then practicing,

they added the caution that a covert program could not be conducted

under requirements for constant rejustification and that it would be

advisable to keep program matters in the hands of program participants.

In their reply they also included a resume of Corona potential and a

further explanation of the worth of the basic Thor-WS 1I7L program

as a major contribution to the national space effort. 34

Before the end of October the problem had largely been resolved

by the personal intervention of Schriever, Ritland, and Sheppard with

key CIA and White House officials. The complicity of ARPA in the

funds crisis and the cancellation threat received implicit confirmation

through a subsequent agreement between Schriever, Killian and Bissell

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that the funding totals provided by the Air Force were reasonable

and that henceforth the role of ARPA should be as a "utility intermediate" without authority "to steer or affect CORONA. "35 But

the basic suggestion earlier endorsed by Bissell, that it would be

advisable to separate Corona from the balance of WS 117L, continued

to receive attention.

ARPA had taken a preliminary step in this direction early in

September. All reaction was not favorable. Colonel Oder, for

instance, contended that program segmentation would draw too much

attention to Corona, since the rationale for the Thor-WS 117L program

was partly based on "engineering tests" of WS U7L upper stages.

Oder also emphasized that once the Thor-boosted vehicle was recognized as a separate "scientific" program, scientists would come to

expect the recovery of data which it would be quite impossible to fake.

A counter argument, of course, was that continued association of Thorboosted satellite with the Atlas-WS 117L effort would lead inevitably to

the conclusion that Corona flights were reconnaissance oriented. The

fict that efforts to improve the image of the United States space

"program" had caused WS 117L to be openly identified with reconnaissance--and even glorified in•that role--tended to color all aspects of

the original program. The name "Sentry" given the WS 117L program

in September 1958 was compromising in itself. 36

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Early in November, Bissell went around both the Air Force

and ARPA to reach General Goodpaster, responsible for liaison

between CIA and the White House, with a strong suggestion that the

Corona flights be completely separated from the balance of the "Sentry"

program and covered by a scientific satellite mission assignment.

Almost concurrently, a special scientific committee examining the

status of the entire reconnaissance program encountered again the

problem of ARPA interference. Dr. Edwin Land made it clear to

R. W. Johnson and of ARPA that Corona was considered

"an operating program to achieve a limited objective" and was not to

be "subjected to or perturbed by R&D tinkering; and that the actions

of all must be primarily governed by security .since exposure of the

program must be avoided at all costs."

There was slight indication that the ARPA officials were

impressed. They promptly proposed the deletion of three of the

scheduled biomedical shots and the addition of a "Super-Corona"

satellite, essentially an Atlas-boosted Corona with an "improved"

recoverable payload. In other channels ARPA people also suggested

that Corona be reoriented toward an electronic readout system rather

than a recovery payload system. (Electrostatic tape systems were

great favorites with ARPA that fall; the basic WS 117L program

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suffered through the same syndrome.) On the whole, however, such

notions had a cool reception. Dr. Land, influential in both CIA and

administration circles, was particularly insistent that the nation

take advantage of what was available rather than plan grandiose

37 substitute programs.

Notwithstanding the reaction, ARPA on 25 November officially

notified ARDC that two of the scheduled biomedical tests in the ThorHustler series were to be cancelled. No change in the total number

of vehicles was immediately provided, however. 38 That followed

roughly a week later, upon Johnson's receipt of an official recommendation from several ARPA specialists assigned to •study reorientation of

the entire WS 117L program.

Although the reasoning behind the ARPA maneuvering was not

entirely clear, it began to appear to thcs e in Corona that the coincidence of rescheduled biomedical flights with the proposal for an

Atlas-Corona, including a large recoverable capsule, might be an

ARPA attempt to justify development of a man-size satellite. The

original ARPA proposal of this sort, based on BMD's "Man in Space

Soonest" (MISS) program of June 1958, had been effectively overtaken

by transfer of manned space flight responsibilities to NASA. (MISS,

not much changed, became Project Mercury. ) 39

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The 1 December 1958 memorandum report forwarded to

Johnson was largely motivated by new funding strictures directed

from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Instead of the $297

million earlier recommended for WS 117L in fiscal year 1960, the

program would receive $160 million from ARPA. In order to stay

• within the funding limit, ARPA proposed cancelling all newly pro- •

posed Thor-boosted shots and reducing the approved total from 19

to 15 shots. Two of the 15--the cancelled biomedical tests--were

to be further abstracted for transfer to "other" ARPA programs.

In the remainder, the first two were to be vehicle development tests,

the next two were to carry mice, eight were to be in the Corona 

configuration, and the 13th was to carry a small monkey. All were

to be fired from a single Pacific Missile Range launcher.

More significantly, the report stated a new ARPA philosophy:

it. . . ARPA's program responsibility ends when a system has been

brought through its Research and Development. At this point it is

available for users." And most significantly, thereafter the "user"

• would have to fund the program.40

When word of the ARPA deliberations had first reached BMD,

late in November 1958, the WS 117L office had concluded that ARPA

meant to support 15 of the scheduled 19 flights and that the Air Force

1

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would have to find the money for the remainder. The fact that no

ARPA money would be available for Corona after fiscal 1960, and

that the Air Force presumably would have to carry on the program

from its own resources, prompted thought for a completely new

program approach based on the transition of Corona to an "open"

but highly classified Air Force program managed under the WS 117L

aegis. Toward this end, there was renewed discussion of separating

the Thor-boosted satellite program from Sentry. 41

A succession of meetings in Washington took up the several

critical issues arising from the latest ARPA actions. Late on the

afternoon of 4 December, Air Force Undersecretary Marvin A.

Maclntyre wrote a memorandum to himself, had Johnson's signature

block typed at its foot, took it to Johnson, and obtained the signature.

The directive formally created a separate Thor-WS 117L program,

under the nickname "Discoirerer, " to include "a number of systems

and techniques which will be employed in the operation of space

vehicles. "42

Uncertainties concerning what ARPA would fund were eliminated

in the course of a 15 December meeting during which the participants

decided that eight Corona firings would complete the ARPA development

effort and that the remaining four Corona flights would require Air

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Force funding. By a memorandum to the Air Force Under Secretary

two days later, Johnson confirmed the agreement and formally

specified the research agency's intention of sponsoring only 13 Discoverer flights; two vehicle tests, three biomedical flights, and

eight. Corona launches. 43 The settlement was not reached easily,

however, since first Air Force and CIA officials had to convince

ARPA that a readout program was not available to substitute for

Corona recovery techniques. And there were interesting sidelights:

on the afternoon of Johnson's directive, Colonel Sheppard discovered

a Pentagon staff officer busily attempting to rejoin Sentry and Discoverer as a Top Secret program. The officer was convinced that .

ARPA had just succeeded in stealing an Air Force satellite program. 44

With the establishment of the Discoverer project as a formal,

autonomous activity and with the open identification of Sentry as a

reconnaissance satellite, the conditions for conducting Corona were

somewhat altered. The first scheduled Discoverer launch was but a

month distant in December 1958, and this also impelled thought for

improving the cover story.

In a sense the disclosure that Sentry was a reconnaissance

program tainted all aspects of the earlier development effort, including

what was now Discoverer. Additionally, the international political

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climate was even more hostile to overflight than formerly. Indeed,

in the opinion of Corona personnel "this hostility has manifested

itself to the point where high government officials might cancel the

CORONA program should it continue to be identified with such efforts."

Cover requirements were straightforward. ARPA participation

had to be. logically explained: if Discoverer was not a military program,

why was ARPA involved? Any intelligence community interest in or

association with Discoverer had to be concealed, as did any military

reconnaissance implications. Finally, it would be essential to obscure

any direct connection between Corona (as Discoverer) and a later

Sentry vehicle with similar equipment. By the same token, a logical

explanation for use of a polar orbit was needed. Finally, cover efforts

should satisfy professional curiosity by insuring "a logical sequence

of technical effort and the production of a product having military

application."

The proper approach appeared to be to release enough information to discourage untidy speculation and to dispel any air of mystery.

It also seemed useful to offer "consistent but much more complete

technical explanations (. . . at least in part classified) to the considerable number of persons who do not need to know the true purpose of

C [Corona] but are in a position to guess what it involves unless they

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are provided with a convincing alternate explanation." Military and

contractor. personnel at the launch site, in the recovery force, and

in related military and corporate organizations fell into the latter

category.

— .

Inasmuch as the Corona configuration and the Discoverer

biomedical configuration would be outwardly indistinguishable, there

need be no great concern for unauthorized observation and no real

need for "closed" launchings. Press releases, by emphasizing

hardware tests rather than scientific probes, would help to prevent

interference from "the vast number of scientists who claim a right

to such data."

The Corona office also expected to take advantage of the

partial "surfacing" of the covert 'Lockheed facility the previous July

by planned "leaks." Lockheed personnel connected with the special

facility could divert attention from the true purpose of Corona by

filing personal requests foi data on electronic countermeasures,

ablation, vehicle maneuverability, reentry control and guidance

• studies, magnetic effects data, and infrared sensors, thus prompting

conclusions that the "special facility" was concerned with classified

work in such areas.

The use of a recoverable capsule could be explained as the

only means of insuring that recorded data were reserved for the

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United States, that recovery was the only means of providing visual

inspection of equipment returned from orbit, that it provided the

most accurate data records, and that it enabled the re-use of costly

equipme nt. Polar orbits (which were somewhat illogical in the light

of the facilities available for equatorial orbit tests) were to be explained in terms of range safety requirements and the possible

exercise of the missile warning net. Thus the explanation that

Vandenberg Air Force Base was so located that only a polar launch

was possible, that Air Force research vehicles had to be launched

from Vandenberg because of limited facilities at Cape Canaveral,

and the fact that the vehicle passed over the Soviet Union was incidental. The relatively low and scientifically undesirable orbit could

be explained on the basis of limited United States ability and relatively

small boosters.

Military and contractor personnel who became aware of the

presence of Corona cameras could be told either that they were

intended for astronomical observation and were not being publicized

because of the possibility of misinterpretation or that they were used

as part of the stability tests, to provide a continuous record of the

attitude of the vehicle by photographing the horizon. 45

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• One major unresolved issue remained of those created by

the ARPA-directed program alterations of November-December

1958. With the marked reduction in ARPA support, only eight

Corona firings were covered by approved funds. The remaining

four in the original series plus any follow-on firings had to be

brought into the "open" program in some fashion. The choice was

plain. Either the Air Force "surfaced" the reconnaissance capability

of Discoverer and conducted all flights following the eighth Corona

as a highly secure program but by means of a "normal" approach,

or Corona would have to continue as a completely covert element

of Discoverer.

As a hedge against the possibility that continuation of Corona

might not be approved, the Discoverer office prepared a development

plan providing for 20 open Discoverer-reconnaissance flights extending

through the last months of 1960. By implication, 25 Discoverer

launches were thus programmed, a number Bissell had recommended

in December. The proposal, titled "Carrousel, "

*

 went forward with

Sentry and Midas development plans submitted to the Pentagon in

January 1959. It was partly tied in with the current scheme re-elevating

Sentry security to the Top Secret level and conducting the entire satellite reconnaissance effort in that environment.

The title was invented by a project officer who was rather cynically

convinced that the merry-go-round was but making another turn.

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Initially, Air Force Undersecretary Mathityre directed on

2 February that the Carrousel proposal be integrated with a revised

and expanded Corona effort and funded within the total available to

the Discoverer-Sentry program for fiscal 1959. However, the question

of whether the Air Force or CIA should be the Corona-Carrousel

• program "sponsor" was held in abeyance.

The Central Intelligence Agency became quite uneasy at the

prospect that some portion of Corona might come to light in the

deliberations over Carrousel. Most of the Carrousel supporters,

and a fair share of the planners, were entirely unaware of Corona,

but it seemed apparent that a 1960 Discoverer-reconnaissance program

could not appear, fully pregnant, without causing the virginity of the

1959 effort to be suspect. Sheppard and Bissell, in particular, were

of two minds on the problem. In the one instance, approval of

Carrousel seemed to invite disclosure of the CIA role in 1959 Discoverer

flights. On the other hand, attempting to bury a reconnaissance program

through all of 1960 and 1961 when, in Sheppard's words, "we could

obviously accomplish one, " might well have the same result. Adding

to CIA's worry was the conclusion that Air Staff people were somewhat

inept in designing "cover plans" for Carrousel and Sentry--although

the customary scorn of a professional for an "amateur" perhaps

explained much of the implied distrust.

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By mid-February, the Corona managers were agreed that

the least dangerous course was to continue the Discoverer cover

for Corona and dispose of Carrousel as quietly as possible. The

situation was almost precisely identical to that of the previous

January, when Program 'IA had been "competing" with what became

Corona. And it was handled in similar fashion. Carrousel had not

been too widely known, so arranging a demise for the development

plans was not a major problem. The formal disapproval of Carrousel

was not pronounced until April, however, As was inevitable, it

justified the action by citing reasons similar to those used in "cancelling"

Program ILA, more than a year earlier. High cost and technical risk

coupled with the small potential gain over Sentry were listed as reasons

for not developing a reconnaissance version of Discoverer.

A simple extension of the Discoverer program with provision

for sufficient flights to cover 20 Corona operations was the most direct

means of documenting the program and obtaining the necessary "white"

funds. That course was complicated, however, by the ARPA's

February action in cutting the program back to 13 vehicles and cancelling

procurement authorizations for all additional Discoverers. Legally,

under existing arrangements, funding had to come through ARPA.

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Through the CIA, General Ritland arranged an unofficial but

effective authorization to continue work on all of the 19 vehicles

earlier scheduled. Bissell assured Sheppard that funds were available.

On 1 April, in "emergency funds" came to hand, drawn

from the President's reserve. Of the total, was diverted•

to the CIA to fund additional camera subsystems and-to ARPA to

finance re-expansion of "Discoverer." The Air Force scraped up an

additional by reprogramming, to cover the residual

requirement.

A means of effectively throttling Carrousel had to be devised,

and it had to be convincing because, as with Program ILA a year

earlier, the entirely logical notion of using Discoverers to loft reconnaissance payloads had attracted a swarm of eager devotees. Sheppard

concocted the antidote,. He sent to Bissell a message which could be

transformed into a directive from Air Force Assistant Secretary

R. E. Horner to General Roscoe Wilson, on the Air Staff. Wilson

would then shape it into a formal directive to BMD. It would (and

ultimately did) say that Horner had been briefed on Carrousel early

in February, that the cost and risk of Carrousel were incompatible

with the gain over established projects (Sentry), and that Carrousel

was therefore disapproved. But because of other attractions Discoverer

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. was to be extended to include 25 flights lasting through 1960 and

sufficient funds were available.

On 27 April, Air Force headquarters officially instructed

BMD to undertake the 25-flight Discoverer program. The ARPA

directive legally required to authenticate such an expansion was

issued on 20 May, thus closing the circle.

The process had taken nearly six months and had been consist-

.

ently marked by a high rate of program confusion. Although Corona 

schedules had since December provided for 20 flights, and thus for

a total of 25 Discoverers, the official ARPA directives at various

times from January through April authorized 12 Corona vehicles

(only eight funded), either three or five biomedical flights, two unspecified payload satellites apparently intended for special ARPA

assignments, and an indefinite number of proof-test vehicles. The

Air Force knew it would have to pay for either four or six of the 19

"valid" Discoverers, but for several months was unable to learn what

.ARP• had in mind for the two "unassigned" birds.

The April 1959 program revision, however, effectively

authorized the extension of Corona operations into 1960 and in a

sense indicated that the covert activity would be a continuing program.

And despite the near chaos of February and March, there was no

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indication that the Carrousel episode had compromised Corona

,

security. Thus continuation was feasible. 46

A final installment in the restoration of complete cover for

Corona was an interchange of letters between L. E. Root, Lockheed

vice president, and General Schriever. The maneuver was planned

in March as a means of- satisfying curiosity that might have been

aroused both in BMD and in Lockheed by the Carrousel proposal.

The letters, classified Secret, handled through "normal" security

channels and seen by any number of people at both sites, would in

the normal course of events provide a "Secret" explanation for some

of the peculiar aspects of the Carrousel episode.

Root's letter, dated 7 April, opened with a reference to

"recent conversations" and the fact that the Sentry program was

relatively well known in industry as a readout effort. Root remarked

that he had been approached by several concerns proposing recoverable photographic payloads for Discoverer capsules for the 1959-1960

period, before Sentry became available. What, he asked, should be

Lockheed's position?

By the time the BMD reply was ready, General Ritland had

replaced General Schriever as commander. Ritland, in a letter

that had been widely "coordinated" within BMD, said BMD had also

•

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been approached, had arranged a quick reassessment of the Discoverer

reconnaissance potential, and had learned that it would take too long to

get results through Discoverer reconnaissance. He explained that

available cameras were too heavy, that teat schedules would not permit

early introduction of photographic payloads, and that ". . . the Discoverer . . . already has too many complications of a sensitive nature

without adding the probably unsolvable complication of a reconnaissance

mission."

By all indications the letters served their intended purpose.

(There was a last-minute scramble to advise Dr. Land of Polaroid,

who had been listed as head of a nonexistent "re-evaluation committee, "

that his name was being used as the authority for the impracticality of

Discoverer reconnaissance. Otherwise there were no important

47 complications.)

By mid-1959, then, Corona had been established, its technology

applied to actual equipment, its cover perfected, and its tenure extended

into the future. The next task was to.prove out the actual system

through orbital operation, recovery, and utilization of the photographic

product. That assignment, originally and optimistically scheduled for

completion by mid-1959, occupied the attention of program managers

for the next 18 months.

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The Flight Program 

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The•first attempt to launch a Discoverer satellite, on 21 January

1959, was aborted by the premature ignition of the accessory rockets on

the upper stage. The second stage vehicle was severely damaged and

the Thor so affected that it had to be withdrawn for major overhaul.

•

. Discoverer I--actually the second scheduled flight vehicle--left

the Vandenberg launch pad on 28 February 1959 and successfully established an orbit with an apogee of 605 miles and a perigee of 99 miles.

Although somewhat more eccentric than planned, it represented success.

No capsule was carried and no recovery attempted.

Discoverer II was also reasonably successful in establishing

orbit following its 13 April launch. Unhappily, a malfunction in the

satellite's timer caused the capsule to be ejected halfway around the

earth from the planned recovery zone. It descended near Spitzbergen.

Although the Air Attache in Norway (aided by an eager BMD officer

who quickly flew into Oslo) made a thorough search of the probable

descent area, no sign of the capsule could be found. The searchers

• did sight signs of ski traffic in the impact zone, however, and some

of the more impressionistic program personnel concluded that the

first capsule to reenter from orbit had been captured by a Russian

mining party. (For several months, Discoverer personnel had

•

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haunting fears that the Soviets might "surface" the Discoverer H

capsule in the midst of an American publicity campaign that featured

a subsequent recovery.) If such had indeed been the fate of the

Discoverer II capsule, it did not gravely disturb Corona managers;

the missing capsule had carried "mechanical mice, " electronic devices

rigged to record biomedical effects data.

Discoverers III and IV, launched on 3 June and 25 June, failed .

to reach orbital velocities because Agena thrust did not meet expectations. The 3 June flight carried another biomedical payload, but the

25 June vehicle contained the first of the Corona cameras. Because

of the failure to orbit, no data on camera operating characteristics

were obtained.

Predictably, that succession of partial successes and failures

touched off a flurry of alarm in CIA and White House quarters.

Immediately after the 25 June failure, BMD advised CIA that no

further launches would be attempted until a thorough evaluation of

the upper stage difficulties had been completed. Special consultants

48 from Space Technology Laboratories were called in to assist.

By early August, the upper stage propulsion and control

systems were slightly changed, as were computer settings. Concur-

.

rently, the Thor!s fuel was altered. Later that month Discoverers V

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and VI were sent into orbit. In both instances (13 August and 19

August), the Agena upper stage functioned properly but the recovery

sequence was in some fashion abnormal with the result that neither

capsule was recovered. Discoverer V .capsule was injected into

high orbit because of improper positioning when reentry sequencing

• began. Nicknamed "Lonesome George, " it circled the Earth in

lonely splendor until 11 February 1961. For the purposes of the Corona

program, the inability to recover was no more disappointing than the

fact that telemetry clearly showed camera failure to have occurred

on either the first or second revolution of the Earth in each instance. 49

At that point, BMD halted the launch program once again to

permit a new analysis of the recovery capsule failures. A succession

of exhaustive ground tests, involving both the capsule recovery subsystem and the camera subsystem, lasted well into October 1959,

when it seemed feasible to resume launchings. The analyses had

revealed several areas where technical weaknesses existed: (1) the

reentry subsystem was being exposed to temperatures lower than

those for which it had been designed; (2) insufficient electrical power

was being provided to the re-injection squibs; (3) telemetered information was insufficient to establish the point of reentry system failure;

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permit additional engineering refinement of the Agena and the recovery

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(4) it had been impossible to track the reentry vehicle until parachute

deployment occurred; (5) data on the capsule separation sequence was

imprecise; (6) the reentry capsule had marginal stability characteristics; and (7) telemetry did not adequately indicate the precise pitch

angle of the Agena vehicle before capsule separation. The first flight

items modified to correct such deficiencies left Lockheed for the launch

area in late September. Subsequently, ground tests revealed that the

spinup rockets had been deficient in quality, and those originally

installed had to be replaced.

One additional change of significance resulted from the August

1959 failures. Conceding that Corona operations were being conducted

in a high risk environment and under a high risk philosophy, BMD

began a long-term instrumentation and analysis program as insurance

against further failures. Although quick success would negate the

usefulness of such a procedure, BMD felt it justified. 50

Lockheed acted also to increase the electrical pove r output of

the satellite batteries and to instrument the recovery capsule much

more elaborately than had initially been thought necessary. In part,

this was the consequence of the report by a special STL study group

which on 8 September seriously urged that the program be halted to
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capsule. It appeared both to the STL specialists and to the BMD

program managers that Lockheed had been overconfident and that

the Agena-plus-capsule section was not instrumented adequately.

Lockheed, in the words of one scientist, had not "instrumented for

failures. "51

The next two Discoverer flight trials, on 7 and ZO November,

were as disappointing as their predecessors. Discoverers VII and

VDT both experienced subsystem failures which prevented recovery

of the capsule. And in neither instance did the camera system

function properly. The Ballistic Missiles Division again suspended

flight tests. 52

Not until February 1960, after two months of intensive

corrective engineering, were the launchings resumed. Unhappily,

neither of the boosters used in the February flights (Discoverers

IX and X, 4 and 19 February) functioned properly and in neither case

did the Agena go into orbit. Some additional complications were

provided when it proved necessary to destroy Discoverer X during

its climbout, showering portions of Vandenberg Air Force Base with

assorted residuals of the flight vehicle. Special security precautions

were quickly enforced to protect the shards of the Corona camera

53 section from compromise.

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Although there was little reason for optimism at that point;

BMD nonetheless continued to insist that the program would eventually

be successful. In January, the production and flight schedules had

been expanded by four additional vehicles to accommodate the newly

approved Argon mapping camera program, an Army-sponsored

covert effort, raising the total of approved Discoverer launchings to

29. (Of these, 20 were to be Corona flights, four Argon flights, and the

remainder biomedical and test vehicle flights.) CIA middle management, vastly discouraged both at the flight vehicle failures and the

parallel camera subsystem failures, was by March again discussing

the advisability of cancelling all Corona requirements in the Discoverer

program. Colonel P. E. Worthman, the Air Force Corona manager,

suggested that it was yet too early for a wake and reminded the agency

that in their time the Atlas, Thor and Titan had all faced down demands

for cancellation. BMD, said Worthman, had come to anticipate a

panic response to development problems that probably were inevitable, at

least in a program so rushed as was Corona . 54

On 15 April 1960, Discoverer XI went into orbit but the recovery

system again malfunctioned. The failure was particularly disappointing because telemetry indicated that for the first time the camera had

functioned perfectly, all 16 pounds of film passing through the subsystem

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into the recovery capsule. One product of the recovery failure was

•

a personal message from the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff to Lockheed's

president urging "extraordinary corrective actions" and the personal

attention of top Lockheed management to the elimination of defects in

the system. Lockheed's response was to propose a further round of

tests in environmental chambers plus diagnostic flights in which the

capsule would be specifically instrumented for recovery system

55 telemetry.

Discoverer XII, carrying diagnostic instrumentation, climbed

away from the Vandenberg launch stand on 29 June 1960, but only

briefly. Erratic horizon scanner operation had caused a nose-down

position during separation of the Agana from the Thor booster. In

this instance, no substantial delay in the next scheduled launch was

imposed although a brief halt permitted modification of relatively

minor components. Once again, however, some CIA personnel revived

the suggestion that the low reliability of Discoverer was cause for

cancelling any further effort on Corona past the scheduled 1960 flights.

Bissell, who continually fought for program continuance in the face of

such odds, felt that the best course probably would be to concentrate

on recovery subsystem perfection and to accept any recovered film

as a program bonus rather than as an objective. 56

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Two circumstances quite outside the Discoverer-Corona

program made the situation unusually difficult during the summer

of 1960. The first was the 1 May capture of a U-2 reconnaissance

aircraft well inside Soviet boundaries and President Eisenhower's

prompt cancellation of further U-2 operations. The second was the

approaching maiden flight of the first Samos (former Sentry) reconnaissance satellite, scheduled for September-October. There was

a general feeling in the Air Staff that Corona was a "poor man's"

system which had slight prospect of achieving any real results.

Weight limited by the thrust of the Thor booster, the Corona system

was considered a relatively handicapped competitor to the Atlasboosted Samos. Additionally, early Samos flights were intended to

provide some demonstration of the effectiveness of a readout system

which, if successful, presumably would eliminate concern for complicated recovery techniques. Finally, the high magnification camera

(E-5) being developed under Samos in the late summer of 1960 was

integrated with a recovery system considerably more "sophisticated"

than that of Corona in several important respects. On the whole,

therefore, Samos offered a convenient alternative to Corona and one

which gained in attractiveness as Corona difficulties persisted. 57

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Because of such factors, the launch of Discoverer XIII on

10 August 1960 took on added importance. The second of the diagnostic

flights programmed into Discoverer had become a hinge on which the

fate of the future program possibly depended.

Launch, orbit, capsule separation, and reentry were near

perfect. Although confusion among the C-119's in the impact area

prevented aerial recovery, the capsule was retrieved from the water

94 miles south of its predicted descent point. On the morning of

12 August, Major R. J. Ford of the BSD Corona office sent a terse

message across the cryptographic lines to Washington: "Capsule

recovered undamaged." It was both the shortest and the most important

of the thousands of communications over that network in the previous

58

two years.

Return of the capsule to the mainland and its ultimate disposition

were supposed to conform to a pattern laid down 18 months earlier. The

plan called for capsule delivery to a courier from BMD, the courier's

return to California by commercial airliner, and the surreptitious

exchange of the container for a dummy shortly thereafter. The nominal

capsule container would go to Lockheed by a rather obvious route,

while the real capsule (repackaged so as not to resemble the original)

left Sunnyvale, California, in an unmarked truck for covert shipment

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to the processing facility at Rochester, New York." Examination

of the real capsule would certainly disclose that it included a film

entry aperture, so its concealment from all non-Corona personnel

was vital if the cover was to be maintained.

Although Discoverer XIII had no film aperture and carried

-118

neither camera nor film, being fully occupied by instrumentation

and telemetry equipment essential to the diagnostic mission of the

flight, the recovery process was scheduled to be a full-scale dress

rehearsal for handling of a "hot" capsule. But after the capsule and

its courier reached the mainland, the affair began to resemble a very

bad melodrama. The courier disregarded his instructions and,

shouldering aside frantic protests from alarmed Corona participants,

took the capsule directly to ARDC headquarters for presentation to

General Schriever. Along the way, the courier ignored previous

agreements concerning the handling of.the capsule, having "unofficially"

acquired the special tools needed to open it, and apparently tampered

with the inner container. Lockheed engineers, who ultimately got

the container for examination, were unable to tell whether breaks in

the capsule skin had resulted from the unauthorized tampering or had

been caused by reentry and recovery shocks. Since no film had

actually been enclosed in the Discoverer XIII capsule, no long-term

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harm resulted. But the Corona group at BMD, after expressing eloquent

distaste for the - courier's peculiar behavior, promptly revised the

60

courier selection process.

Discoverer XIV, launched on 18 August, paralleled the performance of its predecessor in most important respects. Additionally,

it carried a Corona camera, and the camera worked perfectly.

Although the Agena had less than optimum pitch-down angle at the

time of capsule separation, and the capsule actually descended 430

miles south of the predicted impact area, the C-119's were on hand

•

to complete a smooth aerial recovery--the first in history. And,

this time the capsule handling process followed plans. After an overt

return to Moffett Naval Air Station, the capsule was switched to the

unmarked container and sent to Rochester for final processing of

the film. The fact that press photographs of the XIV capsule were

forbidden was explained by citing the need for close examination of

the instruments before they had been disturbed. (In the instance

of Discoverer XIII, the courier had actually told a newspaperman

friend of his planned itinerary, thus making photographs almost

inevitable.)

Initial reaction to the film from XIV was unbridled jubilation.

CIA told Colonel Worthman the photo interpreters had called it

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' , terrific, stupendous, " and had confessed "we are flabbergasted."

Worthman's conservative report to General Ritland was that

"apparently design specifications on resolution have been met .. . "

The photographs were of "very high quality, " and as a bonus it developed

that at least half of the frames exposed over the Soviet Union were clear

of cloud cover.

Detailed analysis of the XIV results showed that 3000 feet of

film had been recovered—essentially all of the 20 pounds stored in

the cassettes. Something in excess of 1, 650, 000 square miles of

Soviet territory were laid out for the photo interpreters. Resolution

was conservatively estimated to be 55 lines per millimeter, and ground

objects ranging upwards from 35-foot dimensions were identifiable. 61

The drought was over: Although two failures to recover and

one camera breakdown kept the next batch of "take" from photo interpreters until the recovery of XVIII capsule on 10 December 1960, there

was no longer any question of the feasibility of any major element of

•

the Corona operation. Discoverer XVIII, moreover, had carried an

improved camera--C', called "C-prime"--and nearly twice the weight

of film recovered from XIV. It remained in orbit three days rather

than one, provided roughly twice as much coverage (3, 800, 000 square

miles), gave 20 percent better resolution (65 lines per millimeter for

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XVIII as opposed to the 55 of XIV), and the recovered frames permitted

identification of some ground objects only 25 feet on each side. 62

What remained was to improve the equipment and the product

still further. It had taken nearly two years to progress from first

flight to useful intelligence, but in those two years significant changes

both in the technical and the program status of Corona had occurred.

Moreover, during the critical months of 1960 when the Corona program

finally passed the "make or break" point, a variety of new factors had

completely altered the character of the national satellite reconnaissance

program.

There was no doubt, however, that the crisis had been passed.

The circumstance of a successful passage was due largely to the intelligent perserverance of a few key individuals who never lost faith,

whatever the momentary discouragements. Chief among these was

CIA's Bissell, whose intervention at White House levels was vital

1111 during those periods when flight failures were prompting frequent

•

suggestions that everybody concerned should forget all about Corona.

The program managers at BMD kept their enthusiasm high--at least

for public consumption--but it was Bissell who took the brunt of

Presidential displeasure and whose calm assurance in the face of

recurrent failures meant program continuance. On the Air Force N

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side, the determination of the successive Corona program directors,

Colonels Sheppard and Worthman, kept the effort alive in the face of

general degeneration of confidence at higher levels. And more than

any other individual, Lieutenant Colonel C. L. Battle, Discoverer

Program Director, kept engineeking efforts on the right course and

at the proper paCe.

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NOTES ON SOURCES

Rpt of the Teller Ad Hoc Committee, 28 Oct 57, in USAF•Hist

Div files.

Memo, R.E. Horner, Asst SAF (R&D), to SOD, 12 Nov 57,

subj: Outer Space Vehicles, in USAF Hist Div files.

Rand Rpt RM-2012 (Adv Cy), An Early Reconnaissance Satellite

System, 12 Nov 57, published in final form with same number

and date as A Family of Recoverable Reconnaissance Satellites;

R.L. Perry, Origins of the USAF Space Program 1945-1955,

SSD Hist Div, Aug 1962; ltr, LtCol F. C.E. Oder, Asst for WS 117L,

BMD, to R-W Corp, 14 Dec 56, subj: Recoverable Payload Package

Study, in SSD Hist Div files: Agana.

Brochure: "Pioneer Strategic Reconnaissance Satellite for ICBM

and IRBM with Recoverable System, "27 Nov 57, which cites and

draws from "Strategic Reconnaissance for ICBM and IRBM -Using

Recoverable Satellite, " 29 Oct 57; brochure: "Pioneer Strategic

Reconnaissance Satellite for ICBM and IRBM with Recoverable

System, " 4 Jan 5•; ltr, H. W. Paige, GenMgr, GE Missiles and

Space Veh Dept, to. BrigGen O.J. Ritland, V/Cmdr BMD, 15 Apr

59, no subj; memo, Col W.A. Sheppard, BMD, for the Record,

7 May 58, subj: Reasons for Deciding Against the General Electric

Proposal of April 1958; msg, Col W.A. Sheppard, BMD, to

George Kucera, CIA, 5 May 59; all in Corona files. Notably, as

Col Sheppard pointed out, the GE proposal was not discussed at

later meetings (Apr 58) although Paige was present. Sheppard

had some doubts about the reality of the "4 Jan proposal, " wondering whether it had actually been pre-dated after having been

assembled somewhat later. . It would appear, however, that GE

did propose a recoverable system in October and November but

did not pursue the issue, at least within BMD. In any event, as

later became clear, the GE approach contained major defects,

particularly in the complexity of the three-stage booster arrangement, the free-fall re-entry concept, the "floating ball" recovery

technique, and the use of a low-reliability Hermes rocket.

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5 • LMSD Doc 2832, WS 117L Development Plan for Program Acceleration, 6 Jan 58; ltr, L. E. Root, V/Pres, LAC, to Cmdr BMC,

26 Nov 57, no subj; Ltr, MajGen B.A. Schriever, Cmdr BMD, to

L.E. Root, LAC, 23 Dec 57, no subj, in SSD Hist Div files.

6. Memo, Col F.C.E. Oder, Dir/WS 117L Prog, to MajGen B.A.

Schriever, Cmdr BMD, 7 Dec 57, no subj, in Oder Papers;

Corona tape.

Memo, Oder to Schriever, 7 Dec 57; Corona tape; interview,

LtCol R. J. Ford, SAFSP, by R.L. Perry, Hist Div, 16 Jan 63;

memo, Col F.C.E. Oder, Dir/WS 117L Prog, for the Record,

31 Jan 58, subj: Establishment of Thor-Boosted Phase of WS 117r..

Memo, J.A. Douglas, SAF, to SOD, 1 Feb 58, subj: Reconnaissance

Satellite, in SSD Hist Div files; Corona tape; Rpt, WS 117L Mgt Rpt

No 8, prep by BMD, 23 Jan 58, in Ford files.

Notes in handwriting of MajGen B.A. Schriever, Cmdr BMD,

Feb 58, in Ford files; TWX, AFMPP-WS-1-55956, USAF to BMD,

3 Feb 58, in Oder files.

Memo, Col F.C.E. Oder, for Retord, [27 Feb 58), subj: Record

of Conference, in Oder papers; Corona tape.

11. Memo, Oder for Record, [27 Feb 58); Corona chronology.

Memo,emo, R. W. Johnson, Dir/ARPA, to SAF, 28 Feb 58, subj:

Reconnaissance Satellites anci,Manned Space Exploration; memo,

• Neil McElroy, SOD, to SAF, 24 Feb 58, subj: AF WS 117L Program

Reconnaissance System, SSD Hist Div files.

Memo, Oder for Record, 31 Jan 58; memo, Col F.C.E. Oder,

Dir/WS 117L Prog, to MajGen B.A. Schriever, Cmdr BMD,

18 Feb 58, subj: Preliminary Evaluation of Itek Proposal, in

Corona files: Contractor Selection; memo, Col F.C.E. Oder,

Dir/WS 117L Prog, for File, 26 Feb 58, subj: Record of Conference; TWX, AFCVC 57197, USAF to BMD, 3 Mar 58, in Corona

files: History.

14. Interview, LtCol R. J. Ford, SAFSP, by R.L. Perry, 29 Oct 62,

15 Jan 63.

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Memo, Col F. C. E. Oder, for Record, 12 Mar 58, subj: Record

rence, in Oder Papers; draft memo, prep by Map

BMD (WS 117L Dir), 27 Feb 58, subj: Recoverable

Payload Proposals, in Ford files.

Draft memo, prep b 27 Feb 58: Corona tape; ltr, R.S.

Leghorn, Pres, Itek, Carter, LMSD, 17 Feb 58, no subj,

in Corona files.

Memo, Col F.C.E. Oder, Dir/WS 117L Prog, for Record,

12 Mar 58, subj: Record of Conference; memo, Oder for Record;

12 Mar 58, sub.): Record of Conference, 12 Mar 58, both in Oder

Papers; Corona tape; TWX, WDTR 3-18-E, Cmdr ARDC to LMSD,

12 Mar 58, in Schriever files.

Corona tape; memo, Col F. C.E. Oder for Record, 25 Mar 58,

subj: Report of Meeting, 15 Mar 58; memo, Oder for Record,

25 Mar 58, subj: Report ci Meeting, 17 Mar 58; memo, Oder for

Record, 25 Mar 58, subj: Report of Meeting, 22 Mar 58; all in

Oder Papers; memo, Oder for Record, no subj, in Schriever file

(deals with 18 Mar 58 mtg at Cambridge); memo, Oder for Record,

28 Mar 58, subj: Backup Reconnaissance Program for Corona, in

Oder Papers; draft memo, Oder to.MajGen B.A. Schriever, Cmdr

AFBMD, 28 'Mar 58, subj: Back Up Camera Pod Development for

Project CORONA, in Ford files.

Memo, Col W. A. Sheppard, for the Record, 21 Apr 58, no subj,

in Oder papers; memo, Oder to Schriever, 28 Mar 58.

The fact that President Eisenhower personally approved Corona

early in April in a meeting with Dulles, McElroy, and Killian is

brought out in: mai; 2956, R.M. Bissell (CIA) to BrigGen O.J.

Ritland (V/Cmdr BMD), 2 Oct 58, and msg 2979, Bissell to

Col W.A. Sheppard (BMD), 2 Oct 58, both in Corona corres files.

21. Memo, Sheppard for Record, 21 Apr 58; staff summary: Corona

Summary, approx 1 Apr 58, in Oder papers; Summary Work Stmt

between LMSD and GE, and LMSD and Itek, 9 May 58, in Oder Papers.

22. Corona tape; Corona chronology.

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Corona tape; ltr, F. W. O'Green, TechDir, LMSD, to LMSD pers,

51 Jul 58, subj: Advanced Engineering Tests, in Odet papers; memo,

Col F. C.E. Oder, Dir/WS 117L Prog, for Record, 31 Jul 58, subj:

Implementation Steps, in Oder papers.

Corona tape; ltr, O'Greene to gent distrib, 31 Jul 58; memo, Col

F. C. E. Oder, Dir/WS 117L, to Col W.A. Sheppard, 30 Sep 58,

subj: Comments on COR-0160, 25 Sep 58, in Ford file.

25. TWX, AFCGM 52996, USAF to BMD, 8 Jul 58; meg (noted in action

diary maintained by Col W.A. Sheppard, hereafter cited as

Sheppard diary), 9 July 58, in Corona files.

Sheppard diary, 12 Apr 58.

Sheppard diary, 14 May 58.

28. A P- C-R53942, USAF to BMD, 10 Jul 58; memo, LtCol

MD Ops Ofc, for Record, 21 Jul 58, Report of

Meeting with T and ADC to establish a C-119 Squadron...; ARDC

GO 38, 22 Jul 58. Information on the background of the 119L program

occurs "between the lines" of much Corona correspondence for the

mid-1958 period. The basic technique of the 119L operation was

detailed in an "open" plan for "Project Gopher, " in 1953. Some

additional information was drawn from the memories of LtCols

R. J. Ford, John Pietz, and V. M. Genez, all SAFSP, and all

cognizant of 119L in the 1954-1955 period.

Sheppard diary, 26-30 May, 16-20 Jun 58.

Memo, Col W.A. Sheppard, for Record, 17 Jun 58, subj: LockheedGeneral Electric Relations, in Corona files: Contractor Selection;

Sheppard diary, 16-20 Jun 58; memo, W.A. Sheppard, for Record,

17 Jun 58, subj as above, noted that cy sent to CIA by MajGen B.A.

Schriever, Cmdr BMD, in Sheppard papers.

Ltr, J.S. Carter, LMSD, to R.M. Bissell, CIA, 11 Nov 58, no

subj, in Corona files.

Corona tape; TWX AFCGM 52800, USAF to BMD, 2 Jul 58, Corona

hist files.

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TWX AFCGM 54161, USAF to BMD, 6 Aug 58, Corona hist files.

Msg 2956, CIA (R.M. Bissell) to BMD (BrigGen O.J. Ritland,

V/Cmdr), 2 Oct 58; msg 2979, CIA (Bissell) to BMD (Col W.A.

Sheppard), 2 Oct 58; msg 0096, BMD to CIA (Bissell) 7 Oct 58;

Corona chronology.

Sheppard diary, 20-24 Oct 58.

Memo, R. W. Johnson, Dir/ARPA, to Cmdr BMD, 10 Sep 58,-

subj: Redefinition of WS 117L; memo, Col F.C.E. Oder, Dir/

WS 117L Prog; to Col W.A. Sheppard, 30 Sep 58, subj: Comrnents

on COR-0160, 25 Sep 58, in Oder papers; Corona tape; rpt, Corona

Cover Plan, 8 Dec 58, prep by Corona ofc, in Ford files.

37. Memo, Col W.A. Sheppard to MajGen B.A. Schriever, Cmdr BMD,

17 Nov 58, subj: Status of Scientific Advisory Committee for Reconnaissance Satellites, in Sheppard papers; memo, R. M. Bissell, CIA,

to MajGen A.J. Goodpaster, Mil Asst to the Pres, 5 Nov 58, subj:

Project CORONA, in Sheppard papers; Corona Briefing Portfolio,

22 Jan 59, prep by Col W.A. Sheppard, in Corona files.

Ltr, R. S. Johnson, Dir/ARPA, to LtGen S. E. Anderson, Cmdr

ARDC, 25 Nov 58 .

Corona tape.

Memo Rpt, R. C. Truax,

ARPA Staff, to .Dir, D/Dir, Ch Sci, ARPA, 1 Dec 58, subj: Reorientation of 117L Program. Two versions of the report were

prepared. One was SECRET, and was rather widely circulated.

The other, TOP SECRET in classification, contained very specific

references to the Corona communication network. Only five BMD

people saw the TOP SECRET version. Meg 0529, Col W.A.

Sheppard, BMD, to CIA, 22 May 59.

Memo, Col H.L. Evans, Dir/WS 117L, to AF Undersecty M. MacIntrye,

25 Nov 58 (longhand memo, in Sheppard papers); ltr, LtGen S. E.

Anderson, Cmdr ARDC to Asst VCS, USAF, 1 Dec 58, subj:

Project DISCOVERY (sic).

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Memo, R. W. Johnson, Dir/ARPA, to SAFUS, 4 Dec 58, subj:

WS 117L Program, ARPA; Sheppard diary, 1-5 Dec 58.

Memo, R. W. Johnson, Dir/ARPA, to SAFUS, 17 Dec 58, subj:

Reorientation of SENTRY Program, in Sheppard papers; Sheppard

diary, 1-5 Dec 58.

Sheppard Diary, 15-19 Dec 58.

"Corona Cover Plan, " 8 Dec 58.

Corona Briefing Portfolio, 22 Jan 59; Sheppard diary, Feb-Apr

1959; memo, Col W.A. Sheppard to MajGen B.A. Schriever,

20 Jan 59, subj: CORONA Program Report; memo, LtGen B.C.

Wolson, DCS/D USAF, to MajGen J. Ferguson, et at (DCS/D),

2 Feb 59, subj: AFBMD Presentation to Mr. Maclntyre; msg 0327,

Col W.A. Sheppard, BMD, to R.M. Bissell, CIA, 3 Feb 59;

msg 0328, CIA to BMD (Sheppard), 4 Feb 59; msg 0340, BMD

(Sheppard) to CIA (Bissell), 11 Feb 59; Memo, LtGen R.C. Wilson,

DCS/D USAF, to J.V. Charyk, SAFUS, 29 Feb 60, subj: Satellite

Reconnaissance; msg 6717, CIA to BMD (Sheppard), 6 Mar 59;

msg 0446, BMD (Sheppard) to CIA (Bissell), 3 Apr 59; TWX AFDAT

59353, USAF, to BMD, 27 Apr 59; Amend No 4 to ARPA Order

48-59, 20 May 59. All except the last two items are in the Corona

corres files or the Sheppard papers; the 20 May TWX and the ARPA

Order are in SSD Hist Div files.

Meg 0417, BSD (Col W.A. She and to CIA, 24 Mar 59; memo,

Col W.A. Sheppard to Maj 14 Apr 59, subj: RootSchriever, Schriever-Root • c ange o etters; msg 0500, BMD

to CIA, 5 May 59; ltr, L. E. Root, V/Pres & Gen Mgr LAC, to

MajGen B.A. Schriever, Cmdr BMD, 7 Apr 59, no subj (copies

to several LAC departments); ltr, BrigGen O.J. Ritland, Cmdr

BMD, to L.E. Root, LAC, 6 May 59, no subj (multiple coordination within BMD).

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48. Meg 0612, Col .H.L. Evans (BMIli to R.M. Bissell (CIA), 25 Jun 59;

msg 9927, Bissell to MajGen O.J. Ritland (Cmdr BMD), 26 Jun 59:

msg 0620, Ritland to Bissell, 27 Jun 59; unless otherwise credited,

details concerning Discoverer program results are drawn from

USAF Space Programs 1945-1962, a special report prepared for the

V/CS USAF and Cmdr AFSC by the SSD Hist Div and USAF Hist

Div Liais Ofc in Dec 1962.

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Chart: Corona Summary (through Disc XXXVII), 15 Jan 62.

TWX WDZ-8-15-E, BMD to USAF, 28 Aug 59, in SSD Hist Div

files; msg 2389, CIA to BMD, 14 Sep 59; msg 0856, BMD (Col

P.E. Worthman) to CIA, 15 Sep 59, quoting BMD TWX to ARPA,

15 Sep 59; msg 9505, BMD (Col W.A. Sheppard) to CIA (R.M.

Bissell), 29 Sep 59, all in Corona corres files.

Memo, Col F. C. E. Oder, Asst D/Cmdr Space Sys, BSD, to

WS 117L Prog Ofc approx 5 Sep 59, subj: LMSD Discoverer

Recovery Report; ltr, R. Smelt, LMSD, to Cmdr BMD, 21 Sep 59,

subj: Modifications Incorporated in Discoverer VII; memo,

Maj F.S. Buzard, Disc Prog Ofc, for Record, 4 Se 5 su

Report on Meeting of 3 September; memo, Ma Jr.,

Disc Prog Ofc, for Record, 10 Sep 59, subj: 8 Sep 59 Meeting.

TWX, RDRRB 27-11-31-E, ARDC to USAF, 1 Dec 59, in USAF

Hist Div files; Chart, Corona Summary, 15 Jan 62.

• Msg 1111, BMD (Col P.E. Worthman) to CIA, 19 Feb 60; Chart:

Corona Summary, 15 Jan 62.

BMD Dev Plant Discoverer, 15 Jan 60; minutes of 45th AFBMC

mtg, 10 Feb 60; msg 1113, BMD (Col P. E. Worthman) to CIA

19 Feb 60; msgs 1150 and 1152 BMD (Worthman)

to CIA 9 Mar 60; msg 8058 CIA to BMD

(Worthman), 7 Mar 60, all mega in Corona corres files.

Ltr, Gen C. E. LeMay, VCS USAF, to Pres, LAC, 25 Apr 60,

no subj, USAF Hist Div files; memo, LtCol R. J. Ford, Corona

prog ofc, for Record, (2) May 60, subj: Program Review...

1 May 60; Chart: Corona Summary, 15 Jan 62.

Meg 1722, CIA (R.M. Bissell) to BMD (MajGen O.J. Ritland,

Cmdr), 1 Jul 60; Chart: Corona Summary, 15 Jan 62.

5?. Interviews, MajGen R. E. Greer and Col J. W. Ruebel, SAFSP,

12 Dec 62; Lt Col R. J. Ford, 21 Jan 63, all by R.L. Perry.

58. Meg 1352, BSD (Ford) to CIA, 12 Aug 60; Chart: Corona Summary,

15 Jan 62.

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Msg 7241, CIA to LAC, 27 Mar 59; meg 7551, CIA to BMD, 8 Apr 59.

Memos (3), Col P. E. Worthman, for Record, 12 Aug 60, subj:

DISCOVERER Recovery Plan, in Corona cores i • 1362,

BMD (Worthman) to CIA, 16 Aug 60; ltr, Cmdr

6594th Test Wg, to BMD, about 20 Aug 60, subj: Discoverer XIII

Capsule Recovery Procedure; memo, Col P. E. Worthman, for

Record, 16 Aug 60, subj: Return of Capsule from DISCOVERER XIII,

in Corona corres and msg files.

Meg 2804, CIA (R.M. Bissell) to BMD (MajGen O.J. Ritland, Cmdr),,

17 Aug 60; memo, Col P. E. Worthman, for Record, 23 Aug 60,

subj: Quality of "Take"; memo, Worthman for Record, 24 Aug 60,

subj: Quality of Take and Gangmeter; rpt, Program Report, Corona,

Nov 61, in Ford files; Chart: Corona Summary, 15 Jan 62.

Chart: Corona Summary, 15 Jan 62; rpt, Program Report, Corona ,

Nov 61.

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III THE MATURATION OF CORONA (1961-1972)

Between 21 January 1959 and 18 August 1960, 15 satellite

missions were attempted under the program title "Discoverer."

The general public was told they were research and development

flights intended to investigate the feasibility of orbiting, operating,

and recovering several vaguely identified scientific payloads. The

intelligence community most sincerely hoped that the Soviet Union

believed that fable, because the entire "Discoverer" program was

really an elaborate facade covering the development and initial operation of an interim reconnaissance satellite called Corona.

The Corona program had been conceived in response to the

perceived urgency of satellite reconnaissance at a time--late 1957--

when there was slight near'-term prospect of obtaining useful intelligence from the highly structured, unduly ambitious Samos satellite

program of the time.

Whether the Russians believed that Discoverer was pretty much

what it was publicly represented to be remained an intriguing question,

withal one that had transient importance. The Russians may have had

"inside" intelligence by way of conventional espionage, of course. In

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that case the question would appear to be irrelevant. Any hard information about the intelligence function of the Discoverer program would be

consistent with bits and pieces of data the Soviets had accumulated

between 1956 and 1960--in particular, whatever they retrieved from

American reconnaissance balloons (Project Genetrix) between 1954•and

1956, and from the Powers U-2 in. May 1960. By nature, the Russians

would be inclined to suspect intent; any surreptitiously obtained intelligence data would have confirmed purpose; and the photo systems they

had earlier captured would have clarified feasibility. Suspicion of

intent and knowledge of capability might be enough, even without support-

*

ing intelligence.

But it also seems possible that an intensive analysis of American

purpose and capability might have induced the Russians to accept Discoverer at face value, at least in its early years, and perhaps even

through much of the 14-year Corona program. First, it was by no means

obvious that the U.S. --or anyone else--could actually build and operate

a useful satellite reconnaissance system based on the Thor-Agena

booster-spacecraft combination and 1958 camera-system technology.

Compared to other systems earlier proposed, Corona was tiny. The

camera weighed only 92 pounds, and the entire payload including film,

American intelligence estimates are often based on assumptions of

intent and postulations about capability. It is only reasonable to credit

the Soviets with similar habits.

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only 53 more. High resolution photographic systems were notoriously heavy. Soviet intelligence analysts could very reasonably

have concluded that Discoverer was intended to test the feasibility

of various reconnaissance subsystems, perhaps even a limited capability prototype camera, but they would not necessarily conclude that 111 Discoverer was an operationally useful system in its own right.

A second factor of some importance was development style.

All the available evidence would suggest to the Soviets that the pre1111 ferred, almost exclusive strategy for United States military systems

development was the massive-resource approach applied to other

111 widely known programs--including Samos. The style of Corona development was the complete antithesis of normal U.S. practice. It was

relatively cheap; limited resources and relatively few people were

1111

involved in its development, and notwithstanding its extremely clever

design it was a rather conservative extension of the existing state of

the art. No other important American program of the time had those

attributes, and certainly no other military space program. (Knowledge

of the almost pathetic Vanguard and Explorer programs of 1957-1960

could not but reinforce the assumption that "simple" American space

systems were likely to be unimpressive in performance.)

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Capability was a third factor. Although they had undamaged

Genetrix camera systems to examine at leisure (and, after May 1960,

• the U-2 cameras), and had taken over most of the German optical and

camera industry at the end of World War II, the Russians nevertheless

appeared to be well behind the U.S. in that area of technology as late

as 1965. Corona, despite its small size, was an extremely capable

system. Its performance surprised even those who built it and system

performance improved spectacularly once the early problems of Corona

development had been overcome. From the Soviet viewpoint, orbiting

a camera system limited in weight by the payload capacity of the ThorAgana combination could well have no operational significance. It

would have been counter to good sense, as the Russians saw it, to

have invested in so unpromising an undertaking; they might logically

have concluded, therefore, that the Americans would not.

Finally, there was the apparent nature of the Discoverer program.

It was one of several "minor" space programs hastily composed in

response to the stimulus of Sputnik late in 1957. The main thrust of

the American reaction to Sputnik was to pour larger resources into the

development of much publiCized missiles and military satellites--

principally Atlas, Thor, and Samos—and to invest in other systems

with little but '!image" value. Space launches were widely publicized;

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many were failures. Administration officials, legislators, and

military spokesmen concerned about a response to the Soviet "space

threat" typically emphasized the major programs, including Samos,

and depreciated such "irrelevant" programs as Discoverer, Explorer,

Echo, and Pioneer because they had no evident military utility. Most

really believed that to be true. Given.the notorious American habit .

of publicizing the goals, status, and (often) the details of major

military programs, however sensitive, the Russians might well have

considered any departure from that pattern so uncharacteristic as to

be incredible. Occasional European press references to Discoverer

as a "spy satellite" signified little except that speculation was an

entertaining diversion. A great many Americans who were privy to

the inner workings of the U.S. space effort between 1958 and 1964--or

thought they were, having apparent access to most of the classified

details--never suspected Discoverer to be other than what it pretended

to be. The more one knew about the inner workings of the U.S. R&D

process, the less likely he was to suspect that a Corona program

could ever be conducted.

Perhaps the Russians were similarly misled. The question

was not likely to be answered. for a great many years. But in any

event, if the Russians were not completely convinced of the innocent

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I

I

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was forgotten by virtually everybody. The operation called Discoverer II,

nature of "Discoverer, " they must have taken considerable comfort

from the thoroughly discouraging progress of the program during

its first 18 months. Of 15 attempts, only two missions proceeded

more-or-less successfully from launch through capsule recovery.

And only one of the recovered capsules contained film; the other

actually was an engineering development satellite.

The first firing ended in a launch pad explosion and the

destruction of booster and vehicle. (No recovery capsule was part of

either of the first two attempted missions; both were what they pretended to be, experimental flights.) The second launch was successful.

It was therefore called "Discoverer I, " a semantic evasion that papered

over the initial launch failure so artfully that the unsuccessful operation

really the third in the series, included a recovery capsule but no camera

or film--which proved fortunate, because the capsule apparently reentered somewhere near Spitzbergen, Norway. The inability of a

retrieval team to locate the capsule convinced some suspicious observers

that it had been purloined by the Russians, although the evidence supporting that conclusion was slight and tenuous. In any case, although

The purported ability of mission analysts to predict the impact points

of reentry bodies that came down far from planned recovery zones was

highly regarded, notwithstanding a consistent lack of success over
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stealing it would have been a Soviet triumph of sorts, and the retrieved

data certainly - could have been highly useful to the Russians, the lost

capsule represented no real threat to the security of Corona. It

actually contained the instrumentation devices represented to'be its

payload, a. circumstance that was true for only three of the remaining

flights in the first 15 Discoverer missions..

In six of the ten mission attempts that followed Discoverer II,

the Agena spacecraft failed in one mode or another. The other four

were marked by assorted malfunctions of film transport, orbiting

vehicle, or reentry system. All ten were failures.

Discoverer XIII carried a diagnostic payload rather than a

camera, an expedient forced on the program by the continuing mission

failures. Its capsule was recovered on 11 August 1960. Various

aspects of the flight were marred by minor difficulties, and the

capsule itself had to be retrieved from the water because of confusion

among aircraft sent to catch it during its final parachute descent.

several years in efforts to locate a variety of misplaced reentry items.

Toward the end of the 1960s and early in the 1970s, bits and pieces

turned up thousands of miles from impact points predicted on the

strength of good tracking data. One such case involving Corona is

discussed later in this chaper. In another case, pieces of a Gambit

vehicle purported to have come down in central Africa were found

on farmland in southern England. Such developments tended to '

support the comforting assumption that neither the Russians nor

anybody else had found the missing Discoverer II capsule.

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Nevertheless, it was a program success--the first of any significance.

It was also the first orbital object to be retrieved from space--by

*

anybody.

One week after Discoverer XIII was rec overed and returned to

Washington (to the acc om-pantment of enormous publicity that caused

the carefully arranged cover plan to come apart), Discoverer XIV was

launched. (It actually was the fifteenth in the Discoverer series and

the ninth to carry a Corona camera.) Launch, orbital operations, and

retrieval were highly successful, both as compared to earlier efforts

and in terms of fulfilling formal mission plans. The retrieved capsule

provided the first reconnaissance photographs of the Soviet Union ever

taken from orbit. When interpreted, they put to rest the persistent

legend of a "missile gap" and the 1958-1960 apprehension that numbers

of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles were emplaced and targeted

**

on the United States.

Unless, of course, the Russians did find Discoverer II!

**

In an episode reminiscent of nothing so much as the 1944 presidential

election, when Thomas E. Dewey was constrained by wartime security

from making potentially devastating revelations about Pearl Harbor,

Richard M. Nixon in 1960 was constrained from revealing that the

"missile gap" on which John F. Kennedy had'earlier campaigned was

an illusion. The Discoverer XIV payload was retrieved, and its intelligence information digested, two months before the 1960 election campaign ended. Kennedy, who was also aware of the mission results,

stopped talking about the missile gap thereafter. But some of his

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In December 1960, the 13th Corona mission • was conducted as

Discoverer XVIII. An unsuccessful recovery, a launch failure, and

a camera mechanism failure marred the three intervening missions.

The film recovered from "Discoverer XVIII" dispelled all residual

concern about a Soviet lead in the deployment of intercontinental

missiles and provided the basic hard intelligence around which

incoming President John F. Kennedy and his defense secretary constructed their massive overhaul of U.S. defense priorities, goals,

structures, and management processes.

supporters did not, and Nixon's indirect assertions that there was

no missile gap had no real impact because he had been saying as

much earlier, when nobody really knew, and because he had subsequently adopted the policy of promising to enlarge the U.S.

missile program in much the way Kennedy proposed. In later years,

when the August 1960 findings became more widely known, there was

surprisingly little discussion of the potential change in election

results that might have occurred if the truth had been revealed.

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C' to Mural

"Discolierer XVIII, " the thirteenth Corona, carried an improved

camera system known as C' (and, of course, called "C-Prime" in

•

discussions). Both the original "C" and the subsequent C' had lenses

with f/5.0 maximum apertures and 24-inch focal lengths. C' embodied

structural and engineering changes that somewhat simplified the camera

system and also returned a ground resolution averaging about 35 feet,.

as compared to the nominal 40 feet of the original C camera. The

original C camera, flown on the first 12 Corona missions, produced

the images recovered in August 1960. It saw no further operational use.

The C' camera had begun development in mid-1959 and had been

adopted by the time a second Corona capsule was recovered, in

December 1960. It was used • on all subsequent Corona operations until

the newer C'" ("C-triple-prime") camera replaced it on the 29th Corona

mission, in August 1961, Three additional flights with C' cameras

followed, interspersed With three additional C'" systems. By February

1962 the combination of two C''' cameras in a single Corona-Mural 

system was ready for use and thereafter all Corona missions incorporated stereo capability.

Between the appearance of C' and its eventual replacement by

C"' , there occurred rather more than six months of debate about the

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merits of two competing approaches to an improved Corona. Disagreement about what was needed was compounded by uncertainty

about the necessity of investing additional funds in any further improvement of Corona. In 1960 the reconnaissance community still

held pretty generally to the assumption that the E-1 and E-2 readout

systems would become available for operational use in 1961 and 1962;

the E-2, in particular, promised to provide resolution somewhat

better than that of Corona C', but with the further attraction of

having near-real-time data accessibility through readout. Additionally, the E-5 stereo system, a recovery system with potentially much

greater resolution and area coverage capability than Corona, was

progressing toward flight and—nominally—toward a 1962 or 1963

operational readiness date. • In late 1960 both E-6 and Gambit entered

development, and while neither was in any sense a Corona replacement,

it was widely assumed that the combination of any of the high-resolution

111 film recovery systems with one or both of the readout systems would

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alMost surely make Corona redundant.

Such reasoning was predicated on the plausible assumption that

the various Samos camera systems would reasonably well satisfy

performance, cost, and schedule expectations then current. Nevertheless, there was some justification for improving Corona so as to

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enhance the quality of satellite photography during 1961; E-1, the only

Samos sytem certain to be available that year, had only about 100-foot

resolution capability. Yet neither large investments nor high risks

seemed warranted, even though some members of the Corona project

group, and others in the satellite reconnaissance community, had

healthy doubts about the validity of expectations for the several Samos

systems. Finally, of course, there was the irrepressible instinct of

the firms who were supplying Corona systems to propose advancements

and improvements that might extend the period of Corona production

and use.

Both Itek and Fairchild Camera and Instrument Company had

been involved in Corona from its start. They were not, on the whole,

cheerful collaborators. Each would have preferred to be the sole

supplier. Each, therefore, proposed modification of the C' camera

in early 1961. Itek advocated a major redesign of the optics and a

substantial modification of other aspects of the C' camera as a means

of improving both resolution and reliability. Fairchild, then a component

•

supplier to Itek but earlier a competitor for the entire Corona camera

system, urged a different approach, suggesting retention of the original

lens and image-motion-compensation system but with alterations that

would result in the substitution of five-inch film for the three-inch

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(70 millimeter) film then used. Both were responding to urging from

the Corona program office to provide an improved Corona capability

for use in 1961. Both proposals were referred to as C-61 or C"

systems, on the assumption that one would be chosen and would carry

that designation.

Independent assessment of the two approaches was initially

unfavorable to the Itek concept; the Aerial Reconnaissance Laboratory

at Wright Field concluded that the Itek design was too complex and

too advanced to be reliable, while Lockheed judged (on much the same

ground) that although neither Itek nor Fairchild had a fully acceptable

2

design, the Fairchild design was more promising. In consequence,

a cautious start on the Fairchild system was authorized.

Eventual adoption of the Fairchild design would probably have

resulted in a Corona resolution improvement on the order of that experienced in the transition from C to C' --about 15 percent. Such nn•••n•

modest goals were abandoned in the wake of the first successful Corona

operation in August 1960 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower sat

through a private showing of the first recovered photography and, in

the discussion that followed, heard Dr. Edwin Land, one of the early

sponsors of the Corona program (and a determined advocate of the

Itek approach), forecast that a 100 percent improvement in the quality

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of. Corona photography could be achieved within six months. Impressed, n

Eisenhower authorized him to act on that premise and subsequently

confirmed Land's authority in correspondence with Allen Dulles and

Richard Bissell (then, respectively, director and deputy director of

the CIA).

The basis of Land's optimism .was exposure to an updating of

the earlier Itek proposal, the largest change being the inclusion of a

faster lens (f/3.5 rather than the f/5.0 of the C') and simplification of

the system in lieu of some of the comprehensive structural changes

earlier suggested. The great potential for improved resolution lay

in that the faster lens could be used with slower and finer grain film

than had been required for the earlier f/5. 0 lens system.

With Eisenhower's endOrsement in hand, Dr. Land proceeded

to Boston and authorized Itek to proceed with development of the proposed camera. Both Bissell (who had learned of Eisenhower's action

after the fact) and Colonel Paul Worthman, the Air Force project

chief for Corona, had reservations about Itek's ability to carry out

the promises implied by the proposal Land had endorsed, but in the

event all they could do was to urge that additional C' camera systems

be purchased against the danger that delivery of the new Itek system

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might be delayed.

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Earlier orders for long lead time items needed to proceed

with the Fairchild C" camera were cancelled late in September 1960,

and three additional C' cameras were ordered to protect launch

schedules against slippages that might be caused by any delay in the

Itek program. The prospective bill for development of what was by

then called C" came tollEillthe three "reserve" C' cameras.

cost about each. About was retrieved from the

cancelled C" development. Because previously programmed Agenas

and Thors would serve all probable C" and C' needs, no additional

am/ dims... .111•n

4

vehicle costs were immediately incurred.

As generally happened in such affairs, the original estimate

proved to be understated; by February 1961, Itek was estimating an

increase of about in basic costs and had reduced the quantity

to be delivered from 11 cameras (including three test items) to eight (including two test articles). CIA program monitors expected the eventual

costs to be more nearly for cameras than the

Itek had first estimated. And in the end the CIA was nearly right.

As delivered, the C" camera and its faster lens system

effectively performed the improvement originally promised, though

not with complete initial reliability. But the faster optics in combination with slower film and improvements in image motion compensation schematics did have the effect of reducing image smear and
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improving resolution, though to some extent that improvement also

reflected the incorporation of a flexible platten and revolving optics

(in lieu of optics that swiveled back and forth). Fabrication changes

resulted from the use of new structural.materials, and the elimination

of skewed film rollers with the introduction of air twists for turning

the film as it moved from.storage to take-up cassettes, vastly simplified the film transport operation. Nevertheless, C" occupied the

same space and used the same cassettes as C'. The combination of

improved film, better equivalent shutter speeds, more effective image

motion compensation, and larger maximum aperture improved ground

6

resolution to an average 20 to 25.feet

*

 (from about 35 feet for C').

In the interval between the successful recovery of a Corona

capsule on 10 December 1960 and the next following operational success,

a water pickup on 18 June 1961, four mission failures of various origins

and two "Discoverer" launches with other than Corona payloads had

7

occurred.

Resolution figuies used here are those. generally cited for "ground

resolution" of the complete system. Under ideal conditions the C and

C' cameras were capable of reproducing 100 to 130 lines per millimeter

on the film, representing a 14- to 17-foot lens-film resolution, and a

system resolution of 19 to 22 feet. The C"' had a lines-per-millimeter

capability of 180 to 200, a 7-foot to 9-foot camera-film resolution

potential, and a. 10- to 12-foot system resolution potential. Corona-M,

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The first 26 "Discoverer" mission attempts

*

 included eight

operations without camera payloads. Of the 18 that actually represented attempted Corona and Argon operations, three returned film

properly exposed over the Soviet Union. The 26 Discoverer (or 15

Corona plus 3 Argon) missions extended over a period of almost

precisely 30 months. Although the ratio of Corona successes to

failures seemed appallingly bad by later standards of reconnaissance

program achievement, and Argon was a disaster, the three successful

Corona missions provided an enormous fund of intelligence information

useful to the United States (about nine million square miles of coverage)

and the Discoverer program was the vehicle by which the nation made

its first spectacular advances in space technology.

in similar terms, had about the same lines-per-millimeter capability

but because of its convergent stereo configuration would nominally

provide from 3.5- to 4.5-foot camera-film resolution and 6- to 7-foot

system resolution. In practice, the "ground resolution" for Corona-M 

in its original configuration was from 12 to 17 feet, although some

individual camera systems were not that capable. The gap between

"system resolution" and "ground resolution" was largely a reflection

of smear effects, contrast and sun angle phenomena, and performance

anomalies characteristic of individual c amera systems.

•

Most program records show 25 Discoverer operations by the end

of June 1961. As noted earlier, there were 26, counting the vehicle

destroyed by a launch pad explosion on 21 January 1959. That operation is sometimes listed as Discoverer 0; the vehicle successfully

launched on 28 February 1959 was called Discoverer I.

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The successful recovery that marked mission 1007 (18 June 1961)

signaled, the start of a far better record. Counting that flight, seven

successful capsule recoveries in 13 missions marked the remainder of

1961. One of the failed missions carried Argon equipment (that singularly unfortunate system thus experiencing its fourth successive failure

in four attempts), so in effect there were five Corona mission failures and

seven successes. Half of the camera payloads were in the C' configuration and the remainder of C s " vintage, but three of the five failures

involved C' instruments. The Argon failure (21 July 1961) was caused

by loss of guidance on the Thor booster, followed by a destruct signal.

All of the Corona mission failures were chargeable to one or another

of the Agena subsystems. The culprits ranged from guidance through

early gas exhaustion to ignition malfunctioning. In three instances,

the Agena did not achieve orbit, and in a fourth an Agena power failure

precluded separation and recovery of the capsule. No problems attributable

solely to the camera system were experienced, and although none of

the successful missions was untroubled by difficulty of one sort or

another, the returns were extremely goodon the whole.

In all, ten C cameras, ten.C' cameras, and six C s " cameras were

involved in the 26 monoscopic Corona mission attempts. Only one of

the C missions returned film, but seven of C' and four of the C s " missions
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ended with retrieval. (The four Argon failures in four attempts have been

sufficiently remarked.) Of the 30 photographic missions that were

attempted in the first two years of Corona program operations, 12

• were in large part successful; and of the 18 failures, 12 occurred in

the first of the two years. If Argon payloads were not counted, the

8

record was quite respectable.

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Corona-Mural 

The notion of combining two of the original Corona cameras

into a stereo system appeared in July 1960, a month before the first

recovery of Corona film. Its genesis was discussion among the

various contractors and program personnel; its first formal appearance

was as a proposal from Lockheed Missiles and Space Division in the

fall of 1960. Lockheed suggested using either a C' or C" camera as

each element of a stereo system, boosting the combination into orbit

by means of a DM-21 Thor and a modestly improved Agena. C" was

the favored system, even though it had not yet flown in Corona, because

the C" camera was from 5 to 10 pounds lighter than its predecessor,

9

and in Corona weight was always important.

By early 1961 the Lockheed proposal had received the conceptual

endorsement of Air Force program managers; in January, COlonel

Lee Battle, nominally Discoverer office chief but actually the technical

As suggested in a prefatory note for this volume, the term Corona-M 

will generally be used here to identify that part*of the total Corona

program identified in documents of the period as Mural and Corona/Mural.

Mural was handled and treated as a separate compartment of the

satellite reconnaissance effort until February 1962; for a brief time

even some of the original Corona participants were kept innocent of

knowledge that an improved successor to Corona-triple-prime was

starting development. Continuation of that compartmentalization

practice proved entirely impractical, of course, once Mural entered

the hardware phase.

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•••n

head of the Corona program, briefed Air Force Undersecretary

Joseph Charyk on the notion and received his approval to proceed

with initial development. At the time it appeared to Battle that an

eight-mission program would cost about spread over

fiscal years 1961 through 1963. Charyk also squashed a tentative

suggestion that the new system should be developed and operated

"in the white, " although he doubted the feasibility of indefinitely

continuing the original management arrangement (a joint Air ForceCIA enterprise, then working very well) and planned to discontinue

the "Discoverer" fiction.

Lockheed called the proposed new system "Gemini, " to distinguish it from Corona. (NASA had not yet adopted that name for

what became the second in the series of manned spaceflight systems

• developed in the United States.) Lockheed's notion was to conjoin two

of the f/3. 5 Petzval-lens cameras of 24-inch focal length in a faired

module, using two recovery spools in a single recovery capsule (which

would weigh 94 pounds plus film weight). The rearmost camera would

look forward and the foremost camera backward.

As a way of testing the concept cheaply, Lockheed proposed

diverting to "Gemini" the last two C hs cameras then available and

using an available C' camera to fly in place of one of the C'" payloads.

Theoretically, the "Gemini" combination would return ground

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•resolutions on the order of about six feet, though few prOgram personnel really believed such results would follow immediately.

In February 1961, in the course of a discussion meeting called

by Charyk and his principal CIA associate, Eugene Keifer, the proposal received sufficient support to warrant the selection of a code

word designator. The CIA provided a list of eligibles on 3 February,

and Mural was chosen. Until that time, project office people had

tended to call the proposed system "the Twin Program, " rather than

"Gemini."

Charyk approved the start of work on six "stereo C" " systems

on 24 February, pending receipt of approval by President John F.

Kennedy, who had taken office only a month earlier. The real request

for approval went from Charyk to the new Secretary of Defense,

Robert S. McNamara, early in March. Charyk observed at that point

that the stereo system was needed because even with recent improvements

Corona did not distinguish "small" objects with the required precision,

and that because the C" system was relatively well proven (perhaps a

permissible exaggeration), the creation of a stereo capability was not

10

"a significant R&D problem."

As formally approved in April 1961, the "C" Stereo" system (not

yet known as Mural) involved the fabrication of one engineering vehicle

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carrying C'" cameras originally intended for individual flight and

the procurement of five additional sets of cameras to be launched

between April and August 1962. In actuality, the CIA had provided

initial funds to Lockheed a month earlier, but with the proviso that

not more than1111.111hould be spent in what remained of fiscal

year 1961. That action proved premature; on 28 March the agency •

11 •

abruptly instructed Lockheed to halt all work on the stereo system.

The sudden reversal seemed to have been occasioned by Charyk's

objection to the unauthorized and premature expenditure approval and

by a general realization that neither specifications nor program

structure had been reviewed at the higher levels of the CIA and the

DoD. Charyk also had reservations about the agency's unilateral

decision that Lockheed would be system manager and Itek an associate

contractor, a departure from the arrangement earlier used in Corona.

Charyk (with the support of CIA deputy director Richard Bissell)

wanted the Air Force-CIA program office, supported by the Air Force

Ballistic Missile Division, to act as "system engineering/technical

direction" authority. Of course the Charyk-Bissell preference carried

12

the day.

For the moment, Mural was compartmented separately from

Corona and only 300 of the 2700 various Corona participants were aware

of the details and plans agreed to in the Spring of 1961. Not until

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January 1962 were the several agencies involved in Corona all made

aware of the improved capability to be provided by Mural, although

as early as July 1961 details of the Mural program were made available

to senior officials in the National Photographic Interpretation Center,

the Army Mapping Service and similar organizations. The mapping

service subsequently protested that it had not been adequately advised

on Mural matters, perhaps because of a prospective interference with

plans to fly more Argon missions. Charyk and Bissell were obliged

in February 1962 to emphasize that Mural was in no respect a dedicated

mapping system and probably had little application to that function.

Apparently the mapping service had concluded that Charyk and Bissell

were attempting to monopolize payload control, which was not a fair

reflection of the real state of affairs even though Charyk was indeed

n

1

sponsoring the development of the E-4 system, a nominal alternative

13

to Argon.

The furor may actually have been occasioned by measures leading to incorporation of a framing camera (an Itek stellar-indexing

camera system) in the Mural vehicle. The preliminary decision to

add that capability came in October 1961 and was formally confirmed

the following December. The framing camera provided "a fixed

geometric reference to be used in plotting and rectifying the longer

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focal length higher resolution panoramic photographs." It could aid

in the construction of maps (as, for that matter, could any mono or

stereo imagery), but as Charyk subsequently explained to the Director

of the Defense Intelligence Agency, "the framing camera is not and

never has been considered as a substitute for the mapping projects

such as ARGON . . ." (Much later, the incorporation of a considerably

better stellar-indexing camera, DISK, * 

gave Corona a mapping capability somewhat superior to that of Argon, but such quality was not

available in 1961.) The underlying problem was that the Army (and

its executive agent, the DIA) still wanted to develop and operate a

satellite mapping system independent of the embryonic National Reconnaissance Office, and any actions that tended to reduce the possibility

of such an outcome roused objections from the Army Mapping Service.

The subsequent disappearance of Argon's proposed successor (called

Vault/Tomas ) and the cancellation of the E-4 (mapping camera)

phase of Samos, even after four cameras actually had been procured

and checked out, had the eventual effect of eliminating flights by

• dedicated napping camera systems, but that too was still in the future

14

in 1961.

Dual-Integrated-Stellar-Index-Camera. DISIC had a 3-inch lens,

equal in focal length to that of Argon and superior in resolution,

although resolution advantages arose partly in film quality improvements.

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Like the original Corona, Corona-M was intended to be an

interim, transitional means of satellite reconnaissance. It was conceived as an expedient device for temporarily providing stereo

coverage of denied areas, as an instrument to be used until more.

sophisticated systems then in development could be brought to operational readiness. That at least, was the view from the upper echelons. .

In the Corona office, and in Itek and Lockheed project organizations,

Corona-M represented an expedient way of providing for the continued

production of a successful system, one that might with relatively

slight investment be made capable of competing successfully with more n

costly and complex systems in development elsewhere. Thus as early

as March 1962, shortly after the first Corona-M mission, Itek proposed

(with CIA sponsorship) an "M-2" (Mural-2) system consisting of a reengineered Mural with one 40-inch, f/3. 5 tube of optics serving two

plattens. Itek suggested that the system could provide resolution on

the order of four to five feet, a contention that was disputed by Lieutenant

Colonel H. C. Howard and Eugene Keifer. of Charyk's staff. The M-2

proposal, as such, remained a contender for development until June 1963,

when a special panel headed by E. M. Purcell formally advised the CIA

that the "M-2" was "not a wise investment" when compared to various

15

alternative ways. of improving Corona performance. It did not vanish,

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however; in a different guise, Itek's original proposal resurfaced a

year later as the genesis of the Corona J-4.

The assumption that Corona-M would be no more than a stopgap

system stemmed from the continued existence of the Samos E-5, intended to be a considerably more sophisticated, higher resolution

search system. Unfortunately, E-5 development was frustratingly

unsuccessful. The subsequent adaptation of a single modified E-5

camera with stereo capability to a Corona-configured recovery system

(as Lanyard) proved generally disappointing. As long as no better

system qualified, and while the unquestioned need for search missions

by reconnaissance satellites remained, Corona would survive. And it

did.

The first Corona-M mission, in February 1962, was largely

successful. The auxiliary framing camera did not operate correctly

(post flight analysis suggested that nitrogen purging of the payload

section during countdown had dried out the framing camera film and

that the resulting shrinkage had put too much tension on the film transport system), but results otherwise were quite good. By that time,

Itek (the camera contractor) was in the process of assembling the

sixteenth and last of the then-scheduled Corona-M systems, delivery

"M-2" and other proposals for "advanced" Corona systems are more

extensively treated later in this section.

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being due by late June. Payloads had been delivered at a rate of about

three a month, and Itek was preparing to assign its Corona-M production personnel to other tasks--or to dismiss them. Corona-M launches

were scheduled at intervals of about two weeks through exhaustion of

the inventory; reordering, if required, had to be decided by April 1962

16

in order to avoid interruption in the regime of regular launches.

The then-probable successor to Corona-M was the E-6 payload,

the last survivor of the original Samos program. Intended to be an

area coverage system with 8-foot to 10-foot resolution, E-6 (also known

as Program 201 or Program 698BJ) had begun development concurrent

with Gambit in October 1960 and was to begin initial operations following

an abbreviated set of development flights scheduled to start in March 1962.

The first E-6 launch was conducted in April 1962, and with a

frustrating similarity to the experience of the cancelled E-5 program,

was marked by indicated success in camera functioning and total failure

in recovery. Notwithstanding that beginning, the National Reconnaissance

Office (NRO) ordered 19 follow-on. E-6 systems early in 1962, augmenting

the original order for five systems. But given the signal lack of success

in all reconnaissance satellite recovery operations to that time--except

for Corona --prudence seemed desirable. Therefore, NRO Director

Dr. Charyk also'approved an order for six additional Corona-M systems.
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The schedules then existent called for one Corona-M and one E-6 system

to be orbited each month, starting in July 1962. Together they were to.

provide about the same coverage as would a two- to three-per-month

launch schedule for Corona-M. (The Corona-M system then had typical

stereo resolution that ranged from 10 feet to about 15 feet; E-6 was

17

designed to provide 10-foot or better resolution, also in stereo.)

Operational flexibility greater than that implied by the official

order book was theoretically provided by the adaptability of the ThorAgena combination. Although there were in practice some significant

differences in interface configuration, and although the Lanyard required

boost by a Thor augmented by three strap-on X-33 solid rockets, the

basic Corona , Argon, and Lanyard payloads all used Agena stages and

Thor boosters. (Late in 1961, the search-function part of the reconnaissance program exploited that flexibility. to substitute Corona payloads

for Argons initially scheduled--to the extreme distress of the Army's

mapping specialists. There had been four successive Argon mission

failures between February and Jul y 1961--all of which would probably

have been Corona failures had that payload been orbited--and not until

May 1962 did an Argon mission end in apparent success. Even then,

18

stellar and terrain camera malfunctions degraded the recovered film.)

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The second Corona-M operation (Mission 9032) began with a

17 April 1962 launch and ended in successful recovery of the capsule

by air catch on 20 April. The returned film included images of

Sacramento metropolitan airport taken from a height of 115 nautical

miles. On the prints were impressions that interpreters could

identify as runway markings, small civilian aircraft, and automobiles

("just at the detection threshold"). Two-engined aircraft could be

distinguished from four-engined aircraft, which encouraged the some-

•

what optimistic estimate that Corona-M could resolve objects seven

19 feet on a side.

Between the initial success of Corona-M in March and the end

of June 1962, six reconnaissance vehicles in that configuration were

launched from Vandenberg. Of that set,, four were successful • to the

extent that film with intelligence utility was retrieved, although only

in one instance did the accessory framing camera operate correctly.

A 28 April launch (Mission 9033) ended with failure of the recovery

parachute to deploy, and the very successful orbital operations of

mission 9036 (3.June launch) were capped by fatal misadventure: one

of the extended booms on the aircraft recovery apparatus hit and

collapsed the recovery parachute, the capsule fell 12, 000 feet into

the ocean and sank before frogmen could reach it, apparently because

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the flotation devices were damaged either by the boom or from the

extended fall. Three of the four otherwise successful missions were

marked by various malfunctions of the framing camera--a disorder

eventually traced to faulty, shutter design but initially attributed to a

variety of assembly and checkout shortcomings.

In the same period, from February through June, a second E-6

*

mission was attempted. Orbital operation was erratic owing to an

Agena gas leak, fuel depletion prompted a decision to attempt early

recovery (at night, on a south-to-north pass rather than the usual

north-to-south), and at the end an electrical failure in the squib circuitry kept the reentry vehicle from separating. The Agena and

capsule reentered as a unit, some 600 miles north of the planned

recovery area. Both were lost.

The third, fourth, and fifth E-6 missions were attempted between

18 July and 11 November 1962. In one instance the Agena would not refire and no reentry maneuver could be conducted, and in the others the

20

recovery system malfunctioned. In no instance was film retrieved.

While those unhappy events proceeded, Corona-M extended its

record of successful operations to ten, the next mission failure (mission

In addition to its earlier abundance of numerical designators--E-6,

Program 201, • and Program 698BJ--the activity had by June acquired

the designator Program 722. Although an anachronism, the designator

E-6 has been used throughout this section; there is no other way of

providing recognition continuity for the reader.

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9049, December 1962) occurring from precisely the same cause as its

predecessor: parachute damage inflicted by booms attached to the

recovery aircraft. Given such diametrically different program results,

the consequences were virtually inevitable. Major General Robert E.

Greer, director of all the photographic satellite programs except

Corona, recommended cancellation of E-6. Charyk unhesitatingly

agreed. In consequence, the "interim" Corona-M program became

*

the sole wide area search system in the reconnaissance satellite inventory--or in development. Its string of ten successive "good" missions

was not a record of complete excellence, of course. Except for mission

9037, the 22 June 1962 launch, each of the ten experienced some major or

minor difficulty. Framing camera failure was the most common. (A new

camera introduced late in 1962 largely overcame that source of mission

difficulty.) One mission in July 1962 (9039) experienced programmer

failure and was forced to early recovery, and another payload orbited

in September (9043) stabilized in an unexpectedly high orbit—following

a malfunction of a velocity meter--and began to pass repeatedly through

the

The lessons of E-6 experience were chiefly responsible for the very

different way in which Gambit development was thereafter conducted.

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flight controllers called down

the capsule after 24 hours. In other respects, and particularly in

terms of quantities of highly useful photogriphs of denied areas, the

21

Corona-M operations were highly successful.

An additional impulse for reliance on Corona-M rather than on

the unpromising E-6, or even the attractive but troublesome Lanyard,

was the continued evolutionary improvement in Corona capability. By

the summer of 1962, the concept of a Corona-J system had emerged,

been evaluated, and translated into development and procurement

22

schedules. Corona-J was to be a Corona-M payload with two recovery

capsules, separately recovered, and capable of storage in orbit between

two intervals of camera operation. (Such inactive storage on orbit was

called Zombie operation.) The additional weight created by essentially

doubling the film load and adding one complete additional recovery system

was to be offset by launching the Agena-Corona combination as the upper

23

stage of an augmented Thor --the booster originally created to provide

a launch capability for the relatively heavy Lanyard.

7

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The peculiar nature of the Lanyard program and its gradual

transformation from a Samos-oriented to a Corona- oriented program

was strikingly illuminated by the increasingly frequent references to

Lanyard as "Corona-L." The success of selective and evolutionary

inbreeding of technology, an example of a highly appropriate development strategy, was marvelously illustrated in the Corona-Lanyard-Gambit

programs. Lanyard, a transform of the Samos E-5 effort, was the

occasion for generation of a high-thrust version of the Thor booster

and demonstrated that the relatively small Corona recovery capsule

could be successfully adapted to the needs of a wide-film, big-optics,

photo reconnaissance system. Lanyard was essentially a single-camera

stereo adaptation of the first two-camera stereo reconnaissance system

to proceed from concept into development; the stereo concept subsequently appeared--with much greater operational utility--in both E-6

and Gambit before the first operationally successful stereo camera,

Corona-M, was proposed. The influence of E-5 and Gambit concepts

on Corona-M was not readily demonstrable but could reasonably be

postulated. In any case,. the claims of E-5 to primacy in stereo

applications were indisputable.

It is not entirely possible to prove that the adaptation of an E-5

(Lanyard) camera to the Discoverer-Corona reentry system prompted

later attention to the prospect of similarly converting Gambit, but when

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E-5 and E-6 experience demonstrated the inherent frailties of "big

capsule" reentry systems, Gambit was adapted to the Corona capsule,

very probably eluding the unhappy fate of the earlier "big capsule"

systems in consequence. Similarly, the feasibility of operating in a

double-bucket mode had been extensively demonstrated 'through Corona-J 

more than four years before the first double-bucket Gambit reached its •

launch stand.

The technique of incremental and sequential development, and

of building carefully on a base of demonstrated technology, was epitomized

by Corona and Gambit, in their various models, but was also exploited

for other satellite systems developed under the aegis of the National

Reconnaissance Program in the year's before 1967. That experience

had a clear and substantial influence on the selection of development

strategies for other major defense programs of the late 1960s and early

1970 s. In some degree, the NRP experience affected strategy selection

because the same senior officials were involved in both NRP and "other

defense system" development activities. Drs. Alexander Flax and

John McLucas, NRO directors, and David Packard and John Foster,

who held the second and third most powerful posts in the Department

of Defense, were particularly influential in that respect.

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Another influence that could not be acknowledged or cited

1

1

1

1

either in the open literature or in the "normal" security system was

the advocacy of development strategies tested in NRO programs by

various analysts who contributed to the many studies of alternative

system acquisition policies that were sponsored by the Department

of Defense between 1967 and 1972. In particular, several major

reports from the Rand Corporation, the "Blue Ribbon Panel Report"

of 1969, and the findings of the Congressional Commission on Government Procurement (published in March 1973) reflected in varying

degrees the conclusions of one analyst who had an opportunity to

examine in detail the 10-year record of satellite development by the

National Reconnaissance Office. He contributed to the underlying

research and analysis and initially voiced many of the findings later

stated in the three study activities. In the wake of such studies, DoD

altered its accustomed acquisition policies to allow for programs

based on incremental, sequential development procedures and the

selective exploitation of proven state-of-the-art technology.

•

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Corona-J •

Although Corona-J had not been formally approved for development until October 1962, the CIA in July 1962 authorized Lockheed, as

the prime contractor, to proceed with preliminary engineering design

of the system. (Itek's work had been separately covered.) Approval

for fabrication and long lead-time procurement reached Lockheed in

November, still in advance of the final contract. At that point, first

launch was planned in May 1963 with a one-per-month initial launch

rate following, but with provisions for a two-per-month rate starting

as early as July 1963. That rather short schedule was made possible

by the expedient of converting previously built Corona-M systems to

the Corona-J configuration. Formal notification of the imminence of

Corona-J operations reached NPIC, the CIA, and the USIB's Committee

on Overhead Reconnaissance early in December--by which time it

seemed clear that first flight would occur in "early summer" rather

than May 1963.

The rationale for the Corona-J program was heavily dependent

on assumptions about the utility of Zombie-mode operations. Effectiirely,

Corona-J consisted of a thrust-augmented-Thor, an Agena D, two

modified Mk Ia recovery systems, and a modified Corona-M camera.

In effect, a Corona-J mission provided a capability of performing two

Corona-M missions at the cost of one booster, one Mural camera

system, two reentry vehicles, and two stellar-index camera installations (one for each capsule).

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the mission plan was to use the system in a four-day mission, recover

the forward capsUle, and program the remaining on-orbit elements for

a "controlled tumble" of as much as 20 days, with electrical power

and stabilization control gas closed off: At the end of the period of

inaction, but one day before further reconnaissance use was planned,

controllers would reactivate the satellite for a second four-day period

of photography. Some 15, 000 feet of film were carried for each of the

L4

four-day periods of operation.

Although the first of eight 1963 Corona-J missions was originally

scheduled for May 1963, launch did not actually occur until August, a

delay only partly chargeable to difficulties of payload development. A

rash of problems with the Agena in both Corona-M and Lanyard programs

and a launch failure in the first attempt to use the TAT (Thrust Augmented

Thor) booster caused a sudden and alarming interruption of intelligence

returns from satellite overflights during the early months of 1963. The

first two Lanyard missions failed because of Agena breakdown and the

third experienced a camera failure after only 32 hours in orbit; one

Argon_ and three Corona-M operations 'between January and April 1963

were either failures or significantly disappointing, three because of

Agena problems and the fourth because of the TAT failure--a consequence

of oversight on•the part of a launch crew member. In light of that

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sequence of events, Brockway McMillan, who had succeeded Joseph

V. Charyk as director of the National Reconnaissance Office in March

1963, decided to launch proven Corona-Ms rather than untried Coruna-Js

during the early summer of the year. The success of Corona-M flights

9054, 9056, and 9057, * renewed the flow of photography on which intelligence analysts had become increasingly dependent and induced McMillan

25

to approve the first Corona-J mission.

If the dependence of the United States on satellite photography

returned by Corona had not been adequately acknowledged earlier, the

lacuna of early 1963 and following Corona successes corrected that

oversight. John McCone, then Director of the CIA, wrote McMillan

following the April 1963 mission success that "the importance of this

type of intelligence to our National Security cannot be over-emphasized

and it is essential that there be no repetition of the hiatus in this type

of coverage such as has existed for the past 3 months." McCone

added, referring to various procedural changes introduced during the

effort to eliminate Corona faults responsible for the various mission

failures, "in view of the overriding importance of this type of intelligence,

9055, the missing number in the series, was actually the .Argpn

mission of 26 April, the sixth Argon failure against one "good"

operation and one "partial success."

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...[Defense Undersecretary Roswell] Gilpatric and I hive agreed that

the NRO will continue to employ the special inspection procedures on

all forthcoming flights in order to insure that the possibility of failure

26

is minimized. We desire that action be taken accordingly." One of

the additional precautions that McMillan immediately instituted, in

addition to continuance of the "special inspection and system checks"

introduced earlier, was to instruct General Greer that "experiments

and additional payloads" were not to be carried on future Corona or

Gambit flights if there was any possibility that their inclusion would

jeopardize the primary mission:" . . . the successful recovery of

27

photography from the main payloads."

Notwithstanding such precautions, Corona-J operations began

somewhat inauspiciously, as had the original series of Corona launches

four years earlier. Not until the third mission (1004)

*

, in February 1964

did the planned and the actual sequence of events come into acceptable

*

Mission 1004 was actually the third Corona-J and 1003 the fourth.

Printouts of launch records included in the continually updated "NRP

Satellite Launch History".list operations in order of mission number;

the computer is not programmed to call attention to calendric inconsistencies. The explanation for the 1003/1004 sequencing disorder is

relatively straightforward: 1003 was scheduled for a January 1964

launch, had been checked out on the launch pad, and was in the process

of final countdown when a violent windstorm damaged the payload. The

damage was severe enough to warrant returning the camera-capsule

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correspondence. The problem was a fundamental failure in mission

concept. In each of the first two flights, capsule number one was

recovered complete with four days of film take, but the second capsule

was lost. On one occasion an inverter failed and the camera system

could not be reactivated after a period of Zombie operation (the

recovery system later failed, also), while a decoder breakdown in the

Agena system made it impossible to reactivate the system and caused

the loss of capsule number two during a mission conducted in September 1963.

In some respects, the first two attempts to operate Corona-J

could not be counted as major failures, because in fact one capSule

complete with film was recovered in each instance and that recovery

represented an achievement comparable to the success of any earlier

Corona mission. But the cost was substantially greater, and it was

also true that each of the first Corona-J missions had been intended

to provide more and better data than could have been obtained from

two of the earlier Corona-M operations.

section to its manufacturers for repair and recalibration. The next

vehicle scheduled for launch, already numbered Mission 1004, was

moved forward on the schedule. Mission 1003 reappeared as a

March 1964 operation. Owing to electrical problems in the Agena,

it became one of the increasingly rare total failures of the Corima

prog ram.

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The fourth Corona-J mission was catastrophically brief; Agena

guidance failed shortly after launch and the vehicle arched into the

Pacific Ocean (24 March 1964). The fifth (1005, on 27 April 1964) had

an uneventful launch, but after 350 camera operations the film broke,

then the Agena power supply failed, and finally the capsule ignored

28

signals to deboost and re-enter.

Unlike other failed units, the reentry capsule launched and then

lost on mission 1005 reappeared later--and spectacularly. Calculations

of the anticipated decay of the capsule led to an initial prediction that it

would impact in the Pacific, west of the coast of South America and

about 10 degrees north of the Pole. A later calculation based on better

orbital trace measurements indicated a probable impact of fragments

somewhere in Venezuela. Observation stations in the Carribean area

were alerted to watch the skies on 26 May 1964, the indicated date of

reentry, and on that date Maracaibo, Venezuela, actually reported

sighting five bright pieces passing overhead, presumably on their way

to impact in the ocean off the South American coast. That seemed to

be that.

More than two months later, on Saturday, 1 August 1964, a

Venezuelan commercial photographer, one Leonardo Davilla, telephoned

the U.S. Army Attache in Caracas to report that an object which appeared

to be part of a space vehicle had been found nearly a month earlier, on

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7 July, on a farm some 500 miles south of Caracas in a remote rural

region of the Andes near the Columbian border. The object, Davilla

reported, carried among other markings one that read "United States, "

and another that read "Secret." Davilla did not mention that he had

photographed "the object" or that the farmer on whose .land it lay had

been trying to sell it--as a whole or in parts.

Not until Monday, 3 August, after a second call from Davilla,

did the Array attache notify • the assistant Air attache of the reported

find. They were unable, that day, to find an aircraft to take them to

the site of the impact. On Tuesday, after interviewing a commercial

pilot who had also viewed "the object" at close range and —predictably--

had returned to Caracas with a souvenir piece, the Army attache flew

to La Fria, the village nearest the find, only to discover that the

Venezuelan army had arrived first and had taken the object to San

Cristobal, the provincial capital.

Requests for release of the object to U.S. authorities were

initially unavailing. With the U.S. Army attache in tow, the Venezuelan

army flew it to Caracas, promising to deliver it to the Americans on

the following Friday, 6 August. There intervened yet another delay,

however. Upon its arrival in Caracas the object (now known to be the

remains of the Corona reentry vehicle from mission 1005) was taken

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directly to the office of the Venezuelan Minister of Defense. It

finally returned to American hands on Tuesday, 10 August.

Well before reports of the capsule's survival reached American

authorities, Davilla photographed it, local farmers attracted by one of

the gold discs * attached-to the upper section of the capsule had hacked

away at its skin to get at more of the gold, one of the farmers had

transformed the parachute lines into a harness for his horse, and

assorted bits and pieces had been removed as souvenirs by assorted

passersby. On 4 August the local Reuters correspondent had reported

the find in a dispatch that several wire services picked up. It appeared

in the Washington Star and the New York Times on 5 August.

The Pentagon, issued a "no comment."

The Army attache noted finding an American five-cent piece

**

and a quarter among the odds and ends in the wreckage. He also

took possession of the film that remained in the fractured cannisters.

It was "well cooked."

Gold discs inside the ablative shield acted as heat dispersion media.

As they melted they actually sheathed the capsule in foil-thick pure gold.

**

Two quarters and a buffalo nickel had been found in one • of the capsules

recovered in 1961.

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The impact and farmers "have pretty well reduced internal

equipment to junk, " the CIA agents earlier dispatched to Caracas

reported on 10 August. But great numbers of people had seen the capsule,

photographs had been circulated in Caracas and printed in the local

newspaper (although it was incorrectly reported to the NRO that all.

known copies and the negatives had been retrieved), and it was obvioits

that local Communist bloc people could easily have seen the remains and

certainly had copies of the newspaper photographs. At least one part--

the radio transmitter beacon--firmly attached to the capsule when it

went to the Minister of Defense was missing when Americans finally

recovered it on 10 August, the implication being that it too had become

a souvenir. Also missing were the parachute (which had not been

deployed during descent), the beacon light, part of the ablatOr, most of

the parachute cover, the thrust cone, the rocket motor, and all but one

of the gold discs. The capsule had been compressed to about two-thirds

of its original length by the impact, and the spooled film was beyond

salvage. But, in Dr. McMillan's ironic words, the experience had

redeeming features: it "provided valuable engineering data on nonoptimum re-entry survivability." The incident also demonstrated

that the inherent stability and good ablative shielding of the capsule

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made random-entry survival a very real possibility—which was

somewhat disconcerting to security people.

In the end, two positive actions resulted from the "1005 incident."

First, all classification markings were removed from orbital Corona

vehicles before launch and a "reward for return to American authorities" notice, in eight languages, was substituted. Second, inspection

procedures were reinforced to protect against the stowage of more

American souvenir coins during fabrication and checkout. The 1961

injunction that such objects must not be carried because they might

29

interfere with system functioning had obviously lost its effectiveness.

In the wake of the first two Corona-S flights, both rated partially

successful, ground tests of .1- systems had been disappointing. Program

Security had yet another epilogic trauma even after the remains had

been retrieved from the Venezuelan Ministry of Defense. In order to

obscure the destination of the packaged capsule wreckage, the real

Corona parts were sent to Lockheed by way of a secure air route and

a dummy package containing paper, odds and ends of metal scrap, and

pieces of wood, was boxed for shipment to the home address of a DIA

officer assigned to the Pentagon. Unhappily, the scrap fill plus the

carton weighed only 80 pounds although the shipping manifest specified

a 250-pound cargo. Alert customs officials at McGuire Air Force Base

decided they had uncovered a dope cache and opened the box. After

fruitlessly sorting through the expensively freighted junk, they contacted the addressee and advised him sternly that they were "going to

investigate." Stalling customs for the moment, the officer put through

a frantic call to the CIA to "cut this one off." The Agency, with its

own contacts in•the Customs Bureau, retrieved and destroyed the box

six days later.

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managers therefore had decided to use Corona-M payloads to provide

required reconnaissance coverage while extended development and fix

of J-system technology continued. Apart from the operating defects

that had prevented recovery, of the second capsule in each of the first

two Corona-J operations, the camera system had displayed a reluctance

to perform according to expectations. Engineers diagnosed the basic

difficulty as one of adjusting for correct tension in the film transport

system. The flight problems--in the Agena-- involving inverter operation

and command system responsiveness were countered by installing redun30

dant equipment.

As happened with infuriating regularity in the satellite reconnaissance program, perverse fates intervened in the "sensible" decision to

revert to reliance on Corona-M so that Corona-J problems could be

resolved free of pressure for immediate operational returns. Two of

the last three Corona-M missions (9060 and 9061) were unsuccessful--

one because of a Thor failure--the second in two years and only the fifth

• *

in 79 attempted Thor-Agena launchings. Cancellation of Lanyard

following its third launch and first partial success had made two

additional TAT. vehicles available and indirectly accounted for the

The source for that accounting of Thor performance, a November

1963 briefing paper prepared for McMillan, says there were only

four Thor failures and ignores the "improved Thor" (TAT) failure

of 27 February 1963.

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allocation of two basic Thor-Agena combinations to the Argon program

for August and October 1963 launches. Perversity took a hand there

too; both went well, providing the second and third largely successful

Argon operations in ten mission attempts. (Another Argon was charitably accounted a partial success.) The Corona-M launches of November

1963 were failures. Apart from the Thor malfunction, an Agena break-

.

down caused failure of capsule reentry as the climax of a mission that

began with a 27 November launch. But the final Corona-M (9062)

redeemed its breed, operating almost flawlessly from its 21 December

launch to capsule recovery on 26 December 1963. The paradox remained,

however; in its final days the nominally reliable Corona-M experienced

major mission problems, while the almost untested Corona-I operated

reasonably well. Two Corona-J capsules and one Corona-M capsule

were recovered between August and December 1963, and two were lost

31

in each program.

That the Zombie mode itself, or the effort to operate Corona-I

in a Zombie mode, was fundamentally unavailing had become apparent

with the second successive failure to operate and recover the dormant

capsule in a dual-capsule Corona-J mission. That reactivation after

storage on orbit was more difficult than had been anticipated was

finally acknowledged early in 1964. On 13 February Dr. McMillan

n

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issued instructions that until further notice all Corona-J systems were

to be operated on "continuous missions" interrupted only to the extent

necessary to recover the first capsule, after which they were to resume

photographic operations. After recovery of the second capsule, McMillan

ruled, such Zombie-mode experiments as were necessary and appropriate

32

could be conducted.

That solved the problem. The next launch of Corona-S, mission

1004 on 15 February 1964, was followed by the first successful recovery

of both capsules. For practical purposes, the "storage on orbit" concept

that had largely justified the development of Corona-J and had been

operational doctrine since the conception of the system more than a year

earlier was abandoned, withal temporarily.

Unfortunately, the next two succeeding Corona-J flights were

those that ended in the ocean off Vandenberg and in the Andes, so there

was no immediate oppprtunity to revalidate Corona-J as an eight-day

rather than a 20-day System. In both of the succeeding Corona-S 

flights, Agena electrical problems were responsible for the failures.

The sixth Corona-J, launched on 4 June 1963, experienced none of the

Agena problems of its predecessors and both its capsules were

recovered—again without any pause for "zombie" storage on orbit.

The seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth Corona-3' missions were happy

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parallels of the sixth. AlthoUgh minor difficulties and flight defects

appeared, all planned launches were successful, the cameras operated

acceptably, and all orbited capsules were retrieved. By August,

Corona had provided as much gross coverage of denied areas as had

been obtained through the. whole of the preceding year, and that notwithstanding several major mission failures earlier in the year. The Corona

total was supplemented by excellent returns from two Gambit missions

33

and spotty photography from two other recovered Gambit capsules.

Thereafter, for nearly a year, Corona operations could best

be summarized as routine and returns as excellent. In November 1964

the Corona camera suffered its first in-flight breakdown in 46 operational opportunities, and there was some unverifiable suspicion that

even in that instance the malfunction might have originated in Agena

electrical problems.

'After the first two unsuccessful attempts at "zombie" operations

in August and September 1963, program managers prudently made no

further effort to exercise that theoretical mission potential until

December 1964 (mission 1015), when they put the system in a standby

mode for four days following recovery of the first capsule. (Standby

operation, originally conceived as a low-cost way of providing required

periodic search coverage at intervals of about two weeks, was by late

1964 seen as providing insurance against weather pattern changes,

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needs to readjust orbits to more favorable altitudes, or requirements

to hold cameras in orbit in anticipation of a specific event for which

coverage was wanted.)

Launch crews demonstrated further enlargement of Corona-J 

utility in April 1965 by keeping a complete system in one-day-fromlaunch (R-1) status for two weeks, a considerable enhancement of

system responsiveness. Gradual extension of mission life for

Corona-J from its original six days to 10 days was one product of

the proven "zombie mode" operation. Modest enlargements in the

thrust capacity of TAT (by means of a Thor fuel tank enlargement,

the vehicle being called Thorad) and in the orbital durability of the

Agena were undertaken early in 1965, the goal being 14-day mission

operations. Launches of the improved system were scheduled to

34

begin in July 1967.

Thorad differed from the original TAT (Thrust-Augmented-Thor)

in having 13 feet more length to accommodate additional fuel and

oxidizer, and in some relocation of components. With Sargeant

strap-on solid rocket boosters attached, a Thorad-Agena D combination could put into orbit 400 pounds more than could TAT-Agena.

Modification of launch facilities at Vandenberg (to accommodate the

taller Thorad) and the en ineering required to transform TAT into

Thorad cost about yet cost of Thorad was only about

more than for T T.

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One reason for the relative modesty of efforts to improve

Corona-J, as compared to earlier improvements of Corona-C and

Corona-M, was the apparent imminence of a development start on

a new search system in 1964 and later. There were two prime candidates, one (Fulcrum) sponsored by the CIA with support from some

influential members of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory

Board, and the other (S-2) by Dr. McMillan, the NRO staff in the

Pentagon, development specialists in the Directorate of Special

Projects (on the West Coast), and other members of the intelligence

-rop-seeReran.

board.

During McMillan's tenure as Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, the familiar question of what system should be

developed to replace Corona, and when, was continually complicated

by contention over who should have development and operational responsibility for the successor system and--at the end--what lasting role the

NRO should have in the total National Reconnaissance Program. Those

issues, and others, had embroiled McMillan and Dr. A.D. Wheelon,

the CIA's Deputy Director for Science and Technology, in a bureaucratic

The S-2 and Fulcrum designators survived until a new search system

received USIB approval on 22 April 1966, after which, for precisely

eight days, the new system carried the code name Helix. On 30 April,

Hexagon became the approved program title.

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power struggle struggle that had undercurrents of both personal and institutional

antagonism. Assignment or reassignment of responsibility for Corona

development and operations was one other element of the involuted •

controversy, particularly after it became obvious that the "interim"

and "transitory" status repeatedly assumed for Corona and its variants

from the early days of the program was thoroughly erroneous. By late

1964 virtually all participants in the satellite reconnaissance program

were willing to concede that Corona would be in use for several years

more.

By the late summer of 1965, the interwoven controversies

involving institutions, technological goals, management authority,

and personal prerogatives had become so troublesome that the only

reasonable way out was the departure of the principals. Dr. McMillan

let it be known that he was returning to private industry, and Dr. Wheelon

made a similar choice. Dr. Alexander H. Flax, Assistant Secretary of

the Air Force (R&D), became acting Director, NRO, during McMillan's

absence late in August and formally succeeded to the post when

McMillan's resignation became effective, on 1 October 1965. Earlier,

James Q. Reber of the CIA had been named Deputy Director of the NRO.

No CIA official assumed the role Dr. Wheelon had earlier played; Reber

became, for practical purposes, the CIA representative and the channel

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between the CIA and NRO participants in the National.Reconnaissance

Program,

One of the peripheral casualties of the skirmishing during the

Summer of 1965 was most of the activity aimed at further improvement

of the Corona system which by then had progressed to an operational

Corona-J with some attractive potential for further growth. Flax

inherited a host of troublesome problems of technology, organization,

and future system planning (although the decision to proceed with what

later became Hexagon had been essentially confirmed at the time of

his appointment); the future of Corona was not quite as certain as was

assumed in August 1965, and that too became an item of concern for

36

the new Director.

The long-simmering differences between CIA and NRO participants in the Corona program, mostly concentrated about questions of

responsibility and authority, were amicably resolved in April 1966,

some six months after Dr. Flax became Director of the NRO. In

essence, the arrangement (approved by the Executive Committee for

the National Reconnaissance Program on 26 April) made Flax the •

ultimate authority for systems engineering, specifications, integration

problems, the master program plan, system facilities, integrated

funds reporting, and on-orbit operations. Lockheed, which had been

•

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working under the aegis of a verbal agreement with the CIA since

mid-1964, was afforded formal contractual coverage for work in

progress--including activity that related to the integrated stellarindexing camera that later became DISIC. (Lockheed had spent about

$2 million of its own money on what was then called ISIC.) In terms.

of general management authority, Dr. Flax accepted the principle

that no change to accepted procedures should be introduced if it

would "unduly disrupt" the continuing program. The CIA's ultimate

responsibility for the Corona camera was confirmed, as for the

original stellar-index system, the reentry vehicle, the payload

assembly structure, and engineering integration of those elements

into the total payload subassembly. The NRO's Director of Satellite

Programs (Major General John L. Martin, Sr.) was confirmed in

responsibility for the booster, the Agena, the DISIC program, overall

system integration in preparation for launch, the launch itself, on-orbit

command and control, and capsule recovery operations. Martin's

authority extended to all aspects of Corona except payload subsystem

engineering, payload contract supervision, and payload technical data,

for which CIA's System Program Director for Corona retained responsibility. However, each of the participants was guaranteed free and

full access to all program data, both for engineering and for orbital

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operations, and that arrangement alone succeeded in eliminating one

of the most irksome of the earlier problems of working arrangements.

Corona itself, as a system, had made rather remarkable

progress during the McMillan era of the NRO. In terms of capsules

launched as against capsules successfully retrieved, the record from

March 1963 to February 1964 was nine successes in 13 trials; for the

following 12 months, it was 23 successes in 28 trials. That represented

an increase of successes from an initial 69 percent to a later 82 percent--

and notwithstanding some difficulties during the summer of 1965, the

37

38

ratio did not appreciably worsen.

Quite apart from any pending issues of what system would

eventually replace Corona, and when, small but continuing improvements

and modifications of the existing Corona-J system culminated, late in

1966, in a modestly significant model change. Oddly enough, although

what became the Corona J-3 (the earlier payload thereafter being called

Corona 3-1) represented considerably less in the way of new technology

or added operational capability than had earlier changes, it received

• - •

not merely a separate designator in the Corona-J series, but a separate

serial designator for mission numbering purposes. The Corona J-1 

missions continued to be numbered in the series that started with 1001

(August 1963) and ultimately reached 1052 (September 1969). Corona J-3 

missions began with an 1101 serial (September 1967) and extended

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through 1117, the final flight in the Corona program (May 1972). J-1

and J-3 missions were much more intermixed than had been the case

with earlier transitions from C to C', to C I ", to Mural, and thence to

the Corona 3-1.

Even though the J-3 designation signified a model improvement

of Corona, the 3-1 model had gradually but significantly been improved

during its operational life. Lifeboat, a back-up system for insuring

de-orbit of the recovery vehicle in the event of Agena power failure,

was incorporated following its development and demonstration as an

element of Gambit . Orbit-adjust capability was also added, again

partly in consequence of Gambit experience. From eight days of

operational camera life in 1964, the 3-1 extended its mission capability

to 15 days during 1967. And the 3-1 was a participant in the remarkable

skein of successes from 1966 to 1970, during which time 28 capsules

were placed in orbit and 28 capsules were recovered. Reliability

had appreciably improved since 1962, when a single one-day

mission success in four attempts was rightly hailed as a spectacular

intelligence accomplishment.

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Corona Improvement Proposals

• The J-3 model of Corona provided a capability to operate at

85 rather than 100-nautical-mile altitudes, with a corresponding

improvement in resolution and scale. It incorporated a constantrotating camera with fewer oscillating parts, thus improving stability

on orbit, reducing smear, and further enhancing resolution capability.

Added functions permitted optional on-orbit selection of exposure and

filter modes. It accommodated alternative film loads.

*

 The dormancy

capability gained increased significance. Not only could the new Corona

be held inactive against the occurrence of better weather, but it could

be adapted to changes in photographic requirements while on orbit,

A final major change was the addition of the DISIC to the

Corona complement of photographic equipment. DISIC--which had

a three-inch focal length lens--provided a star-calibration capability

that was largely unaffected by the orientation of the orbital vehicle.

The earlier stellar indexing sr tern had become ineffective whenever

the main camera was positioned so that the stellar camera looked toward

the sun; in DISIC, one camera was always pointed at least 90 degrees

Several of the improvements derived from Gambit experience. The

J-3 was also the first Corona to be flown with its recovery capsules

facing forward, in the direction of flight.

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away from the sun. The incorporation of DISIC in combination with a

variety of other improvements in camera precision effectively created

a mapping capability in Corona J-3 that finally obviated any need for

flying dedicated mapping missions. (No Argon payloads had been flown

since August 1964, although two still were being held in reserve. With

the addition of DISIC to the Corona system, the requirement for addi-•

39

tional Argon missions or for a successor to Argon vanished.)

Through the extended period of Corona-M, Corona J-1 and

Corona J-3 operations, two quite different approaches to modifications

and improvement of the species contended for acceptance. One stemmed

from the Corona M-2 proposal that Itek had originated in March 1962,

and which had nominally been put to rest by action of the Purcell Panel

in June 1963. Basically, the M-2 proposal conceived of modifying the

original Corona-M to accept a single lens of 40-inch focal length, that

lens tube serving both plattens of the film subsystem. Its lack of acceptance in 1962 and 1963 had been caused by three factors: first, the doubts

of some CIA and Air Force program managers that Itek's expectations

for the lens and the system were realistic; second, the pronounced

preference of the Purcell Panel and other review bodies for fundamental

but less sweeping functional improvements in the Corona-M; and third,

Lanyard had operated in a similar mode.

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the commitment of both Air Force and CIA elements of the NRP to

a new search system, one that would replace rather than augment

Corona.

That complex of institutional and technical motivations experienced some shifts of position from time to time. Thus about 10 months

after he had first argued against funding Itek's proposal for development

of a Corona M-2 model, Lieutenant Colonel H.C. Howard (a senior

member of the NRO directorate) urged Dr. Charyk to accept the

proposal. Lockheed also endorsed Itek's approach, at least to the

extent of requesting funds and proposing development schedules, and

Itek proceeded far enough with the basic idea to construct a menu of

technical and financial details.

Complicating consideration of the M-2 version of Corona was a

parallel Itek proposal that concentrated on detail changes and put major

redesign in a subordinate category. After visiting Itek early in

January 1963, Dr. Charyk became very interested in applying various

of the Itek notions to the basic Corona-M system, although nothing was

then said about a new lens-film system. His request that the CIA

Thus Corona M-2 as foreseen in March 1963 would have been composed

of a 40-inch f/3.5 Petzval lens (scaled up from the Mural-C" design),

two separate film plattens, and a convergent panoramic stereo configuration. Rather than the 70 millimeter film of all preceding Coronas, the

M-2 version would have used 5-inch film (for which Lanyard provided

some background experience).

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comment on Itek's approach elicited a reply that most of the Itek items

were then being considered for gradual introduction into the Corona

program via the technical change route. Dr. Herbert Scoville, CIA's

Deputy Director for Research, suggested that weight control, optical

improvements, adaptation for ultra-thin-base film, automatic exposure

control, modification of the film drive, and improved thermal control

(all among the items on Itek's list) were being individually considered.

He maintained, therefore, that a one-point redesign of the Corona

40

system to incorporate such diverse changes was not warranted.

The issue thus informally joined was tested more or less formally

• by way of a study performed by Major General R. E. Greer's organization at Charyk's direction. The impetus for the study was a discussion

of mid-March between Charyk and Greer; its product was a formal report

of 15 April 1963. The nominal object was to compare the potential of a

revised E-6 Samos system with Itek's M-2 proposal. The conclusion,

stated as a series of recommendations, was that M-2 development should

be continued toward flight test in parallel with development of a reengineered E-6 (with a different reentry capsule, based on Corona designs),

•

after which the most promising of the two should be chosen for full development and deployment. That choice, Greer's panel suggested, should

be delayed until on-orbit experience had demonstrated the superiority

of one of the pair.

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The rationale for the comparison study was a statement of

need from the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC)

and an anticipated endorsement of the NPIC "requirement" by the

United States Intelligence Board (USIB). The M-2 variant of Corona

actually, seemed to have a potential for better resolution than would

an "improved E-6, " but (in the judgment of the study group) there was

somewhat less assurance that the resolution Itek promised was really

achievable. Each of the proposed new systems would ultimately require

a larger recovery capsule, given the necessity of using five-inch film

widths to provide the promised performance of the M-2. The M-2

had a slight theoretical cost advantage, both for development and for

recurring mission costs--about 20 percent in each category, based on

almost identical development-deployment schedules. At the end, the

study group decided that the M-2 offered "by far, the greatest promise

and minimum design risk of any design available for this time period"--

41

except for the "improved E-6."

The sequence of events was roughly this: E-6 had begun development

in November 1960 as a means of satisfying a USIB requirement for

10-foot search coverage resolution at a time when Corona was returning

about 20-foot resolution "a small percentage of the time." By early

1962, Corona-Mural had been developed, providing resolutions of

about 15 feet for about 15 percent of the returned photography. Given

that performance, NPIC in July 1962 expressed disinterest in any "new"

system unless it could offer substantial improvement over the Corona-Mural -

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The upshot of the study activity, for the moment, was a renewed

plea for consideration of M-2 development (from Itek), and a decision

that Itek was--for the moment, at least--not to expend funds on M-2

development additional to those earlier spent. As Colonel Howard

explained to Colonel John Martin in May, the underlying problem was

not merely the choice of a follow-on search system, but that in the •

absence of any new development requirement Itek had no challenge--

a disturbing circumstance in light of the fact that Itek was "the most

4Z successful satellite reconnaissance team in the U.S."

The Purcell Panel report of July 1963 said many things about

the need for improvements in satellite reconnaissance, but for Corona

the key aspect was a judgment that an improved Corona-M system

(not an M-Z, which was considered to be a new variant of Corona )

afforded the greatest near-term opportunity for improving search

43

coverage. Given the generally mixed opinions on Corona M-2, a

budget constraint of some immediate importance, and the findings of

the Purcell Panel and Greer's Evaluation Committe, McMillan in

returns. E-6 did not then promise as much; a potential 6- to 8-foot

resolution in the relatively distant future was the best that could be

anticipated. That conclusion, and the abysmally poor flight performance of the E-6 system, caused its cancellation in 196Z. The NPIC

restatement of a need for 5-foot search resolution, early in 1963,

caused consideration of re-engineering the E-6 (principally by adapting

a Corona-style film recovery system to replace the highly unsatisfactory

capsule system of the original E-6), but at that point Itek was offering

the considerably cheaper M-2 version of Corona for consideration, and

the M-2 also promised resolutions on the order of 5 to 6 feet.

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July 1963 directed that all work on both M-2 and a high-resolution-lens

variant for Corona applications be halted. In place of such activity,

McMillan wanted additional work on Corona subsystems leading to

more consistent performance of the existent system. Because the

Purcell Panel recommendations had been rather general, McMillan

44

also wanted the Corona office to propose specific improvement modes.

By mid-August 1963 the Corona office had identified those items

of detail improvement that seemed most likely to satisfy the specified

NRO requirement. They included more careful lens selectivity and

the procurement of better optical glass; more precise camera focus

adjustment, through expanded testing; incorporation of yaw steering

and vernier attitude control features; experimentation with automatic

exposure control devices, ultimately leading to their incorporation in

production systems; a better programmer; and experiments using high

sensitivity filM (for night photography) and color film in orbit. (In

essence, these and related improvements, plus dual recovery capsule

capability, led directly to the Corona J-3 system.) McMillan accepted

the basic recommendations late in August, and early the following month

45

reported to the Director, CIA, his plans for acting on them.

But an imminent funding crisis intervened, and late in September

the advance authorization of work on the menu of Corona improvements

was revoked--a development that prompted a modest flareup of anxiety

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Control Board (which ultimately decided what modifications would be

end, a suggestion from General Greer that the Corona Configuration

incorporated in production systems) be overhauled. As with similar

about the soundness of Corona management arrangements and, in the

..•

46

proposals earlier and later, Greer's suggestion had no effect. .

`1 Corona improvement menu, or those elements of it that

led more or less directly to improvement of the quality of Corona

imagery without involving substantial changes in the configuration of

the basic system, was ultimately incorporated in system specifications.

Perhaps more significant, in January 1964 the CIA funded an Itek study

of a •successor search system, a development that led over the next

two years to the Fulcrum and S-2 system proposals (S-2 with Eastman

Kodak, and under direct NRO sponsorship), and by that route to the

47

April 1966 endorsement of what later became Hexagon. The flareup

of Agena problems in early 1964 was responsible for a short-lived

proposal to install Corona hardware in a Gambit orbital control

vehicle (OCV), but the additional cost of the vehicle and the Atlas booster

needed to put it into orbit doomed the suggestion. (Subsequent abandon

ment of the original Gambit OCV in favor of the Agena-configured

Gambit-3 system indicated .that reservations about the benefits of the

proposed change were well founded.)

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• of program performance sent to all program participants by the CIA's

director of special programs emphasized two basic Corona achievements,

one the coverage of Soviet ICBM sites, the other the coverage of the

Middle East crises and the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 ("The Six-Days War").

(Corona photography had confirmed Israeli claims that otherwise would

50

have been justly treated as "an exaggeration of the facts.") Problems

were of a relatively minor sort: the introduction of ultra-thin-base film

on Corona flights early in 1969 caused some difficulties that attracted

management attention; four years earlier, such problems would scarcely

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That left what became the Corona J-4 proposal as the only

surviving prospect for a successor search system that descended

48

more or less directly from the Corona of 1960. The Corona J-3

system was admittedly a model change, a means of rather inexpensively improving the quality of Corona photography, and Corona J-3 

did not seem a contender for continuance once a new search system •

entered development. With the approval of Hexagon by the USIB,. in

April 1966, the management controversy involving Corona disappeared;

the NRO's Director of Special Projects became responsible for virtually

49

all Corona development and operational activities.

By late 1968, Corona was being treated as a terminal system.

On the occasion of the 100th Corona flight, in December 1968, a review
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have merited mention in monthly program summaries. Corona was,

to all intents and purposes, a fully mature system--and one with no

real prospect of enduring in operations past the introduction of Hexagon,

an event that was apparently imminent. The possibility that more

Coronas than were in the inventory might be needed to provide an

adequate overlap with Hexagon received careful scrutiny between June 1969

and. January 1970, and on three occasions the review committee concluded

that no additional Coronas need be purchased. Although there were

dissenting opinions here and there, and particularly in the Bureau of

the Budget (Office of Management and Budget), and in the office of the

5Z

President's Science Advisor, the decision was repeatedly reaffirthed.

Yet through and past all that, efforts to preserve and extend

Corona capability continued.

Between May 1967 and October 1968, consideration of an improved

Corona-J, eventually to be called Corona J-4, reached the stage of

serious evaluation of performance potential and probable costs. The

system being considered would include an improved camera--one of

two Itek designs having . focal lengths of 32 and 40 inches--with central

resolution of 4.5 feet or better, a 12-inch focal length stellar-indexing

camera, and a more powerful booster than required for the J-3 model.

That combination of elements would provide a potential 18-day orbital

lifetime for a Corona J-4 system.

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The assumption underlying consideration of a still further

improyed Corona was that it could enter use between January and

April 1971, supplanting and supplementing the J-3 Corona that then

provided basic search coverage. Program plans current in 1968

showed the last Corona-J systems scheduled for launch by June 1971;

procurement of 20 Corona systems in a J-4 configuration would permit

•

Corona operations to continue through mid-1973. Development and

procurement of the camera systems had an estimated cost of11111 o

to which would be added recovery vehicle and orbital

vehicle. costs and the cost of 20 booster systems.

Buyi itg the J-4 in preference to additional J-3 Coronas would effectively create an enhanced search capability at an estimated per-launch

additional cost of abou That real costs would exceed

53

estimates by 15 to 20 percent was virtually certain, however.

By June 1967, initial expectations of quick progress in Hexagon

development had largely dissipated. Acknowledgement of difficulties

came late in the month, when Dr. Flax formally advised the Deputy

Secretary of Defense (Cyrus Vance) that the first launch of Hexagon

had been deferred from April 1969 to October 1969, and then to April 1970. .

The extension relaxed the funding pressures created by technical problems

in Hexagon development, but it also required a further extension in the

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• new optics and by the inclusion of several refinements in detail thus

reached one peak of interest in 1967, while Hexagon still was incompletely

•

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use ofof Corona to December 1970, the least overlap with Hexagon that

54

Flax deemed prudent.

The fundamental problem underlying delay in Hexagon, as Flax

subsequently explained it to Vance, was that work on the camera system

paced the balance of the program, and it had encountered major difficulties. They arose in part, Flax explained, because the Hexagon

requirement was "not really an intelligence collection requirement,

but a statement of system parameters." The NRO had therefore found

it difficult to optimize the system design "to meet real collection needs"

and had been obliged to consult both COMOR (Committee on Overhead

Reconnaissance) and USIB to clarify the requirement. In the Spring of

1967, Richard Helms, CIA director, 'had asked Flax to delay the start

of work on supporting Hexagon subsystems until recently disclosed

problems of Hexagon cost effectiveness could be resolved. Not until

June 1967 had Perkin-Elmer, the camera contractor, fully resolved

system definition uncertainties--a/1 of which implied a continuing

55

requirement for additional Corona operations. Indeed, although the

prospect was not specified then, further Corona improvement was not

out of the question.

The proposals to improve Corona through the incorporation of

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defined and at a time when requirements for photography in the coming

five years were less than certain. One proposal, both then and later,

was to use an improved (J-4 model) Corona in combination with Gambit-3

to satisfy national needs for search and surveillance in the 1970s. The

camera proposed in 1967 was an improved-optics version of the constant-.

rotator Corona J-3 camera. By all indications, it could provide fivefoot resolution capability and, in combination with Gambit -3, would

satisfy basic national satellite reconnaissance requirements in the early

1970s at a price several hundreds of millions of dollars less than that of

Hexagon. Brigadier General James T. Stewart, director of the NRO

staff at the time, suggested to Dr. Flax that one implication of the

renewed interest in a Corona J-4 was that perhaps Hexagon should be

scaled down--four- to five-foot resolution, 16-day orbital life, and two recovery!

capsules being an attractive compromise. As in the past, one of the

principal motivations for continued attention to the Corona J-4 alternative--

56

and to a scaled-down Hexagon--was cost.

Recurrent proposals to cancel the Hexagon program and to substitue a composite Corona-Gambit capability—or more precisely, an

improved Corona (presumably some version of the J-4 camera) and an

improved Gambit--eventually tended to focus on financial benefits. In

June 1968, while the fiscal 1970 budget was being shaped, they extended

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also toto some assumptions about Corona performance that were little

warranted. The Bureau of the Budget argued that Corona could achieve

a 4.5-foot "best resolution, " and that in combination with th IIIIII

anticipated "best resolution" of Gambit-3 such a capability would

entirely satisfy foreseeable needs,

In fact, Corona was theoretically capable of returning photography

with 4.5-foot resolution, and actually did as much somewhat later, but

the usual resolution of returned Corona J-3 photography tended to be

from seven to ten feet, with occasional excursions to six feet. U the USIB

statement of requirements were accepted at face value, Corona J-3 

would not serve. The prospective savings assumed to result from the

substitution of Corona for Hexagon in combined operations with Gambit

were overstated (no account was taken of the cost of buying additional

Corona systems to replace Hexagons , for instance) and were predicated

on the assumption that Hexagon costs would substantially exceed estimates.

Counter arguments did not explicitly refute that assumption. but rather

denied it by assuming that estimates of the time were accurate. That,

too, was a gross error; as. had been true of virtually all orbital reconnaissance systems, Hexagon did eventually incur substantial cost growth,

the actual costs exceeding those predicted by the Bureau of the Budget.

"Additional costs" for Corona J-4 systems probably would have been

•

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abou1111.111that would have been offset, in the event, by the

considerable excess of real Hexagon costs over those estimated in

1968. But the central argument remained that of coverage and

57

resolution, and there Hexagon had an unassailable advantage.

•

The proposed-Corona J-4 system was not evaluated solely in

•

cost-benefit terms, however. It was, in a very real way, a competitor

and potential rival of Hexagon, the surveillance system designed to

satisfy a requirement for COrona area coverage at Gambit resolutions.

The April 1966 decision by the Executive Committee of the National

Reconnaissance Program to proceed with Hexagon development had

capped a two-year controversy over a "successor search system."

At the time it was approved for development, Hexagon was scheduled

for first launch late in 1968 or early in 1969. In its initially specified

configuration, Hexagon was intended to provide resolution of 2.7 feet

or better, stereo coverage of 700, 000 square miles each day of

operation, a mission life of at least 25 days, and periodic recovery

58

of film from two or more recovery capsules.

The progress of Hexagon was neither as rapid nor as smooth

as hopefully anticipated in April 1966. Not until October of that year

was a camera subsystem contractor chosen (Perkin-Elmer); the

development contract was not signed until June 1968; Lockheed was

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not chosen as the upper stage ("satellite basic assembly") developer

until July 1967: and no reentry vehicle contractor was selected until

May 1968. By June 1967 it was evident that the first suitable booster

could not be made available until at least April 1970. None of those

schedules took account of the possibility that delays would occur in

development and test of various critical subsystems, as had always

happened in past reconnaissance system programs, or the possibility

that correcting problems uncovered in early flights would further

delay the full operational readiness of Hexagon. The transformation

of such possibilities into probabilities explained the delayed appreciation

of the need for extending Corona operations well past the nominal date

of Hexagon first flights.

Further, the cost-effectiveness issue was real, not contrived.

Corona missions cost betweerIMIEIMHexagon operations

would cost about...each. Development of Hexagon would

presumably cost betwee and ** Corona J-4 

could be developed for no more than about and perhaps

And it must be noted, Gambit was making steady progress toward

Milliresolution capability (from its original 30-inch performance)

in those years.

**

In the event, it cost more. The 3-4 cost estimate was more likely

to be accurate because it essentially involved the addition of new subsystems with relatively conservative new technology to a proven

operational system.

"O.

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less if the 32-inch rather than the 40-inch focal length camera were

'selected. (Flying the Itek-proposed 40-inch camera in a Thor-Agena

combination promised to require either a "hammerhead" configuration

for the payload or an enlarged-diameter Agena; designers were wary

of the . first, and the second would be costly.) At the time that Corona J-4

made its last serious bid for consideration. as an alternative to Hexagon, •

several potentially expensive system options were being evaluated for

later development—particularly readout s ystems --and there was considerable concern in executive quarters about the inability of budget

managers to provide the very large additional sums needed to exploit

59

such options.

In some respects the S-2 system proposed in 1965 was, of course,

still another competitor to Corona J-4 in that it involved a camera of

either 44 or 62 inches (focal length), 2.5- to 3.0-foot resolution, and

a 30 million square mile (per mission) coverage capability. S-2 was

also a panoramic camera system (not unlike Corona) with stereo

•

coverage and with estimated single-mission costs (in 1965) of between

assuming an eight-missions-per-year

launch schedule. (Like other preliminary cost estimates, those

probably were understated.)

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In the face of such competition, J-4 was little favored by anyone

other than its proposer (Itek) until Hexagon went into the development

schedule in mid-1966, and thereafter was favored mostly by those who

felt that Hexagon was representative of an excess capability--and

61

• unwarranted costs.

That Hexagon was an approved program with reasonable promise

of success did not preclude consideration of options that either began.

with or included the cancellation of that program and "indefinite"

reliance on Corona . In August 1967, more than a year after the formal

start of the Hexagon program, but while the camera subsystem still

was the only element in accelerated development, the NRP Executive

Committee examined five alternative approaches to providing adequate

satellite reconnaissance capability for the 1970s. The most extreme of

the options was to develop a Corona variant capable of producing

resolution at about the 4. 5-foot level. It was disapproved on the grounds

Itek, which had once exercised a near-monopoly on the production of

satellite-reconnaissance camera subsystems, was by 1966 faced with

having no future satellite reconnaissance work once Corona phased

out. Fulcrum had originally embodied a proposed Itek camera system,

but in a 1965 development shuffle (occasioned partly by Eastman Kodak's

preference for Dorian rather than S-2 work and partly by an Itek

dispute with CIA officials) the Itek proposal was transferred to PerkinElmer and Itek took over EK's S-2 design--which by that time had faint

hope of acceptance. Eventually Itek became a Hexagon subsystem

contractor (not for the main camera system, of course), but between

1965 and 1968 the company had only S-2 and Corona J-4 prospects--and

neither was favorable. The eventual and unsuccessful Itek proposal for

what became Hexagon was based on S-2 designs.

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DECLAWfilq pv9ugybayagaiL2 improved Corona would cost about as much as

completing Hexagon development. (That observation emerged in

November 1968, after Hexagon had made some progress toward

operational readiness, but before an initial schedule slippage of more

than one year had been acknowledged and before there was readiness

to face the prospect that another schedule' slippage of about the same

magnitude was pending.)

The second option considered in August 1967 was simply to

delay Hexagon availability for a year--a contingency then discarded as

unnecessarily costly, but subsequently imposed on the Hexagon program

by necessity rather than choice. In November 1968 the option was to

cancel Hexagon and substitute for the planned Hexagon-Gambit operations

(either four or five flights of each per year) a Gambit-Corona combination involving seven flights of each annually. What made the cancellation

attractive in 1968 was the prospect that it would permit a. budget saving

of betwee in fiscal years 1968 through 1973. But

the offset would be expressed in ground resolution; there was virtually

no possibility of improving Corona to the point of providing resolution

better than about 4. 5 feet, and in the view of CIA, DIA, and NPIC

analysts, search resolution as good as 3.0 feet was needed.

Interestingly, CIA Director Richard Helms was not convinced, in the

Spring of 1968, that getting resolution, as promised on the MOLDorian program, was worth its cost.

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Finally, the the National Reconnaissance Office concluded (in a

position paper for the use of the Deputy Secretary of Defense during

an Executive Committee Meeting of mid-November 1968) that "the

CORONA system has reached the limit of its improvement. The

current system uses Thor-Agena launches with a fixed-film panoramic

camera. A significant improvement to the system to bring resolution.

below five feet would require a new booster and an optical bar camera.

This . . . would entail a development costing

dollars." The judgment: an austere Hexagon program was preferable

to cancelling Hexagon and relying on Corona for the 1970s.

In cost-effectiveness terms, the comparison had this appearance:

System Resolution

(feet)

New or

Remaining

Cost for

Development

($ million)

Operational

Costs

($ million)

(per year)

Contract

Needs

(new) •

Corona J-3 7 -10 0 none

Hexagon 2-5 none

Corona J-3 mod 5.5-8 sole source

Corona J-4 4-7 new competition

, _

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In such terms, the Corona modification would provide

"marginally better resolution at much higher operating costs . . .

while the radically changed Corona "wou/d have development costs

62

as high or higher than HEXAGON."

That was the Department of Defense-CIA position. The Bureau

of the Budget argued that the Corona-Gambit combination was quite

adequate for intelligence needs and that Hexagon did not offer a

sufficiency of improvement great enough to justify its higher cost.

Dr. Flax disputed that whole contention, using arguments first

expressed when Hexagon was proposed as a Corona successor: both

resolution and coverage were essential. The BoB maintained, however,

that when Hexagon was approved for development it was competing with

a Corona capable of best resolution of about 10 to 15 feet, and that now

(1968), Corona had six- to eight-foot resolution capability and further potential

for low-cost improvement. Even without major changes, the budget

people contended, Corona afforded a fully adequate search capability

63

at a five-year cost some below that of Hexagon .

In the end, Hexagon survived the 1967-1968 pressures for cancellation and Corona remained a terminal system. Apart from technical

and requirements considerations, and institutional preferences, the

issue hinged on budgetary provisions, and at the time the proposed

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fiscal year 1970-1971 budgets seemed adequate. That Hexagon would

cost More than originally estimated was apparent; the extent of that

cost growth was not. Nor had the satellite reconnaissance program

yet begun to experience the considerably more severe budgetary

pressures that accompanied the change in administrations followirig

the election of 1968. Such influences were nearly certain to reopen

what were widely assumed to be closed issues--including the future

of Corona .

Notwithstanding the occasional Bureau of the Budget efforts

in 1967 and in 1968 to induce substitution of Corona for Hexagon in

the National Reconnaissance Program, it was not until the change of

administrations occurred in January 1969 that such an alternative

became a real possibility. (S-2, the proposed Corona follow-on,

had then been dead for nearly three years, and Hexagon had been in

development as long.) One of President Richard M. Nixon's prime

objectives was to reduce and reorient defense spending. The Budget

Bureau responded, early in March 1969, by reviving the proposal

that Hexagon be cancelled and that its function be satisfied by a

combination of Gambit-3 and "improved" Corona operations. Robert

Mayo, the President's new budget director, argued that the five-year

cost differential could be as large as -a contention that

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' the Central Intelligence Agency flatly denied. In its initial 1969

incarnation, the revived proposal to cancel Hexagon was not

supported by the Department of Defense, and consequently it found

64

little favor with the White House.

That seeming anomaly was a reflection of a characteristic

of American government. Although the Bureau of the. Budget and

the Department of Defense had new senior officials, they were limited.

in their appreciation of circumstances by the information they received

from officials who would carry over from one administration to

another (the career officers, civil and military) or who had not yet

been replaced by new appointees (as was the case with Dr. Flax, who

remained in office until Dr. John L. McLucas succeeded to the post

• of NRO Director in April 1969; McLucas had become Air Force

Undersecretary in February, but not NRO Director). Thus the BoB

and DoD positions were in large part reflections of positions taken

earlier by career employees, not appointees, and the CIA position

was wholly unchanged. The arguments that Mayo used in March,

and the response from the NRO and the CIA, were replays of argu- ,

ments used by the same people in 1967 and 1968. "Mat was different

was the audience and the spokesmen. David Packard was the new

Deputy Secretary of Defense, and he had firm views about bureaucracy,

efficiency, and economy. Dr. McLucas still was an unknown quantity,

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but he was Undersecretary of the Air Force, and thus more involved

in the continuing affairs of the "regular" Air Force than Flax had

been as Assistant Secretary, R&D. Dr. Lee DuBridge, President

Nixon's new science advisor, was another unknown, Mayo's position

was predictable; he had been appointed under injunctions to cut

defense costs, and he proposed to do so.

Reacting to Mayo's proposal to cancel Hexagon, David Packard

advised. Dr. McLucas on 31 March 1969 that, "This issue is closed

with BoB for now and no future action is necessary." The firm

wording suggested an end to consideration of reliance on a CoronaGambit rather than a Hexagon-Gambit capability for satellite reconnaissance in the 1970s. McLucas, Richard Helms" (Director of Central

Intelligence), and John S. Foster (Director, Defense Research and

Engineering) so interpreted it. So did the NRO staff.

But Robert Mayo and the newly installed senior staff of the

Bureau of the Budget resurrected the question in another guise. They

had continued to investigate various alternative ways of performing

their principal assignment from President Richard Nixon: to reduce

the defense budget.

The choice they next presented to the President was no less

difficult and in many respects was more important. Late in March
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they revived the central issue in a form that presented alternatives--

one of which had to be chosen if the President's stubborn insistence

on a budget cutback was to be translated into real dollars. The BoB

concluded that of all the reconnaissance activities then in development,

two were in many respects mutually exclusive--Hexagon and MOL-Dorian.

(Dorian was the covert reconnaissance payload for MOL--the Manned

Orbiting Laboratory the Air Force was developing toward a scheduled

1972 operational date.) Gambit could not be cancelled until a replacement existed and Hexagon had a resolution potential definitely inferior

to that of Gambit-3 . None of the other development systems--principally the VHR (very-high-resolution) system and the EOI (electrooptical-imaging) system--was equally costly. Corona was so inexpensive, in comparison, as to be an unattractive candidate for budget cuts.

Yet another unexpectedly important contributor to the problem

was the course of MOL-Dorian development. MOL had incurred a

schedule slip of nearly two years between 1967 and 1969 and, in the

process, bid fair to cost more than twice as much as earlier estimated.

In an effort to compensate for both schedule slippage and cost growth,

the MOL Program Director, Major General James T. Stewart, concluded that the scope of the program had to be reduced. He therefore

proposed to incoming Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard that

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two of the scheduled early manned flights of MOL be cancelled, leaving

three unmanned (Dorian) and two manned flights in the initial lot.

Packard approved, and by so doing made Dorian rather than "man"

the principal element of MOL-Dorian. The scientific community,

represented by Dr. Lee DuBridge, President Nixon's choice for

Science Advisor, was less than favorable to the decision. DuBridge -

tended, thereafter, to be less than enthusiastic about MOL.

• The issue, in the end, was which should be cancelled, Hexagon

or MOL-Dorian. Apart from financial considerations and institutional

preferences, other influences had to be weighed. One, of some

importance, was the earlier endorsement of MOL by both President

Nixon (while a candidate) and his new Secretary of Defense, Melvin

Laird (while a congressman and critic of Johnson Administration

defense policies). A second was the BoB position, a happy (from the

President's view) carryover from earlier proposals rejected by the

Johnson Administration but now in good concert with the Nixon Administration s goals.

The Bureau of the Budget favored cancelling Hexagon and

continuing MOL-Dorian--which by indirection required extension (and,

probably, .improvement) of Corona, although that consequence was

nowhere made explicit.

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In the event, on Wednesday, 9 April 1970, President Nixon

decided to cancel Hexagon and continue the Manned Orbiting Laboratory-Dorian program. That course would have the effect of reducing

the total fiscal 1970 budget byland the fiscal 1970-1974

budgets by a total of The secondary effect of the decision

would be to force continued reliance on Corona, either the current J-3

version or, more probably, an improved system with some of the

capabilities of the frequently proposed J-4 variation.

Reaction was rapid.

On 21 April, Mayo suggested to the President that reconsideration

of the earlier decision might be advisable. Several influential voices

with a similar message had preceded him. If MOL-Dorian rather than

Hexagon were cancelled, the immediate and long-term savings would

be about the same (some less, in the end), but as Mayo

now saw the situation, Hexagon would have great utility as a confirming

factor for any strategic arms limitation agreement, and MOL had a

• "more questionable" intelligence value. Mayo forwarded arguments

for and against both courses to the President on the understanding that

both Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and CIA Director Richard Helms

65

planned to appeal the original decision. In supporting Hexagon

rather than MOL, Laird would be accepting the established USIB and

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NRO positions on Hexagon, although some elements of both organizations were known to favor a Corona-Gambit option and separate

consideration of the requir ement for MOL-Dorian. The nominal

Defense Department position on MOL-Hexagon was support of MOL,

a manned system and the only large DoD space system in development

outside the NRO. But that also was a tricky stand because there was

an excellent possibility that the manned role of MOL might be deleted

and the system flown solely as a large-camera, large-payload unmanned

system. In that case, it would be but another NRO reconnaissance

satellite.

For the moment, at least, the Piesident's initial action in

cancelling Hexagon--and indirectly extending Corona's career—was

not acted upon. Both Hexagon and MOL-Dorian were permitted to

continue. But a final decision could not be long put off.

.

Support of Hexagon rather than MOL-Dorian had also come, by

indirection, from the Congress. In March 1968 an NRO spokesman

explaining the proposed NRO budget to cleared members of the House

Appropriations Committee had referred to the goal o flill=resolution

for Gambit-3 . Chairman Mahon wondered why so much additional

expenditure was wanted for MOL-Dorian, which would offer only a

potential growth to aboutMresolution (Mahon remembered the

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incident a year later.) CIA testimony during March and April

reflected similar doubts. Foster and R. C. Moot, the DoD

Comptroller, had endorsed the full proposed MOL budget in December

1968, but almost as soon as new officials were in place Dr. Ivan Selin,

holdover acting head of the Systems Analysis Office in the Department

of Defense, had told Packard that MOL was not worth nearly what it

would cost. Contrary arguments from Foster and MOL supporters

had "impressed" Packard, but not to the point of causing him to

66

abandon his initial stand favoring Hexagon. The probability that

either MOL or Hexagon would ultimately be cancelled was widely

acknowledged by March 1969. The President's action on 9 April was,

' therefore, not unexpected.

The issue remained current and controversial until late May

1969. During that interval few intimations of the eventual decision

leaked through the higher levels of government. President Nixon

convened a special group of advisors on 17 May to discuss with him

the several aspects of the problem, the group including such as the

Secretary of the Air Force, the director of the MOL-Dorian program

(General Stewart, who had earlier headed . the NRO staff), as well as

67

Laird and Mayo.

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No explicit consideration of the Corona problem marked the

meeting, but there was a high probability that an improved Corona

would be required to operate in a search mode and in support of

Gambit if the Hexagon cancellation decision were allowed to stand.

That possibility disappeared, and with it any real possibility for

continuation of Corona, with the President's decision, , early in June,

to cancel the MOL program and to continue Hexagon .

That Corona had been a major consideration in. the pre-Nixon

deliberations was evident; the Bureau of the Budget had been the

principal source of support for Corona continuation and improvement

in 1968 and after. Without an existent Corona capability, and the

potential for its improvement, no serious proposal for continuing MOL

and cancelling Hexagon could have been made. It was a wry commentary

on the turns and twists of reconnaissance program policy that the early

success of Corona was a principal justification for the eventual cancellation of the several generally unpromising Samos systems of the early

1960s, to the considerable distress of the Air Force, but that the

survival of MOL, a 1970s sys tern for which the Air Force had even

greater fondness, was very nearly secured by the continued excellence

of the Corona a decade later.

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Although the rationale of the MOL-Dorian-Hexagon decision

was peripheral to the course of the Corona program, it ultimately

put finis to the program. Essentially, these seem to have been the

contributing elements: the Bureau of the Budget identified either

Hexagon or MOL-Dorian as a prime candidate for cancellation in

order to satisfy the President's strongly expressed desire for a

substantial reduction in military-program spending in fiscal 1970

and after. Because earlier studies had convinced some carryover

BoB staff specialists that Hexagon was unnecessarily costly--and

unduly complex--the BoB recommendations forwarded by newly

appointed BoB officials tended to be less than favorable to Hexagon.

Further, both Defense Secretary Laird and the President himself had

earlier expressed themselves as favoring the development of a manned

military satellite; Laird, while a Congressman, had written a minority

report criticizing the Department of Defense for not supporting MOL

more adequately. The advisors most likely to influence the President

in the early days of his administration were precisely those who, given

a choice between Hexagon and MOL-Dorian, would be most likely to

favor the latter. That sufficiently explains the original (9 April 1969)

verdict: cancel Hexagon . Afterthoughts influenced both Laird and

Mayo; Helms, who was entirely in favor of Hexagon, caused some of
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•

them, but convincing representations of the greater reconnaissance

value of Hexagon came from several sources. The NRO position

appears to have been one of general neutrality with a slight leaning

toward continuation of Hexagon, although the views of the Air Staff

and its influence on McLucas (through his position as new Air Force

Undersecretary) cannot be discounted.

What may have been a deciding factor was a semi-independent

report from Dr. Edwin Land that reached the President on 6 May 1969.

Dr. Land forcefully argued against continuation of MOL, although he

may have been innocent of information about the imminence of a MOLHexagon choice. (He urged that an unmanned system with Dorian

optics be started as a substitute for MOL-Dorian.) Land (and, by

implication, the special panel he headed) recommended termination

of the manned aspects of MOL, diversion of the funds immediately

retrieved from MOL to the initial development of a new "real-timereadout" system, and study of the possibility of either developing an

unmanned Dorian-capability photo satellite or extending Gambit

capability into the very-high-resolution regime. That recommendation,

responsive to a direct request from the President for advice on MOL,

may well have precipitated the decision that was made and announced

a month later, although in the interim the President convened at least.

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one meeting of his principal advisors (Laird, Seamans, Mayo, J. R.

Schlesinger of the BoB, Dr. Henry Kissinger, Helms, and Stewart)

to consider alternatives and consequences. In any case, the President

decided the issue on 6 June 1969; advance word of the verdict reached

•

the upper echelons of the MOL office the following afternoon (a Tuesday),

was passed to the principal contractors late on Thursday, 9 June, and

68

was publicly announced the following morning, 10 June 1969.

Toward the middle of 1969, as the Corona program once again

wound down toward finality, some of the various problems normal to

that phase in any major program began to have their effect. In the

period between September 1968 and August 1969, three camera failures

and three lesser malfunctions had significantly lessened the value of

six Corona missions. In July 1969 (mission 1107) a mechanical failure

interrupted operation of the forward-looking camera almost as soon as

the "operate" command was sent. A similar failure in September 1968

(mission 1048) had occurred after about two-thirds of the film had been

expended, and in February 1969 (mission 1106) the aft-looking camera

had failed, probably because of a break.in the film at a splice point.

Mission 1050, in March 1969, ended prematurely after a failure of the

Agana guidance system, and two other mis sions (1049, December 1968,

and 1051, May1969) returned degraded film. Although all represented

•

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more than five years marked by failure of the camera system to

operate in a stereo mode, even though in some earlier instances

stereo operation had been possible through only part of a mission.

The fundamental problem appeared to be a gradual but not yet

severe degradation of quality control in the Lockheed facility (which

actually was a Hiller Aircraft Corporation facility occupied wholly

by Lockheed people working on Corona). Its underlying cause was

the tendency of the best people in any operation to leave once that

operation entered its terminal phases--and the prospect that Corona

would continue, in any form much past the onset of Hexagon flights

was nonexistent by the Spring of 1969. Indeed, as far as Lockheed

and Itek probably knew, that prospect had vanished a year earlier;

the perturbations of early 1969 were at such a high level that neither

contractors nor project office people were likely to have known that

even late in 1969 there remained a faint possibility of substituting an

improved Corona for Hexagon in the search-surveillance operations

of the 1970s.

As skilled workers resigned, their places became increasingly

difficult to fill; the lack of an "open" work area where new employees

could function during . the extended period usually required to complete

1

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security clearance procedures and the definitely limited future of

Corona work militated against any easy solution.

Further, as both manufacturing and production tapered off,

the availability of replacements for failed items lessened. A spares

program had not hitherto been essential because manufacturing had

continued at a level rate for more than 10 years, and owing to the

nature of space systems, "spares" were needed only to replace

articles that failed in test.

The best that could be done immediately was to overhaul procedures so as to reinvigorate quality assurance testing and to provide

for adequate spares. In time, the "Hiller facility" would have to close

69

down, but that was not yet. For the longer term, considering that

Corona would remain operational for another 18 to 24 months, John

Crowley, CIA's Corona manager, arranged for a partial integration of

Hexagon and Corona program activities, thus insuring some continuity

and a rational phase down of Corona as Hexagon neared operational

readiness. The solution to personnel problems was to offer the

experienced "Hiller" people employment with either Lockheed-Sunnyvale

or Perkin-Elmer (developing the Hexagon camera system), but to delay

the actual transfer until all Corona systems had been completed and

delivered. Refurbishment of various items of Corona equipment as a

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sort of spares program (thus overcoming a shelf-life difficulty that

underlay part of the quality control deficiency) would smooth out

some of the workload fluctuations at the "Hiller" plant. * Transfer

of the checkout operation to a real Lockheed plant was the ultimate

70

solution, of course.

The stretchout of Corona operations to provide overlap with

initial Hexagon missions created some interesting difficulties in its

own right. By August 1969 it was apparent to Hexagon managers that

their system might not be able to supplant Corona either as fully or

as soon as earlier planned; the likelihood that all available Corona

systems actually would be flown, instead of having the last two or

three treated as surplus, created unique pressures. That situation

had never arisen in earlier program terminations. (All of the Samos

programs had ended with surplus systems available, as had Gambit-1

and Argon ) Indeed, a very real problem existed in the fact that the

•

last really operable Corona system in the inventory (CR-8) had been

a test bed for ultra-thin-base film and would have to be requalified

The "Hiller" operation had been established in 1958, as a cover

for Corona manufacturing and checkout activities. All "real"

Hiller Aircraft Corporation work at that plant had ceased during

the 1960s, and in actuality only Corona people remained thereafter.

1 They were legally Hiller employees, and because of union regulations it was not possible to move Lockheed employees into the plant

to replace the departing "Hiller" workers--who were similarly

foreclosed from merely transferring to Lockheed.

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for the ultra-thin film being used in the last lot of Corona J-3 systems.

The combination of test operations, requalification, and normal test

and certification would cause the system to experience more than

90, 000 operating cycles by the time it went into orbit--a number so

large as to make continued reliability highly doubtful. Refurbishment

was plainly in order, although it would cost nearlyallilto re-

.

cycle the system and a major portion of the cost arose in the necessity

of having Itek reopen manufacturing and test facilities closed down with

the delivery of the last regularly scheduled Corona cameras, some

weeks earlier.

The film test sequence and two on-orbit exercises of ultra-thinbase film had demonstrated that the new material was essentially

superior to the standard-thin film earlier adopted. Although some

peculiar anomalies affected the ultra-thin film during the first 48 hours

of any flight, degrading imagery during that period, quality was never

poorer than that of the earlier Corona J-1 systems, and after the film

had stabilized (a flatness problem) imagery was appreciably better than

• anything obtainable on standard-thin film.

Even in August 1969 the realities of Hexagon scheduling had not

become fully apparent to reconnaissance program managers. Consequently,

the "refurbished" Corona intended to be the last operational system in the

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series was scheduled for a November 1971 launch. In the event, the

date proved to be May 1972, and the August 1969 decision to update

system CR-8 proved exceedingly prescient. It was needed as a gap

filler when Hexagon availability was repeatedly . delayed.

The decision to use what were for practical purposes the last

flyable Corona systems in running out the Corona overlap with Hexagon

received a final stamp of approval in February 1970. A special Hexagon

review committee carefully considered the prospect of a Hexagon slippage that would extend past the availability of the last Coronas and

concluded that even if a slippage occurred (as it did, later), a sufficient

margin of safety existed. Therefore the committee recommended

abandoning plans to purchase additional Corona systems. By 12 February,

Richard Helms of the CIA and Lee DuBridge, the President's Science

72

Advisor, had concurred in the recommendation.

One other remote possibility remained for the continued use of

Corona, though surely not under that name or with Corona operational

objectives. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

had approached the National Reconnaissance Office in 1969 with a

•

tentative plan to satisfy requirements for an earth resources survey

satellite by adapting Corona systems and technology. The notion

intrigued the NRO because that option would effectively preserve a Corona

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manufacturing capability against some contingency that might warrant

later use of the system. Corona superbly satisfied NASA's basic

requirements for multispectral imagery and for stereoscopic coverage.

And because Corona was a thoroughly reliable, fully developed system

for which complete fabrication and testing facilities existed, it would

provide a most inexpensive way of satisfying NASA needs. But NASA

had to choose between Corona and alternative specialised earth resources

survey systems; the NASA budget could not support both. Given the

institutional tendencies of both NASA and the NRO, the outcome was

predictable.

In early March 1970, NASA advised McLucas that no money for

the procurement of Corona systems could be included in the fiscal 1972

NASA budget. Homer Newell, NASA's Associate Administrator, asked

McLucas to preserve Corona production capability against a possible

budget allocation for a NASA-Corona in fiscal 1972. But the NRO budget

was no more flexible than the NASA budget in such matters. Although

McLucas assured Newell that the NRO would attempt to make surplus

73

Corona vehicles available to NASA, in fact that contingency could be

considered only if Hexagon were to become fully operational in accordance

with optimistic 1970 schedules. Should that occur, of course, two or more

Corona missions might well be scrubbed, there being little value to

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operating Corona once Hexagon's much superior capability could be

brought fully to bear.

Expectations that some surplus Coronas might become available survived into the early months of 1970, as evidenced by a March

1970 request from the Defense Intelligence Agency that the NRO fly

DLSIC packages early in 1971, rather than (as scheduled) as part of

the Corona missions intended for the late months of that year. (Fewer

DISICs than Coronas were in the residual inventory.) The rationale;

. . uncertainty as to whether the last few Kli-4 systems may be

74

operated."

So late in 1970 that it really could have few implications for

the program, the State Department provided an unexpected but highly

interesting post-wake commentary on the value of the Corona in

applications not contemplated when the program began. R. S. Cline,

State's Director for Intelligence and Research, wrote Helms in

September 1970 that ". . . the gap . . . between what policy-level

officers in our government expect to be able to demand from our

satellite reconnaissance program and what it actually can deliver in

the next six to twelve months" had begun to concern him deeply.

Cline explained that only "the unusual political circumstances in the

current Arab-Israeli crisis" had permitted the U.S. to use "the old

workhorse, the U-2." Otherwise, coverage would have been grossly
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inadequate--owing to a restricted flexibility in reconnaissance satellites that stemmed directly from the limited residual of Corona

vehicles. When Hexagon became operational (and Cline suggested

as an aside that he did not expect that to happen until well into 1971),

coverage would be excellent--but at a cost of a launch,

Hexagon was not suited to crisis scheduling. Nor was Gambit.

Given the probable five- to six-year wait for an operational readout

system, Cline suggested that it might be advisable to "reassess [the]

need for a satellite crisis capability at least as good as that previously

provided by the KH-4 (Corona) standby."

Cline's object was to stimulate a new examination of the basic

issue, but he conceded that funding problems and previous commit75

ments made a satisfactory solution unlikely.

Cline sent copies of his letter to both Lieutenant General D. V. .

Bennett, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and R. H.

F• oehlke, who was charged by Packard with integrating various defense

intelligence activities. Bennett promptly contacted Dr. McLucas and

Deputy Secretary of Defense Packard to express basic agreement with

Cline's stand, again expressing concern about the potential intelligence

76

gap that would be created by exhaustion of the Corona inventory.

Packard responded by suggesting that McLucas "look at cost and

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schedule problems with more KH-4 insurance." He reiterated the

suggestion during a meeting with McLucas shortly thereafter. Indeed,

by early October Packard had concluded that Coronas might be needed

" . . for a long time, either to cover a launch failure or operational

failure, or to cover a crisis situation where there is nothing scheduled

77

and we might want to launch an extra photo bird."

Packard pressed Helms on that issue in November. Helms

responded that additional Corona vehicles could not be obtained in

less than 24 months because of manufacturing lead time considerations

and that Hexagon was virtually certain to be satisfactorily operational

by then (1973). He further suggested that Corona vehicles would have

but limited usefulness in the sorts of crises the U.S. had experienced

in the preceding five years, a conclusion based on the findings of a

still incomplete study being conducted by the Agency. On such grounds,

he doubted that the utility of additional Coronas would be worth the

each probably would cost (a cost driven substantially higher

than in the past by the necessity of reestablishing production facilities).

And, he added, if Hexagon continued to conform to its schedule,

Coronas would be left over for crisis use should that need arise.

Finally, Helms concluded, he ". . . would prefer not to spend any of

the intelligence budget at this time for additional Corona vehicles,

•

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[instead believing] our objective will be better served by planning to

use such funds as can be made available to help cure any Hexagon

78

problems that might arise in the early flight program. " Again,

it appeared, the subject had been closed. And again, appearances

proved deceptive.

Late in December 1970, Dr. John Martin in the President's

Office of Science and Technology suggested consideration of a new

Corona option: ordering a small number of Corona vehicles under a

contingency plan that would call for cancelling the order once complete

Hexagon operational readiness had been demonstrated. The option

was considered in some detail during the National Reconnaissance

Program Executive Committee meeting of 29 January 1971. In the

course of the discussion, the NRO Comptroller,

•

estimated that additional Corona systems could be purchased and

operated at costs ranging from each in lots of two, to

each in lots of six. Assuming an immediate decision to

proceed with the purchase of three systems (an optimum number

representing the crossover between high unit costs for fewer systems

Not Major General John L. Martin, Jr., former NRO Director of

Special Projects.

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and a package price for so many systems that the total would cause

major perturbation of fiscal 1971 and 1972 budget ceilings), cancellation after two months would cost about and after five months

about1=11 That calculation had been performed as a direct

• response to a question from Dr. E. E. David, the President's Science

Advisor (and a member of the NRP Executive Committee); if additional

Corona systems were immediately ordered, but a successful Hexagon

launch in March 1971 allowed termination of the procurement, what

would be the costs? What if in June or July?

The basic reason for Dr. David's concern was the Hexagon

overlap with Corona . When Hexagon had been scheduled for December

1970 launch, Corona launches were planned so as to provide an 11-month

overlap. When Hexagon incurred another schedule slip, the response

was to ar der a special Gambit Higherboy kit that would permit Gambit,

operating at an altitude of 525 miles, to take relatively wide-area photographs that would partly satisfy an interim search capability requirement,

thus protecting the 11-month overlap through March 1971. A Hexagon

slip to June or July 1971 would leave a seven-month overlap potential.

In the worst case, if Hexagon did not become operational until late

1971, a coverage gap of 5 to 11 months conceivably could result.

See Chapter on Gambit for details of that modification.

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Protective measures included further stretchout of Corona launchings

(awkward at a time when, as it happened, there were rising demands

for a greater frequency of Corona missions), or buying another

Higherboy kit and substituting a Higherboy-Gambit for a scheduled

Gambit-3.

In • the end, it appeared to Dr. David that insurance against a

major Hexagon slippage could be purchased for betweenilland n

M--if the decision to oilier more Carona systems were taken

at once. He asked McLucas to poll the Executive Committee on the

79

advisability of taking such action. The negative response disposed

of the question and finally did write finis to Corona.

Again in February, the Defense Intelligence Agency urged Deputy

Defense Secretary David Packard to schedule an additional and early

Corona operation to satisfy immediate and urgent requirements

arising, partly, from the untimely flight failure of Corona Mission 1112.

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— RESUME 

In many respects, the evolution of Corona anticipated the later

evolution of Gambit . Likenesses were not at all obvious, and surely

were not planned, but they were extremely interesting in retrospect.

Gambit did not have to endure the long string of early mission failures

that troubled Corona, but if Gambit were viewed as the first successful.

satellite program to be conducted under "Air Force" rather than CIA

auspices and predecessor "Air Force"' satellite development activities

were treated as precursors of Gambit, even that difference vanished.

Of the thirteen attempted launches in various of the Samos programs,

only one was marginally successful (the E-1 launch of January 1961), a

record that almost precisely paralleled Corona's early history. Gambit

was intended from its start to be a stereo system, which was not the

case with Corona, but otherwise the evolutionary pattern of camera.

and recovery system changes and improvements for one strikingly

resembled that of the other. Both systems acquired vastly better optics

within two years of their initial missions (C'" and Gambit-3 ), both

profited appreciably from the development and introduction of improved

film, both were operated as "single-bucket" stereo systems (Corona-M

and the initial Gambit-3) before acquiring dual-recovery-vehicle
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capability. (Corona-J and the double-bucket Gambit-3 ), and both

experienced a five-fold improvement in resolution and reliability

during their first 10 years of operations. The experience of the

Corona program had, of course, a substantial direct influence on

the evolution of Gambit. The adoption by Gambit program managers

of the Corona recovery capsule was but the best known of several

examples that extended through optical, electro-mechanical, and

orbit-control subsystems and into a host of specialized components,

80

procedures, and technical devices.

Corona improvements included the addition of a stereo capability, a second recovery vehicle to increase film capacity, a lower

orbital altitude to permit better photography, better optics, and many

other changes. At the end, Corona missions lasted for 19 days and

each brought returns on about seven million square nautical miles.

Sixteen Corona missions were flown in the last three years of

the program, six in 1969, four in 1970, three in 1971, and two in 1972.

Those flights used up the whole of the Corona inventory; the Corona

function thereafter was served by Hexagon. In its years of service,

Corona had identified and accurately located all operational Soviet

ballistic missile sites. More need not be said.
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One of the principal issues of 1969 was whether or not to

schedule additional Corona production as a safeguard against

anticipated slippage in the first operation of Hexagon . The response

was to adjust the annual launch rate for Corona, stretching the.

program. Although it was a near thing, the last Corona available

to the NRO managed to fill the data gap created by the need to delay

the second Hexagon launch until problems disclosed by the first

Hexagon could be corrected. (The first and third of the four Hexagon 

recovery vehicles of the initial Hexagon experienced recovery

parachute failures, and the third was lost entirely.)

In the final three years of Corona operations, three of the 16

flights ended in less than satisfactory fashion. Mission 1113, staged

in February 1971, was the victim of a rare Thor booster failure; an

attitude control system failure in March 1969 (mission 1050) caused

abbreviation of a planned 16-day mission to three days, although

intelligence returns were exceptionally good for the period in orbit;

and failure of a solar array panel to deploy followed by a leak in the

Agana gas system forced abbreviation of the final mission in May 1972

(mission 1117) to six days (against a planned 19 days). Yet, with the

exception of the entirely aborted mission (the Thor failure), every

Corona operation in the final series of launches returned reconnaissance

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information that ranged from good to exceptional in terms both of

81

photographic quality and intelligence worth.

By the time the Corona series ended with the final capsule

recovery on 31 May 1972, it had ostensibly included 145 missions--

or mission attempts--in all. In actuality, if the generally ignored

initial mission failure was counted, there were 146 flight attempts,

of which 26 involved objectives and payloads other than those of the

fundamental Corona program. * Thus 120 Corona operations were

attempted. Starting with flight number 69 (mission 1001) of 24 August

The records of Corona missions, successes, and failures are confused because of the early admixture of the Discoverer and because

so many operations did not include a Corona camera system. Two of

the first 25 "Corona"flights carried infrared sensor systems developed

for the subsequently cancelled Midas program; at the time they were

publicly represented to be biomedical payloads. (Some biological

specimens actually were carried but they constituted a tiny fraction

of the total payload.) Two other "Corona" spacecraft of that period

carried "diagnostic payloads" rather than cameras; such diagnostic

instrumentation was inserted into the flight schedule in response to

the initial sequence of mission failures and was intended to provide

information that would identify and support the correction of spacecraft design defects. The end sum of "Corona" flights, nominally

145 but actually 146 in all, included 12 Argon mapping camera payloads, three Lanyard instruments, and two other payloads irrelevant

to the Corona. (flights number 54 and 99). (Starting with

flight number 54, two of the surviving summaries of Corona program

activities have contradictory flight and mission numbers. Flight

number 54 is not counted as a Corona program flight in one set,

compiled in. 1964, but is so charged in the final June 1972 accounting.)

•

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1963, dual recovery capsules were usually flown. Only seven

Corona missions after that time involved the older, single-capsule

recovery system; 69 were of the dual-capsule Corona-J configuration

(including both J-1 and J-3). In total the Corona program included 190

film capsules intended for recovery. Of that total, 165 film capsules

actually were recovered, and all but four of them contained operational •

quantities of exposed film. From time to time, random system malfunctions of various kinds made some of the film no more than marginally

useful to photo interpreters, of course, but in the end 161 capsules

brought back a vast bulk of enormously useful reconnaissance information.

Through flight 16, film payloads weighing, variously, 10, 16,

or 20 pounds were carried. Thereafter through flight number 75

(December 1963), the film payload per capsule averaged about 40

pounds, and from that time through the end of the program the percapsule average was about 80 pounds (or approximately 16,000 feet

of film). In the period from 1966 through September 1970, when a

total of 34 systems were placed in orbit, recoveries included 68

capsules containing 1, 058,000 feet of film with images of 287 million

square miles of the earth's surface. Those 34 successful injections

also encompassed a total of

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As originally flown in 1960, the ground resolution of the monoscopic Corona camera was about 35 to 40 feet. That improved to

about 35 feet with the introduction of the C' camera. Twelve years

later, after a succession of improvements and changes that extended

from reliability enhancement in a host of minor components to new

boosters and spacecraft and four major evolutionary improvements

in camera configuration, Corona routinely returned stereo photography

with a normal resolution of seven to ten feet from 100 nautical mile

photographic altitudes and had demonstrated a "best resolution" of

4.5 feet from 90 nautical miles. With a 19-days-on-orbit mission

capability, a single Corona flight in the 1970-1972 period usually

returned pictures of 8.4 million square miles of "denied" territory.

Originally flown with only the sketchiest sort of weather information

•

input, and thus subject to random cloud-cover degradation, Corona

was, by 1972, capable of an adaptive response to weather information

less than 90 minutes old. Further, the addition of a DISIC (dual improved

stellar imaging camera), conceived in 1964 and first flown successfully in 1967, pkovided extremely accurate altitude and position

information and added a supplemental mapping capability to Corona

that largely offset the need for special mapping missions. (The Argon

program, which had its last operation in May 1964, was not succeeded

.00

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DECLASSIFIED ON: 7 MAY 20.12 TOP-BSCRIBTby another cartographic program chiefly because of the DISIC enhancement of primary Corona capability.)

Although the original concept of film returns by way of a

recoverable reentry capsule proved highly successful once a set of

relatively minor but irksome operational difficulties were overcome,

improvements in that aspect of Corona operations in the years after

1961 were nearly as impressive as other system improvements. At

the end of the program, film was routinely recovered from two

independently controlled recovery capsules. The last Corona capsule

recovery failure occurred in May 1965 (caused by a random malfunction

of the vehicle recovery command system), although recourse to water

pickup became necessary twice in the succeeding seven years (once in

82

July 1967, again in August 1969).

In the context of its operational utility, exploitation of technology,

and enhancement of the nation's fund of intelligence information, Corona

had to be rated an outstanding success. Originally considered an

•

interim system and assumed to have, at best, three or four years of

operational utility, Corona remained the sole source of overflight

83

intelligence for the United States for nearly five years, and was

a primary source of basic information used to shape national defense

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policy for 12 years. Although designed as a search system, at the

end Corona was providing better detail and resolution than several

of the surveillance systems earlier touted to supplement it. Its

eventual replacement, Hexagon, was six years in gestation and about

five times as costly, - withal having an operational capability that

Corona could never match.

In 12 years of operation, Corona cameras exposed more than

2, 700, 000 feet of film covering 750; 000, 000 square miles of the earth's

surface. The last Corona satellites each carried more than 31, 000

feet of 70-millimeter film, • were capable of providing resolution of

from six to ten feet, surveyed about seven million square miles during

each mission, and returned cloud-free coverage of about three million

square miles.

CorLom, achievements were legion. Among those accounted

most memorable when the program ended was a list of "firsts" that

ranged from "first satellite in polar orbit" through "first dual-capsule

reentry capability" to "first low-altitude satellite to utilize a solar

array." Corona was the first satellite to be recovered, the first

to operate in stabilized flight, the first to be recovered from the

water, the first to be caught in descent, the first to incorporate an

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engine restart capability, the first to carry a stereo camera (and, of

course, the first to carry any camera at all), the first to perform '

orbit adjust maneuvers, the first to carry "piggyback" satellites,

and the first to utilize explicit guidance equations in its control:

84

circuitry. There were others.

Corona was a principal policy reliance of four Presidents,

their defense ministers, and their chief intelligence advisors. It

was instrumental in providing 'data that shaped American responses

to the Soviet missile buildup, to the Cuban crisis of 1962, and to a

succession of crises and conflicts in the Middle East, along the SinoSoviet border, in India, in Africa, and in Central Europe. The film

recovery techniques conceived for Corona were to survive and supplant

several more elegant predecessor and successor conceptions of the

1960s. Gambit, the only other fully capable U.S. photographic

reconnaissance system to appear during that decade, probably owed

its success to adoption of Corona recovery capsule technology. ,

Accessory products of the Corona engineering effort included a

variety of successively improved space vehicles (the several Agena

variants), boosters (augmented Thor and Thorad), stellar-indexing

systems (including the highly successful DISIC), vehicle stabilization
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systems, mission control systems, data processing techniques, and

photo-interpretation processes. That Corona was at once the out-

, standing example of effective interaction between the Department of

Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency and a principal issue of

contention between them for nearly a decade may be a paradox explainable only in terms of Parkinsonian dialectics--but that also was part

of the ultimate reality.

Even though quite a lot of miscellaneous information about

Corona had leaked into the press from time to time, surprisingly

little was made of it by supposedly well-informed space writers.

Photographs published in Caracas had clearly shown the inside--and

the film cannister--of a recovery bucket; aerial catch and sea retrieval

operations had been repeatedy photographed; the Alsop article of 1963

had pretty accurately described both the antecedents and the initial

importance of Corona; and it was all but impossible for intelligent

observers of the strategic scene to ignore the recurrent implications

of good U.S. photographic intelligence over Soviet territory in the 1960s.

True, only small lots of people knew that until 1965 all of the many

other U.S. reconnaissance satellite programs had been sterile.

Nevertheless, to one looking at the indicators with knowledge of

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their significance, the failure of outsiders to trumpet the existence

and the importance of Corona was baffling. Nobody even seemed to

notice its disappearance in the flurry of comment about "new" American

satellite reconnaissance capabilities when Hexagon launches began.

As with the original Gambit, when Corona phased out theré

was a sentimental movement to preserve one example for posterity.

That was a bit more difficult than for Gambit-1, however. Two

complete Gambit-1 systems had survived, surplus to launch requirements

when Gambit-3 became operational. The crunch caused by Hexagon

slippages in 1970 and 1971 had essentially exhausted the reserve of

Coronas. In order to create a museum display at the chosen secure

site, in one of the buildings occupied by the National Photographic

Interpretation Center in Washington, it was necessary to combine

the well-worn development model of the J-3 version with tarnished

recovery capsules actually retrieved from the final Corona mission

in May 1972. Even the vehicles used for test and qualification of

earlier Corona models had been sent into orbit at the end.

On 25 November 1972, the only surviving Corona became a

museum display--though not yet accessible to the American public.

The occasion was marked by the first, and perhaps the last, formal

reunion of the many contributors to Corona's 15-year history:
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Ritland and Bissel, Worthman and Battle and Buzard, Charyk and

McMillan and Flax and McLucas, Scoville and Crowley

and Naka, and a host of others—though not including any of the Rand

scientists who in 1957 had opened the Pandora's Box by arguing that

a cheap, simple, recoverable reconnaissance satellite obtainable in

the short term was a far better prospect than a sophisticated, expensive,

high-risk satellite with uncertain availability and doubtful utility.

And there was one final paradox. The success represented

by Corona in the early 19608 had demolished plans to rely on readout

satellites for information about Soviet strategic capabilities. In 1972,

when Corona was retired, technology finally had advanced to the point

at which a readout satellite with the capability envisaged for that

breed twenty years earlier was realistically achievable. Its need

was justified, at least in part, by the urgency of continuing in an era

of detente the sort of coverage Corona had provided for more than a

decade of cold war.

And one final item: the bill. The 1958 program estimate

for what it was assumed would be a total of 12 Corona missions

(plus four launches to test equipment and concepts) was about

Some early optimists had thought it could be bought off

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for or so--plus launch and launch vehicle costs. The

**IR

total cost, through May 1972, was between and

(It was difficult to allocate costs for a variety of peripheral activities

that were or were not counted as Corona-related from time to time,

as the rules changed.) That worked out to an average of perhaps

for each attempted Corona mission; what with odds and

ends not accounted for elsewhere,NMas probably a more

representative number, but the difference was relatively inconsequential. A great many totally valueless programs of the 1960s had

cost more and had been cancelled before producing any results.

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NOTES ON SOURCES

Note: Various items of detailed information used here and not

otherwise attributed have been taken from "CORONA, " by Kenneth E.

Greer, an article published in the CIA Intelligence Journal of

July 1973 under a Talent-Keyhole classification but subsequently

withdrawn from circulation because it contained many elements of

BYEMAN-category data. Although generally correct in matters of

event and technical detail, the Greer article reflects an incomplete

appreciation of the circumstances that brought Corona into being,

the roles of early participants, and the interactions of Corona with

other satellite reconnaissance activities. In part, that probably

resulted from constraints imposed on the author in the matter of

discussing such programs as Gambit and Hexagon, but it also reflects

what appears to be an unbalanced and uncritical reliance on interview

evidence obtained several years after the events had occurred.

Program difficulties have been largely glossed over, in part by

omission, in part by phraseology. Nevertheless, Greer's article

is a useful adjunct to Corona history, except for those major defects

remarked above, its faults and flaws are of slight consequence.

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DECLASSIFIED ON: 7 MAY 2014 -TOP-SECRET1. Corona Briefing Portfolio, 22 Jan 59.

Rpt, Evaluation of Itek and Fairchild Proposals for the 1961

Corona Program, L. Crouch, ARL, W-PAFB, et al, 17 Apr 60;

conf notes, Col P. E. Worthman, 30 Apr 60, both in SAFSP files.

Meg 3555, R.M. Bissell, D/Dir CIA, to MajGen O.J. Ritland,

Crndr, BMD, 16 Sep 60; MFR, Col P. E. Worthman, Corona

progm ofc, 26 Sep 60, subj: Meeting with Mr. B., in Corona

proj files, SAFSP.

4. Meg 3803, CIA to BMD, LAC, 27 Sep 60; msg 1007, CIA to

LtCol C.L. Battle, Corona ofc, 13 Oct 60, Corona files, SAFSP.

5, Meg 8200, CIA to LMSD, 27 Feb 61; meg 1007, CIA to Battle,

13 Oct 60.

"Fact Sheet, Corona, " 6 Apr 61; "Corona Performance Chart, "

May 62, both in SAFSS files; meg 4221, CIA to BMD, 13 Nov 59.

Details of the origins and early operations of the Corona program

are provided in C. II, this mss. See also summary flight

records, 1961-1972, in "Goppert files" in SP-3 retired records.

The "Goppert files! ' contain most of the Corona program records

retained at SAFSP.

8. Goppert files, rpt covering Discoverer flights I through XXXVII,

Jan 62.

1

LMSD Planning Proposal: A Convergent Stereoscopic Camera

System, about Sep 60, in SAFSP files.

MFR, Col P. E. Worthman, Corona ofc, 23 Jan 61, subj: LMSC

Proposal - Stereo Triple Prime; MFR, Maj H. C. Howard,

Office SAF, Missiles and Space, 14 Feb 61, subj: The Twin

Program; MFR, Worthman, 24 Feb 61, subj: Stereo C Triple

Prime; draft memo, J.V. Charyk, U/Secy AF, to SoD, Mar 61,

no subj, all in SAFSS/SAFSP files.

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Memo, BGen R. D. Curtin, Dir/Ofc Space Systems, to J.V. Charyk,

U/Sec AF, 23 Mar 62, subj: NRP Status, in SAFSS files.

See Vol II, this mss, for details of E-6 development; memo, J. V.

Charyk, U/Sec AF, to Chin, FLAB, 15 Jun 62, subj: Status of

Satellite Reconnaissance Program, and incl, same date, "Summary

of Satellite Reconnaissance Program, " in NRP Rpt to FLAB, 1962,

in SAFSS

Memo, Charyk to Chin FLAB, 15 Jun 62; memo, Curtin to Charyk,

13 Mar 62.

Ltr, CIA, to Col C.L. Battle, Corona ofc, 13 Jul 62,

no subj, SAFSS files; rpt, 241 Progm Peri, May 64, in Goppert

files.

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11. Msgs 9468 and 9559, CIA to LtCol C.L. Battle, Corona Ofc,

30 Mar and 6 Apr 61; map 8691 and 9240, CIA to LMSD,

13 Mar and 28 Mar 61, all in SAFSP files.

la. MFR, LtCol R. J. Ford, Corona ofc, 25 May 61, no subj, in

SAFSS files.

13. Memo, J.V. Charyk, U/Sec AF, and R.M. Bissell, D/Dir

CIA, to Dir DIA, 7 Feb 62, subj: Exploitation; memo, Charyk

and Bissell to DIA, 12 Feb 62, same subj, in DNRO files; see

also Vol I, this mos.

Memo, J.V. Charyk, U/SAF to Dir DIA, 14 Feb 62, subj:

MURAL (now CORONA-M) Background Summary; MFR, B.M.

Lane, SAFSP, 5 Dec 61, subj: Requirements for Stellar Camera

in M System, Memo, BGen R. Curtin, Dir/OSAF Missiles and

Space Systems, to ACS/Intel, US Army, 8 Mar 62, subj: CORONA;

memo, Curtin to Maj H. C. Howard, OSAF M&S, 10 Apr 62, no

subj, all in SAFSS files. See also Vol II, this mss, for additional

details on Argon, Vault/Tomas , and E-4.

NRP Rpt to FLAB, 1961: National Satellite Reconnaissance Program

Status Report, in SAFSS files; memo, BGen R.A. Berg, Dir NRO

Staff, to Dr. A. Flax, DNRO, 2 Aug 68, no subj, in DNRO files.
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Rpt, Summary of Satellite Reconnaissance Program, 27 Sep 62;

rpt, National Reconnaissance System Status, 7 Dec 62, both in

NRO Rpt to FLAB, 1962, in SAFSS files; NRP Satellite Launch

History, to Oct 72. See Vol II for further details of E-6 program

activities.

NRP Rpt to FLAB, 1962, rpts for 27 Sep and 7 Dec 62.

Memo, LtCol H. C. Howard, DNRO staff, to Col C. Battle,

SAFSS, 18 Sep 62, no subj, in SAFSS files.

See p. 13, "Launch Schedule, " in 7 Dec 62 rpt, "Summary of

Satellite Reconnaissance Program, " in NRP Rpt to FLAB, 1962;

references and descriptions of Corona-J appear in the 27 Sep 62

summary, but not in that dated 15 Jun 62.

Meg, 2747, CIA to Lockheed, 12 Feb 63; msg, 8750

to Itek, 7 Nov 62; memo, Col J.L. Martin, Dir NRO staff, to

Dir NPIC, Dir CIA, Chm COMOR, 3 Dec 62, subj: CORONA J,

in SAFSS/SAFSP files.

NRP Rpt to FLAB, 1962, summary for 27 Sep 62; memo, B.

McMillan, DNRO, to Chm, FLAB, 12 Sep 63, subj: National

Reconnaissance Program Status, and atchmt, National Reconnaissance Program Status (Satellite), 10 Sep 62, in NRP Rpt to

FLAB, 1963.

Memo, J.A. McCone, DCI, to DNRO, 9 Apr 63, subj: Special

Procedures for Satellite Reconnaissance Missions, in DNRO files.

Meg,Mi 0832, B. McMillan, DNRO, to MGen R. E. Greer,

Dir SP, 19 pr 63, in SAFSP files.

28. Memo, B. McMillan, DNRO, to Chm, FIAB, 1 Oct 64, subj:

National Reconnaissance Program; memo, J.P. Coyne, FLAB,

to DNRO, 26 Aug 64, subj: National Reconnaissance Program

Status; atchmt to memo, McMillan to Chm, FLAB, 4 Aug 64,

subj: National Reconnaissance Program Status, Atch 1, "National

Reconnaissance Program Status (Satellite, " 6 Aug 64, all in

SAFSS files. The "Program Status Report, " in various !ormats,

was prepared for and forwarded to the FLAB on a recurring

n

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basis from the time of the establishment of the NRP in 1961.

Because the NRP first appeared, as a program, in November

1961, the report was originally prepared on an annual, and

later a semiannual basis (November and April); in 1968 it was

regularized and until 1971 appeared as a semiannual report

(January-June, July-December). At the suggestion of the

FLAB, it was then transformed into an annual report to be

issued at the end of each fiscal year. Hereafter it will be

cited as NRP Rpt to FLAB for (period), with date of issue:

The 1961 report was six pages long; the January-June 1970

issue was but 37 pages long, plus illustrations—which probably

was something of a record in its own right. (An old Parkinsonian

rule of thumb is that the size and . cost of reports increase geometrically at a fourth-power rate over 10-year intervals; the

NRP report grew linearly, and. as a square function. Indeed,

the first annual report, for fiscal 1971, was slimmer by 20

percent than the sum of the two preceding semiannual.. )

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Details from: mega XC-2 and XC-3, US Air Attache, Caracas,

to Hq DIA, 4 and 5 Aug 64411.111. 9015 and 9108, CIA Caracas

to CIA Hq, 11 and 12 Aug 641=1877, CIA to NRO, 10 Aug 64;

3169, CIA to Lockheed, 2 Sep 64 (concerning the coins);

memo, Col F.S. Buzard to D/Dir Security, NRO, 7 Aug 64;

memo, BGen J. T. Stewart , Dir NRO Staff, to Interdepartmental

Contingency Ping Cmte, 13 Aug 64, subj: Committee Meeting;

memo, B. McMillan, DNRO, to Dir Progm A, 22 Sep 64, subj:

Satellite Space Vehicle Vulnerability; memo, L.F. Mazza NRO

Security Ofc, to Col P.E. Worthman, 12 Oct 64, subj:11111.11.11

6024 (Attached); meg, 6024, DNRO to Dir SP, 9 Oct 64;

memo, McMillan to Chm, FLAB, 1 Oct 64, subj: National

Reconnaissance Program, in NRP Rpt to FLAB, 1964. (All in

dnro, SAFSS files.)

Briefing record, DNRO to USIB, 14 Nov 63, in Rpt NRO to

FLAB, 1963.

NRP Program Status Rpt, 29 Jan 64; memo, B. McMillan, DNRO,

to Chm, FLAB, 30 Jan 64, subj: National Reconnaissance Program . Status, in SAFSS files.

Meg Dir/SP to CIA, SAFSP, 13 Feb 64, in SAFSS

Corona files.
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Memo, B. McMillan, DNRO, to Chzn, FLAB, 4 Aug 64, subj:

National Reconnaissance Program Status, in NRP Rpt to FLAB,

• 1964. See also summary rpts dtd 30 Jan and 2 Jun 64, same

source.

NRP Rpt to FLAB Nov 64-Apr 65, dtd 12 May 65, and Nov 64-

Oct 65, undtd, both in SAFSS files.

Ltr, H. Brown, SAF, to Dr R. C. Seamans, Jr, Assoc Adman,

NASA, 19 July 1965, no subj; memo note, B. McMillan, DNRO,

to Brown, 19 July 65, both in. DNRO files.

Memo, C. Vance, DepSoD, to A.H. Flax, Asst SAF (R&D),

24 Aug 65, no subj; memo, W.F. Raborn, DirCIA, to R.S.

McNamara, SoD, 31 Aug 65, subj: Assignment of Mr James Q.

Reber as Deputy Director NRO; memo, Vance to Raborn, 1 Oct

65, subj: National Reconnaissance Office, all in DNRO files;

the issues that arose in mid-1965 are discussed in greater

detail in Vol V.

Memo, A.H. Flax, DNRO, to NRP ExCorn, 22 Apr 66, subj:

CORONA Management in DNRO files.

Memo, B. McMillan, DNRO, to SoD, 30 Sep 65, subj: Comments

on NRO and NRP, in DNRO files.

NRP Rpt to FLAB, May-Dec 66, July-Dec 67; memo, A.H. Flax,

DNRO, to Chm, USIB, 27 Dec 65, subj: National Reconnaissance

Program Satellite Launches, in NRO files.

Memo, LtCol H. C. Howard, NRO staff, to J. V. Charyk, DNRO,

3 Jan 63, subj: A Recommendation for Acceptance of the Itek M2

Proposal; msg, LMSC to CIA, 14 Mar 63; MFR,

Jr, 19 Mar 63, subj: Itek Cost Proposal for (M- ng e Lens

Stereo 40" Panoramic System; memo, Charyk to D/Dir Res,

CIA, 7 Jan 63, subj: Improvement of CORONA-M, all in SAFSS

files (DNRO and Corona); memo, H. Scoville, D/Dir Res, CIA,

to DNRO, 11 Feb 63, subj: Improvement of CORONA -M, in

DNRO files.

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Memo, MGen R.E. Greer, Dir Progm A, to DNRO, 15 Apr 63,

subj: Comparative Evaluation, in SAFSP files; memo, Greer to

Col R.A. Berg, Chm, Study Grp, 21 Mar 63, subj: Comparison

Study; Rpt, Report of the Findings of the AdHoc Group Appointed

to Evaluate Potential Systems for an Improved Search Type

Satellite Reconnaissance System, Apr 63, in DNRO files. (Rpt

of the Findings . . . had 15 tabular appendices dealing in detail

with specific aspects of M-2 and E-6 Improved (called Program

698 BJ for the purposes of the comparison).

Memo, LtCol H. C. Howard, DNRO staff, to Col J. L. Martin,

Dir/NRO Staff, 10 May 63, subj: Lindsay Letter to Dr McMillan;

ltr, F.A. Lindsay, Itek, to B. McMillan, A/SAF, 2 May 63, no

subj, both in DNRO files; msg, Dir/SP to Itek, 29 May 63 (confirming a telecon of 28 May 63 between Corona ofc and Itek; the

M-2 cancellation order).

Memo, E. M. Purcell, Chu), Recon Panel, to DCI, Jul 63, subj:

Panel for Future Satellite Reconnaissance Operations, with rpt

attached.

Msg,!=0517, DNRO to Dir/SP, 11 Jul 63 andM110524

to Dir SP, 16 Jul; msg 3160, Dir/SP to CIA, 12 Jul 63;

msg, 0209, CIA to Itek, 17 Jul 63, all in SAFSP files.

Memo, B. McMillan, DNRO, to Dir, CIA, 11 Sep 63, subj:

Implementation of the Purcell Panel Recommendations in

DNRO files; msgs81111 78627926,_7 28 7925,

LMSC/CIA to Dir/SP, 27 Aug an Sep 63; msg 0598,

DNRO to Dir/SP, 26 Aug 63.

Memo, MGen R.E. Greer, Dir/SP, to Col J.L. Martin, Dir/NRO

Staff, 6 Nov 63, subj: CORONA Management, in SAFSS files;

triage 3480 and 3509, Dir/SP to DNRO, 23 Sep and

1 Oct 63, in SAFSS files. See also memo, Col R. H. Worthington,

162 Progm Dir, to Greer, 4 TO7r3 63, no subj, in Dir/SP files.

47. Memo, Berg to Flax, 2 Aug 68.

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Memo, B. McMillan, DNRO, to SoD, Dir CIA, 25 May 64,

no subj, DNRO files.

Memo, A. H. Flax, DNRO, to Dir Recce, CIA, Dir SP, 22 Jun 66,

subj: CORONA Planning and Organizational Responsibilities, in

DNRO files.

Memo, J.J. Crowley, Dir SP, CIA, to D/Dir Sat Ops, NRO,

12 Dec 61, subj: CORONA Program History, with atch: "A Century

of Corona, " in SAFSS files.

Memo, J.J. Crowley, Dir SP, CIA, to DNRO, 24 Feb 69, subj:

The Utilization of UTB in the CORONA Program, in DNRO files.

Report of the Hexagon Review Committee, 20 Jun 69 (Chrn,

F.R. Naka); Second Report of Hexagon Review Committee,

4 Nov 69; Third Report of Hexagon Review Committee, 22 Jan 70;

memo, J.L. Mc Lucas, DNRO, to NRP ExCom, 2 Feb 70, subj:

Adequacy of Corona/Hexagon Overlap; memo, F.R. Naka to

DNRO, 28 Jan 70, subj: Second and Third Reports of the Review

Committee; memo, R. Helms, Dir CIA, to DNRO, 5 Feb 70,

subj: Adequacy of the Corona/Hexagon Overlap; memo, L.A.

DuBridge, Sci Adv to Pres, to Dr J.L: McLucas, DNRO,

12 Feb 70, subj: CORONA/HEXAGON Overlap, all in DNRO and

ExCom files.

Rpt, "Improved Corona S stem " a rently prepared by

Corona project office fo NRO Comptroller,

2 8 Oct 68, in SAFSS files.

Memo, A.H. Flax, DNRO, to DSoD, 26 Jun 67, subj: FY-1968

Obligation and Expenditure Indications for the NRP, in NRP

ExCom files.

Memo, A.H. Flax, DNRO, to DSoD, 6 July 67, subj: National

Reconnaissance Program (NRP) Issues and Pending Decisions,

in DNRO files.
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56. Memo, MGen J. T. Stewart, Dir/NRO Staff, to Dr A.H. Flax, .

DNRO, 30 Jan 67, subj: Improved CORONA Study, in NRO files.

Memo, BGen R.A. Berg, Dir/NRO Staff to Dr D. Steininger,

PSAC, 13 Jun 68, no subj, NRO files.

NRP Rpt to FLAB, Nov 65-Apr 66, SAFSS files.

See particularly, NRP ExCom Minutes, mtg of 20 Aug 68 in

NRO files.

Memo, A.H. Flax, DNRO, to D/Dir CIA, 13 Oct 65, subj:

Data for Phase I Study of Mapping, Charting and Geodesy, in

NRO files.

61. J-4 proposal data largely obtained from Col F. S. Buzard (ret.),

interview by R. Perry, 1 Mar 73.

6L. Min NRP ExCom Mtg M-16, 18 Nov 68; position paper, 'Proposed

DoD Position on HEXAGON, " prep by NRO staff, 11 Nov 68, in

NRP ExCom files.

Position paper (BoB), "The Need for the Hexagon Photographic

Satellite, " Nov 68, in NRP ExCom files. (The BoB position was

presented by F. Hoffman; remarks on the A. Flax response

reflect holographic notes by Flax in the margins of the BoB paper.)

Ltr, R.P. Mao Dir/BoB, to R. Helms, DCI, 22 Mar 69, no

subj; ltr, CIA, to J. L. McLucas, DNRO, 4 Apr 69,

no subj, both in DNRO files.

Memo, R. P. Mayo, Dir/BoB, to R. M. Nixon, Pres, US,

21 Apr 69, subj, FY 1970 Intelligence Program Savings, w/incls;

memo BGen R.A. Berg, Dir NRO Staff, to Dr J. McLucas, DNRO,

28 Apr 69, subj: BoB Paper on HEXAGON and DORIAN, both in

NRO files.

MFR, Col R. J. Ford, MOL ofc, 22 Mar 68, subj: Congressional

Contact with Congressman Mahon MFR, Ford, 27 Mar 68, same

subj: see also History of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program,

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Ch XIV, in NRO files; memo, MGen J.T. Stewart, MOL Dir,

to Gen J. C. McConnell, 12,M, subj: Briefing to the Deputy

SeCretary of Defense; msg 1018, Stewart to MOL Proj

Ofc, 19 Feb 69; memo, Stewart to R. C. Seamans, SAF,

14 Mar 69, subj: Probable Presidential Budget Issues on MOL,

in MOL historical files.

MFR, MGen J.T. Stewart, Dir MOL Progm, 19 Mar 69, subj:

Meeting with the President re MOL, DNRO files.

See memos, Mayo to Nixon, 21 Apr 69, Berg to McLucas,

28 Apr 69; by Stewart, 19 May 69; memo, L.A. DuBridge,

Pres Sci Advisor, to Pres, 6 May 69; memo, E. H. Land et al

(Land Panel on Reconnaissance), to Pres, 6 May 69, all in

DNRO files; interviews, Maj H.S. Coyle and S. H. Watts, by

R. Perry, 23 Mar 73, LtCol F. Hofmann, by R. Perry,

27 Mar 73.

Memo, Corona ofc, to various, 29 Jul 69, subj:

Minutes of Meeting Regarding CORONA Mission 1107, in SAFSS

files.

Memo, C. Duckett, Dir CIA Recce Progms, to DNRO, 31 Jul 69,

subj: CORONA Program Planning; MFR, J.J. Crowley, Dir

Spec Projs, CIA, 29 Jul 69, same subj, both in NRO files.

71. Memo, J.J. Crowley, Dir/Spec Projs, CIA, to D/Dir NRO,

28 Aug 69, subj: CR-8 Refurbishment, UTB Usage and Stretchout Costs, in NRO files.

72. Memo, R. Helms, Dir CIA, to DNRO, 5 Feb 70, subj: Adequacy

of the CORONA/HEXAGON Overlap; memo, L.A. DuBridge,

Pres Sci Advisor, to Dr J.L. McLucas, DNRO, 12 Feb 70,

subj: CORONA/HEXAGON Overlap, both in NRO files.

Ltr, H. E. Newell, Assoc Admin, NASA, to J.L. McLucas,

U/Sec AF, 2 Mar 70, no subj; ltr, McLucas to Newell, 26 Mar 70,

no subj; both in DNRO files.

Memo, Col 11,1 Asst Dir, DIA, for Mapping, Charting,

Geodesy, to , Mar 70, subj: DISIC Launch Schedule,

in SAFSS files.

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Ltr, R.S. Cline, Dir/Intel and Res, Dept of State, to R. Helms,

Dir, CIA, 4 Sep 70, no subj, DNRO files.

Memo, LtGen D. V. Bennett, Dir/DIA, to D/SoD, 14 Sep 70,

subj: Continuity of Satellite Coverage, in DNRO files. (The

memo carries a holograph notation that its contents had been

discussed with McLucas, DNRO. )

HOlograph note, D. Packard, D/SoD, to J. L. McLucas, DNRO,

15 Sep 70; MFR, McLucas, 8 Oct 70, subj: Meeting with Mr

Packard, 8 Oct, in DNRO files.

Ltr, R. Helms, Dir CIA to D. Packard, D/SoD, 17 Nov 70, no

subj, in DNRO files.

Memo, John Martin, Pres OST, to Dr E. E. David, Pres Sci

Advsr, 3 Feb 71, subj: CORONA Re-Order Insurance Costs;

memo, David to J. L. Mc 3 Feb 71, no subj,

both in DNRO files; memo, DIA, to McLucas,

20 Feb 71, subj: Talking Paper on ee for Scheduling Adjustments,

in DNRO files.

See various sections of this mss; see also NRP Satellite Launch

History, in SAFSS files, which reports the results of all Corona

and Gambit missions (and includes both Argon and Lanyard

program results).

81. Memo, McLucas to Laird, 18 Dec 72; NRP Satellite Launch

History, about Oct 1971; Quarterly Progress Rpt, Satellite

Systems, Apr-Jun 1972, atchmt to Memo, C. E. Duckett, Dir /CIA

Recon Progms, to DNRO, 4 Aug 1972, subj: Quarterly Review

Report; all in SAFSS files.

82: Meg,_0886, D/NRO to SAFSP, 5 Oct 70; MFR, Col J.G.

Goppert, Corona Progm Mgr, 8 Oct 70; P-75 Program Performance (Rpt), undtd, about Jul 72; 241 Program Performance Rpt,

undtd, about Dec 64; rpts, Corona Mission Summaries, various

dates, 1964-1972, all in . "Goppert files, " SAFSP.

83. Early Samos flights returned small lots of inferior data in 1961.

See Vol II.

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85. Rpt to President's FIAB, Jul 71, 30 Jun 73; memo, LtCol F.

Hofmann, SAFSP, to BGen D.D. Bradburn, Dir, NRO Staff,

6 Nov 72, subj: General Allen's List of Significant CORONA

'Firsts, DNRO files.

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