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atellite • eCOnnalSSanCe 

IUIlle I 

PREPARED FOR 

THE NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE 

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A HISTOR Y OF SA TELLITE RECONNAISSANCE 

Volume I - CORONA 

by 

Robert Perry 

Revised October 1973 

frOITl earlier drafts of 

1964, 1967, and 1972 

Volume I consists of 262 pages. 

Classified by BYEMAN - 1 

Exempt from general deciassillcatlon 

Schedule of Executive Order 11652 

Exemption category Iss 5B (2) I 

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Preface to Volume I 

This volume of A History of Satellite Reconnais sance is principally 

concerned with the Corona program, although it necessarily deals with 

predecessor reconnaissance satellite activities (Project Feedback, the 

Advanced Reconnaissance System, Weapon System ll7L, "Samos," 

"Sentry, II 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 

(chiefl y 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 reconnais sance 

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 sugge stion and under the initial direction of Major General 

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

Reconnais sance 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 La 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, as sistance, and information. I was from time to time 

assisted in research and writing by William D. Putnam, formerly of 

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

Corporation; Marilyn Schoen of Technology Se rvice Corporation detected 

and cor rected a frighteningly large number of textual and substantive 

errors that escaped my notice and that of early reviewers. Notwithstanding such as sistance, 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 program that perhaps were memorable mostly to specialists 

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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 desc ribed in generally available publications. 

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

bulkier and much less marked by assumptions of prior knowledge. In 

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

ROBER T PERR Y>!< 

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 wi th 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. Thr oughout the period from 1962 to 1973, res earch and 

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

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CONTENTS - VOLUME I 

Preface . •••• .0 •••• 000 • 00 ••• "''''.000 ... 

Foreword •••• O •• II ••••• 0 •• 0 • QG 

Notes on Sources ••• 0 ••• 0110 •• 00 •••• 

I BACKGROUND 0 •••••• 0.0 ••••• 9 

Notes . . eo'llOo ••• 'lI ••• O 

II CORONA - PHASE I .0 ••••• .0 ••• •• 

Notes . .. .. .. .. .. .. II .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 

III THE MATURATION OF CORONA (1961-1972) 

Notes . •• oo ••• " •••• ·OG'O ••• 

Illustrations have been separately bound in an Appendix volume. 

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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 Reconnais sance Program and its organizational 

predecessors, 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 mis sion 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. Is sues 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 

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to conceal:ment of Corona progra:m activity have been described in 

this volu:me, those topics are not explicitly discussed. Such specialized 

aspects of satellite reconnais sance operations as vulnerability, counter-

:measures, and the exploitation of returned photography have also been 

considered only in passing. Technical :matters like the carriage of 

"piggyback payloads, 11 i:mprove:ments in photoche:mistry and fil:m, and 

the develop:ment of reentry and recovery :machinery have been little 

:mentioned. They require specialized historical coverage and are not 

integrals of Corona. 

So:me readers :may wish to proceed directly to Chapter III, which 

covers Corona :matters fro:m the ti:me of first succes sful operation 

to the end of the progra:m. To ease that process, this foreword includes 

two specialized su:m:maries. one dealing with progra:m no:menclature 

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

dedicated obscurer of progra:m reality could have wanted), and the 

second with co:mplexities of progra:m structure and conduct to 1966, 

after which they beca:me :much les s confusing. 

N o:menclature 

Code na:mes have been a fixture of the U. S. security syste:m 

since the :mid-19 30s, whe.n. they were applied to contingency war plans. 

They proliferated during World War II, achieving levels of faddishness 

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I not surpassed until the 1960s, when every operation more complex 

I 

than moving bookcases from one office to another acquired some 

exotic nickname. So many were the variants of Operation Bootstrap 

I and Project Forecast that the important nicknames and codes could 

I scarcely be distinguished from the wholly frivolous. Corona may be 

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

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

I 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 

I 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 

I surely arise were names either introduced without explanation or explained 

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

I designators and titles. 

I All of the many model variations of Corona fell basically into 

three fundamental versions and two payload variants. The first Corona 

I was a single-camera. single-recovery-capsule system; the second a 

I 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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and nlOdels carried the Corona name, either alone or as a prefix. 

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

each discussed below. 

Betwe en April 1961 and 24 January 1962, the name Mural was 

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

that brief period, prograrn m.anagers pr oceeded on the as sum.ption 

that the follow-on to the original single-calnera program. would occupy 

its own security compartment and needed to be segregated frorn its 

predecessor. The possibility that Mural m.ight 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 nOlnenclature with what was then repres ented to be the 

scientific-satellite "Discoverer" prograln 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 readines s 

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: IIC," "CI, II and "CII!. II 

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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, II was known as C' --"C-prime" In 

conversation. Proposals for C It and C! It (ItC-double-prime II and 

"C-triple-prime ll ) 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 ~ and the C' cameras). Itek's CIII proposal 

found acceptance; £' disappeared. 

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

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

~ and C'" models), there appeared proposals for a dual-recoverycapsule version of Corona. It first was known as Mural-J and was 

transiently called M2 (for Mural-squared)--which led to some later 

confusion with the l'A:ural-2 or M-2 nomenclature used to identify an 

... ', •• .1.,. 

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

eventuall y became Corona-J. With the appearance but non-acceptance 

Both Itek and Fairchild proposed ~' 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 appearance of M2. Historia~d file clerks were the 

principal victims of the confusion. 

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of a proposal for a modest improvement of Corona-J under the informal 

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

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

s yrnbolic 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 nanle Lanyard, used Corona hardware as its foundation. Lanyard, an adaptation of a canlera originally developed as part 

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

canc ellation partl y 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 

systern embodied an accommodation of various Corona camera 

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subsystems to re-engineered Samos 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, II 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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sOIne 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 Cor0na 

to carry the name. It was also the last mono (~) camera rnission. 

All later Corona operations were casually announced as "Department 

of Defense satellite launches, II 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 ll designator used most often as 

a program identifier once Discoverer disappeared was IIProgram 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 IIProgram IIA, II and Argon as IIProgram LA. II 

In the separate TALENT-KEYHOLE security category (covering the 

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

used to identify Corona-Mural mission products. Other KH codes, 

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including KH-l, KH-2, and KH-3, identified predecessor products 

:=!<~:< 

of the C, ~, and ~ 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 se ries 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 se ries 

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 cons olidated at the end of each section. 

KH -1 applied only to mission 9009, the only succe s sful ope ration to 

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

products of missions 9013, 9017, and 9019. all of the successful ~ 

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 J -1 operations; and KH-4B terminology 

applied to the products of _C~E~~~l:l missions. 

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

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

additional disorder in 9000-series program records occurred because I 

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

and because in formal program records some mission numbers appeared I 

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

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

separately listed 90l4A was not; 9066A ~ an Argon mission, and there I 

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

consistentl y used in all Corona reporting documents even though the I 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 I 

Lanyard missions--8001 through 8003. 

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

generic. Where neces sary, the subset identifiers C, ~, C I ", Mural, I 

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 I 

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. 

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

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

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actually refer to "Program ITA, II "Program 162, II or some other of 

the many transient identifiers used in 14 yea;t's 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 I • 

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, 90l6A, 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 II. They are occasionally mentioned in connection with 

These mission numbers were for Argon 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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Corona develop:ment in the chapters that follow. In order to avoid 

confusion, it see:ms necessary to identify the:m here. All carried 

"E" designators followed by a nu:mber, as E-l and E-5. (There were 

!lA, II liB, II and other designators, but not in the photo satellite series.) 

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

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

pas s ed the pr eli:minary develop:ment stage. The appearance of Corona 

:made the:m functionally obsolete. E-4 was a :mapping ca:mera alternative to Argon, built but never flown, and :made obsolete with the 

develop:ment of a :mapping capability in stellar -indexing ca:meras first 

flown with Corona. E-5 was to be a surveillance syste:m and E-6 a 

search syste:m co:mple:menting Ga:mbit; both flew and both were technical 

failures, but in any case Ga:mbit and Corona successes :made the:m 

valueles s 0 

Ga:mbit was, of course, the only successful A:merican photoreconnaissance satellite develop:ment of the 1960s other than Corona 0 

The develop:ment of the P-35 weather reconnaissance satellite is 

described in Volu:me II. It had what could be technically described 

as photo-reconnaissance capability, but only in jest. So with NASAls 

weather satellites, chiefly Tiros. 

Refer enc es to other reconnais sance progra:ms are self-explanatory. 

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Structure and Setting 

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, II 

though occasionally classified as to design detail and operating capability. 

The reconnais sance 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 disguis ed, however, and for the most part were, for more than 

,', '.-

a decade. Recovery operations received occasional and unwanted 

B YEMAN security procedures were developed as one of the offshoots 

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

were entirely adequate. 

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attention, but once U. S. satellite launches had becoITle c oITlITlonplace 

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

Occasionally, of course, there were eITlbarrassing trespasses 

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

ExaITliner , in cOITlITlenting on son~e testiITlony before a Senate cOITlITlittee 

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

that "aITlazing intelligence work. by the caITleras of the Discoverer 

satellite 0 •• " had not overCOITle the need for ITlanned systeITls. Not 

quite a year later the London Daily Mirror credited Discoverer with 

having "recently" brought back reconnaissance photographs of Russia. 

But these were speculative iteITls. Perhaps the ITlost disturbing of 

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

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

Alsop, who characterized hiITlsel£ as Richard Bissell's "oldest friend, II 

briefly sUITlITlarized ITluch of the early history of Corona, ITlentioning 

Major General O. J. Ritland's involveITlent and identifying August 1960 

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

:::' that no Soviet intercontinental ITlis siles were yet eITlplaced. He 

As detailed in Chapter I, Bis s ell and Ritland were indeed respons ible 

for ITluch of the prograITl's succes s, 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 

Mis sile Center (of the Air Res ear ch and Development Command) or its 

organizational descendents. The CIA role was initially confined "almost 

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

4: 

security factors 0 II 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 caus ed friction between the CIA and the Director of the 

National Reconnais sance 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 Los Angeles. 

", -,-

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

discuss ed els ewhere 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 proces s. Lanyard was managed by a program 

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

operating arm of the National Reconnais sance Office. 

Contractual arrangements were as varied, and frequentl y 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 us ed in 

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

CIA originally expe cted Fairchild Camera to design and produce the 

£ camera, but Bis sell'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 as sociate contractor). Fairchild participation 

1argel y vanished with the 1960 decision to adopt the Itek-designed ~ 

camera rather than the C" version Fair child favored. Lockheed 

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 

forrnal arrangement became a tightly structured contractual relationship. Lockheed performed system engineering and technical directi0n 

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 Dir ector 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 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 ON SOURCES 

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

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

KH-4A Camera Systems, II Mar 67; NPIC/TP-17/63, " ... KH-4A ... 11 

1 June 63. 

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

Argon, Corona, Galnbit, 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 Systeln; 

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

The records on Corona Inanagement 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. 

Worthlnan, 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 ADIC 0339, CIA to LtCol C. L. Battle, Corona ofc, 

29 Apr 61; msg ADIC 5208, CIA to MGen R. E. Greer, Dir /SP, 

16 Aug 62; msg 0323, LMSD to BMD, 6 May 60; msg 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, II prep by NRO staff, 22 Nov 61, all in SAFSP 

and NRO files. See also, 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. 

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

rnsg ADIC 9765, 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 forITlally suggested to 

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

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

eITlerged frOITl the resulting discussions--the ArITly 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 ITloney was available for such an undertaking, 

nothing ITlore ventures OITle than a continuing study prograITl was 

iITlITlediatelyauthorized. However, at the urging of Wright Field's 

Engineering Division, which was concerned by the possibility that the 

Navy ITlight actually construct and launch a sITlall satellite, the Air 

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

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

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

the Douglas Aircraft Corporation, 

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By early 1951, RAND was sponsorlng 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 Commis sion- -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 

Reconnais sance Systern- - Weapon System ll7L." 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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reconnalssance vehicle" as a matter of "vital strategic interest to 

the United States. II 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 mis sile development. The 

close relationship between the satellite and its prospective booster, 

the Atlas mis sile, chiefly prompted the decision. 

The first complete development plan for a reconnalS sance 

satellite, proposing full operational capability by the third quarter 

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

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

of facilities, development cost was estimated at $114.7 million. The 

first year of system work, fiscal 1957, would require $39.1 million. 

Over the preceding 10 years, $9.2 million 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 pas sing, but the initial funds allocation for 

fiscal 1957, when it appeared, totaled only $3 ~illion. 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 ll7L. 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 

caus ed 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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mernbers 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 ales s 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 

4 conducted at about one -tenth the planned rate. 

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

increasing the pace of the program 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 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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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 ll7L be 

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

It brought no relieL 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 llpeaceful" 

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 11m inimum 

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

The obstacles that Schriever faced were two: Quarles I 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 

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

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commitment to eliminate "non-critical" defense expenditures. The 

technology to be embodied in the ll7L 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 ll7L 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 

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conduct an exhaustive study of the basic problem. 

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 participation 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 

arnve 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 "Baruch 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 

reconnais sance overflights by orbiting vehicle s • 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 re sponsible 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 reconnais sance 

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 ll7L technology. 

Rus sia I s obvious mistrust of the original Eis enhower inspection 

proposal convinced Leghorn that negotiating a mutually acceptable 

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I inspection agreement with the Soviets would be "virtua11 y impos sible. " 

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

I thus would lead to an operationally eligible reconnaissance satellite 

I~ 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 

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

I commander of the Western Development Division. 

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

or openly conducted under the sponsorship of some international 

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

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

seldom acknowledged, instrument of peacetime military activity. 

I Literally hundreds of instances had been recorded starting with French 

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

Aircraft violations of international boundaries were among the most 

I frequent caus es of ambas sadorial protests and apologies during the 

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

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

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The near impos sibility that the United States could ever mount 

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 

surpris ing 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 

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 contemporary 

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defense departITlent opinion that it was only theoretically feasible 

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

Leghorn's endorseITlent of satellite reconnais sance was based 

on the thesis that an orbiting caITlera would be ITlore difficult to disable 

than caITleras carried in balloons and aircraft. He suggested also 

that an unpublicized series of successful satellite reconnaissance 

flights ITlight reasonably be followed by a discreet diploITlatic approach 

to the Soviet Union, the presentation of copies of the reconnais sance 

"take, 11 and a private agreeITlent that the Soviets were free to reap 

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

Although Leghorn's ideas were well known to both Schriever 

and his WS ll7L chief, ColonelOder, they were of little ITlore than 

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

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

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

>:' defense departITlent hostility to "space research" drove Schriever 

During the iITlITlediate pre-Sputnik ITlonths of 1957, a considerable 

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

Stubborn project officers and staff planners carefully constructed 

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and 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 

reconnais sance, 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 ll7L 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, Lieutenant Colonel T. Walkowicz, 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 adequately8 funded satellite program. 

"high altitude researchll carnou£lage around all that could be preserved. 

The alternative, precisely defined by defense departrnent statements 

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

reprogramming 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 I 

made yet another effort to secure needed funds through established 

channels. The first annual revision of the WS ll7L development plan I 

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

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

probably be funded at a level well below that considered acceptable I 

by program managers. Dis cus sions of money and of pos sible schedule I 

adjustments marked May and early June. The existent development 

I plan then called for initial launches during 1960 and full operational 

status five years later, but that schedule was totally dependent On I 

£i nding money to support accelerated development during fiscal 1958. 

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

Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities to re-justify I 

the status of the satellite reconnaissance program, the critical need I 

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

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

Force conduct of the program. Shortly thereafter, the increasingly I 

grave financial crisis obliged the project office to submit a revised 

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

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 pos sible 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 fiscal1958, 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. II * 

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 1l7L program, overt establishment of a "heavyweight" Air Force 

scientific satellite project as a follow-on to the mar gina1 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 117 L 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 rneeting 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 Storyll concept. 

Concurrently, Leghorn secured an expression of interest frorn Dr. 

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

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

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

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

as signment 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 Iispace 

for peace II motif, would perrnit the eventual accumulation of significantly more scientific data than Vanguard could collect, would dernonstrate 

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

permit the collection of highly useful intelligence information. lO It 

5 eerned to have some attraction for everybody concerned. 

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

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

WS ll7L expenditures ceiling were repetitiously uns ucc essful. Early 

in September, General Putt secured permis sion 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" o££ered perhaps the 

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

WS ll7L effort into a scientific satellite program. General Schriever 

tentativel y approved an action schedule which called for General Putt 

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

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before 1 September. As suming unimpeded flow of the subs equent 

actions, the covert CIA program would corne into being several 

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

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"replaced" the WS ll7L. 

The arguments supporting such a cour se were impres sive--

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

feasibility of a r econnais sance 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 reconnais sance 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 mis sHe progr am could succes sfull y 

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 

CIA records are largely silent on these matters. They were mostly 

handled by personal contact among Bis sell, Land, Schriever, and 

Oder. 

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follow the Vanguard. Initially, extremely tight security over reconnaissance components would be maintained. If at some later date 

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

reconnaissance components could be surfaced as newly devised 

"improvements II 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 117 L and substitution of either clandestine or 

a "very secure" Air Force reconnais sance satellite program.

12 

The schedule Colonel Oder had proposed early in August 

proved impos sible 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 0 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 

13 with Bis sell and his as sociates in the Central Intelligence Agency. 

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 forrnal IT1eeting with State and CIA for late 

SepteIT1ber, by which tiIT1e he planned to have the "Second Story" 

proposal in a forIT1 suitable for line-of-coIT1IT1and subIT1ission. 

While in the Pentagon on 10 SepteIT1ber, General Schriever 

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

Air Research and DevelopIT1ent COIT1IT1and chief, recoIT1IT1ending 

conversion of WS ll7L to a scientific satellite. Colonel Oder personall y took it to General Anderson that afternoon, seizing the 

opportunity of its delivery to brief hiIT1 on the background of the 

proposal and its real purpose. Unfortunately for the schedule earlier 

IT1apped out, General Anderson instructed his headquarters staff to 

prepare and coordinate an endorseIT1ent to Air Force headquarters. 

For several days the ARDC group debated the IT1erits of various 

respons es and then produced an unenthusiastic COIT1IT1ent letter which, 

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

than no re spons e at all. Consequently, the "forIT1al " proposal 

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

staff proved both late and ineffective. 14 

The possibility that the Anderson "endorseIT1ent" was cOIT1posed by 

offic ers who were unaware of its actual IT1otivation cannot be disIT1issed, but neither can it be satisfactorily explained. It is far 

IT10re likely that Ander son I s staff acted out of native dislike for a 

s cheIT1e that would have reIT10ved yet another IT1ajor prograIT1 froIT1 

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

IT1issile 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 progres s toward Schriever's 

goal. Ear 1 y that month, he had learned of a Department of Defens e 

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

the original Vanguard program and had later rejected Army and Air 

F,orce 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 

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

General Schriever also learned that "an influential DoD consultant" 

was preparing a memorandu m for W. M. Ho1ada y, the Defense DepartmentIs Director of Guided Missiles, calling for establishment of a 

national policy on space exploration and unfavorably analyzing the 

feasibility of a WS ll7L scientific satellite. Arguments against the 

"scientific ll7L" 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 sUITHnarily 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. II 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 ll7L satellite 

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

16 

steps could be taken before 1 November. 

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 ll7L program. Defens e Secretary C. E. 

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

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I office and his replacement, Neil McElroy, was expected to approve 

I a substantial program expansion. Essential funds, long delayed by 

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

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

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

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

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

desperately to overcome secretarial inertia, secured permission 

I from Douglas to present the issue directly to McElroy for resolution 

I and simultaneously urged General Anderson to submit a plan for an 

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

I f o " " 117 f d" 17 securing appropriate WS L un lng. At the same time, General 

I White, disregarding command channels in the interest of speed, 

instructed BMD to propose a new ballistic missile and space program 

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

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

possible in terms of technical and operational capabilities. ,,18 

I The optimism of the Air Staff and of General White proved 

I justified. On 29 October, after Putt briefed him on the WS 117 L 

program, Defense Secretary McElroy reversed the Quarles decision 

I 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 maxirnum rate consistent with good management. ,,19 

For the rnoment, "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 ?putnik 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 adrninistration 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 

neces sary 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 corne of an investment in satellite 

20 development, 

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Even though WS ll7L had finally been approved and funded, 

apparent that much remained to be done before the United 

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acquired a satellite reconnaissance capability. 

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NOTES ON SOURCES 

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

SSD, Oct 1962. 

2. 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 Per ry, Origins ... , and USAF Space Progr ams 

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

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

USAF, Dec 62. 

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

7 Nov 55; Dev Plan, WS ll7L. 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 I; memo, MajGen J. E. Smart, As st 

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

4. 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 

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

Visual and Ferret Systems, 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. 

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

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

ltr, LtGen D. L. Putt, DCS/D USAF, to Cmdr ARDC, 6 Mar 57, 

no subj; memo for record, Maj F.K. Dillon, DCS/D staff, 16 Jan 

57, subj: Visit to Western Development 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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6. Interview, F.C.E. Oder (Col, USAF, Ret), 15 Mar 63, by 

R.Lo Perry. 

7. 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, II it is preserved in a special file maintained by SAFSP. The copy was given to Col F. C. E. Oder, then 

Dir/Proj WS ll7L, 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 "UoS. Can 

Photograph Russia From the Air Now, II 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, 

particularl y Jul y-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. 

8. 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 ll7L 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. 

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

F. C. E. Oder, Dir / WS ll7L Prog, to MajGen B. A. Schriever, 

Cmdr WDD, [1 Aug 57J, no subj, in Oder papers; WS ll7L Dev 

Plan, 16 July 57; ltr, Col H.F. Boone, D/Asst for GM, ARDC, to 

DCS / D USAF, 13 Jul 57, subj: Program Planning Guidance for 

WS 1l7L, 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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10. 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, [1 Aug 57J; 

Oder interview, 15 Mar 63. 

11. 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. 

12. Corona Chronology; memo, Oder to Schriever and atchs, 

[l Aug 57]0 

13. 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 file s. 

14. 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. 

15. Ltr, Col A. B. Gibbs, USAF Liaison Officer, NRL Vanguard 

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

no subj~ Ford files; Corona tape. 

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

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

Cmdr ARDC, 17 Oct 57, no subj. 

18. TWX, AFCGM-5l210, Cis USAF to AFBMD, 8 Oct 57; Corona 

Chronology. 

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

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

Cis USAF Policy Book, 7 Feb 58,both in USAF Hist Div files. 

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20. 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. 

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

been smnmarized in CIA Intelligence Journal, July 1973. 

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II CORONA- -PHASE I 

Trailing after Sputnik I and Sputnik II caITle a succession of 

proposals for accelerating the WS ll7L prograITl and for "regaining" 

the "pre -eITlinence" of the United States in space. Perhaps becaus e 

the disaster-haunted Vanguard prograITl absorbed public attention 

alITlost to the exclusion of concern for ITlilitary prograITls, Congressional inquiries into the AITlerican space effort did not focus on WS ll7L. 

AtteITlpts to fix responsibility for the "space gap" becaITle so entangled 

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

Defense DepartITlent in creating new cOITlITlittees, czars, councils, 

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

ITleaningle s s. 

While the Navy was desperately atteITlpting to overCOITle the 

effects of three years of pennypinching in Vanguard and the ArITly 

vainl y sought perITlis sion to orbit satellites earlier built in violation 

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

froITl several quarters that the Thor interITlediate range ballistic 

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

boost a satellite into orbit. 

The earliest forITlal proposal of that sort eITlerged in the report 

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

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is suance of the Quarle s I "go slow" directive, Lieutenant General 

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

an ad hoc group to consider pos sible 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 2.00-300 pound satellites at an early 

1 

date, 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 ll7L 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 

pres entations to the Council, that a combination of Thor with a 

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

device in a ISO-mile orbit. 2. 

Concurrent with the Horner recommendation, Rand circulated 

the first written discussion of its proposal for an interirn reconnaissance system based on a cornbination 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 

m.emorandum. 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 

interirn 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 financial support for the satellite prograrll or by misgivings about 

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

ballistic mis sile 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 t? analyze the technical 

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

in some detail through the sumn~er of 1957; the revised version of Rand's 

12 November study eventuall y suggested a complete family of recoverable 

3 

satellites. 

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

Air Research and Development Comrlland (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 subs ystem, 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 likenes s to General Electric ballistic 

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

the recovered elernents would remain afloat encased in a foam rubber 

ball. 

Although the General Electric scheme was further elaborated 

ln 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 brochure. A high General Electric 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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BMD group was by mid-November rather firmly committed to its 

4 

own approach. 

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 

5 comprehensive development plan. 

One aspect of the Lockheed proposal 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 reconnais sance aircraft system to early completion. Lockheed 

had also called attention to its relatively recent experience in the 

development of a covert reconnais sance vehicle. Brigadier General 

O. 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. Bis sell and other officials of the Central Intelligence Agency 

who were most concerned in reconnais sance overflight operations. 

(Ritland had managed U -2 development under Bis sell'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 cons ide red 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 117 L 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 

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

stage acquired the more lasting name "Agena. II 

Concurrently, on the strength of detailed instructions from 

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

revised "Second Story'l cover plan based on staging an "open" ThorHustler scientific satellite program to cloak reconnaissance overflights. 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. Bis sell's agreement, and 

acceptance by the Central Intelligence Agency of the covert program 

6 

approach, closed the loop. 

Oder's modified I'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 cornbination. 

Th e BMD-Lockheed proposal of an !lop en" 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 meas ure s had been taken to put it into effect. 

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

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

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

It had the highly enthusiastic support of several of the m.ost brilliant 

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

obvious --rneans of accelerating the reconnais sance satellite program 

and therefore vigorously lobbied for its acceptance. 

7 

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

later both had been "approvedll 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 reconnais sance 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 norn~al 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, fI 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, managen~ent, 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 Progra.m IIA 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 Eis enhower directed that 

satellite, ballistic mis sile, and ballistic mis sile defense programs 

be mutually accorded the "highest national priority. II 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 

Ilfirst step 11 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 arrangernents, 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 ll7L upper stage to 

test airframe components and to conduct a recoverable capsule 

biomedical program. (The melnorandUln had actually been written 

10 

by B is sell, Ritland,and Sheppard. ) 

On the basis of such advance inforrnation, 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 

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

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 ll7L 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 117 L directive that Bis sell, Ritland, and Sheppard had written. 

The paper disapproved development of the propos ed interim WS 117 L 

recoverable system (Program IIA), but authorized the Air Forc e to 

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

for engineering tests and for biomedical experiments in support of 

12 

manned space flight objectives. 

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 0 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 IIA. Additionally, 

Air Force headquarters in early March advised BMD that the 

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Thor-boosted "reconnaissance test vehicle" approach had be~n 

endorsed by the Department of Defense and that formal development 

plans for an operation called "Nightshift"- - the pr oposed nickname 

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

early submission to the Air Force Ballistic Missile Committee. 

The "Nightshiftll 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 permis sion for launching something developed 

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

a "scientific ll satellite carrying odds and ends of instrumentation 

13 

seemed of little consequence. 

Once circulated, the Johnson directive had the effect desired 

by General Schriever; it made IIPrograrn lIA11 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 "interiln satellite reconnaissance'l based on 

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

taken aback. Innocent of knowledge that the "cancellationl! was but 

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

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covert prograITl, and convinced by logic that "PrograITl IIA" was the 

ITlost sensible approach to an early reconnaissance satellite, they 

were appalled by Johnson's ruling and by the unprotesting acquiesc ence 

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 ITluch as 18 n10nths later were they sure of the rationale. 

14 

For the ITloITlent, they had no outlet for their distres s. 

Schriever and Oder were ITleeting with Central Intelligence 

Agency and Lockheed representatives on the afternoon of 2.8 February 

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

cOITlpleted arrangeITlents to inforITl General Electric and Fairchild of 

what was afoot and reviewed the preliITlinary BMD analysis of proposals 

for caITlera and vehicle subsysteITls earlier subITlitted under "PrograITl 

IIA" auspices. Both the technical approach and the ITlanageITlent 

15 

pattern were gradually taking shape. 

Four distinct proposals for vehicle-reconnaissance systeITl 

developITlent had eITlerged froITl the PrograITl IIA considerations. 

Lockheed and Rand both favored spin stabilization eITlploying a 

Fairchild transverse panoraITlic caITlera with filITl drive synchronized 

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

ballistic -ITlis sile 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 res olution 

was possible. General Electric paralleled Lockheed in favoring data 

capsule recovery, while Itek supported the total-vehicle recovery 

:::::::>!< 

concept originated by Rand. 

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

Richard Leghorn, Professor Duncan McDonald (Boston University's 

Physics Research Laboratory), and A. W. Tyler (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 Res earch 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 

pers onnel, made Itek a very strong contender for new res earch and 

development contract awards, the c01upany having assimilated (in 

Colonel Oder's judgrnent) "some of the nation's best camera people. 11 

Itek personnel had directly participated in the development of the 

balloon reconnaissance cameras as well as in the U-2 caluera progralu. 

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, 

.. h 16 the former Boston University PhYS1CS Researc Laboratory. 

Before a final decision could be taken in technical matters, 

certain critici"'..l managelnent items required disposal. Most were 

satisfactorily arranged in a series of lneetings 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. Bis sell, as the responsible official in the intelligence 

agency, was obviously in need of a "ver y knowledgeable WS ll7L man" 

to as sist 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 

dela y 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 UA on the 

17 strength of informal agreement only. 

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 als 0 agreed that Bissell's interest in WS ll7L 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 Bis sell), 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 

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Corona. Going further, the group recoITunended that Itek and Lockheed, with as sistance 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 

was proposing a 24-inch camera with theoretical resolution on the 

order of 15 feet, while Fairchild was urging a camera with 60- to 

lOa-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 m.eeting 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 wasil. worth a lim.ited effort. ,,18 But Oder, one of the 

original proponents of the Itek approach, was not inclined to press 

the issue unduly. There was general agreem.ent 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 ll7L 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 ll7L, 

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 Biss ell's 

16 April proposal, were far more complex than mos t of those who 

19 

reviewed and approved the decision ever realized. 

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 J. R. Killian then presented the matter to President Eisenhower 

pers onall y 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 I 

program could not be expected to continue indefinitely, and that 

the Soviet Union would not countenance an "open" reconnaissance 

I 

satellite operation. A covert operation concealed under a cloak of I 

scientific research would permit the United States to deny the I 

actuality with sufficient plausibility to satisfy sensitive neutrals 

and timid allies. At worst, clandestine reconnaissance would be I 

feasible until the WS ll7L system began initial flight trials, and by I 

that time it might be possible to confront the Soviets with a fait 

accompli, thus nullifying political action to prevent WS 117L operations. 20 I 

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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 Mis sile Systems Divis ion (under 

contract to both the intelligence agency and BMD) served as techical 

director of all equipment but the camera, caps ule, 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 SOITle 

expectation of validity. The principal tasks connected with this 

aspect of the Corona prograITl were cOITlpleted by 9 May, with 

Lockheed's issuance of SUITlITlary work stateITlents to both General 

Electric and Itek. (Itek proITlptl y subcontracted with Fairchild for 

the ITlanufacture of the caITlera itself. }21 

Another critical requireITlent, the provision of working space 

where Lockheed personnel could actually asseITlble the "black" hardware into operationally ready satellite vehicles, was also satisfied 

between April and July. The agreed operational procedure--ostensible 

engineering flights followed by IbioITledical" flights followed by 

"advanced engineering tests"--afforded a legal and plausible requireITlent 

for tight security, particularly in stabilization technology. Much of the 

cost, ITloreover, could be concealed in such iteITls, and ITlany of the 

basic cOITlponents could be ITlanufactured and tested "openly." For 

the reITlainder, Lockheed decided to conduct operations in a leased 

Hiller Aircraft Corporation plant which was in close proxiITlity to the 

ITlain Lockheed facility. Lockheed explained to Hiller that the work 

to be carried on in the Hiller buildings was cOITlpany proprietary and 

thus was not to be disclosed to anyone--including other sections of 

Lockheed. SOITle Hiller people were hired, but ITlost of the population 

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of what carne to be known as the IISkunk 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 inquiries. There was no real need for 

elaborate deceit, chiefly because no one would expect Lockheed to 

be doing work in the Hiller plant, and no connection linked Hiller 

with any space projects. 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 Lockheed personnel to be associated with reconnais sance programs made only the most circumspect visits to the 

"Skunk Works. II Even the wive s 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 

22 in but a single, segmented phase of the vehicle assembly process. 

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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. II Responsibility for these devices was 

assigned to a special department with the explanation that II 

the existing shortages of space at the Palo Alto plant and ..• the 

sensitive nature of the experiments II made it necessary to expand 

into new facilities. llInstrumentation development'1 and the assembly 

and checkout of nose cones and payloads would be concentrated in the 

"additional facilities. 11 Lockheed officials cautioned that extreme 

project secrecy was essential to prevent an anti-vivisectionist outcry 

over the scheduled biomedical experiments. Fully cognizant project 

pers onnel also understood that the phrase "recording devices 11 could 

be used to explain the presence of camera equipment in a l'biomedical 

caps ule 11 if an explanation became neces sary. 

A special cryptographic teletypewriter network linked BMD 

to the Lockheed l1Skunk Works 11 and those facilities to CIA IS Washington 

headquarters. 

'-----_____ ---"1 CIA security specialists constructed a special briefing 

form to be signed by all military and contractor personnel exposed to 

program details. 

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Permission to brief additional personnel on Corona 

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was 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. Greer"who 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 lO-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 forcibl y fend off thos e 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 land 2 for engineering tests, and 

flights 5, 7, and 9 for "advanced engineering tests. II Actually, 

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cameras were to be carried in all of the lladvanced engineering ll 

satellites and some of the llbiornedical l' test vehicles. Both Air 

Force and Lockheed personnel appreciated that new problems 

might arise when it becarne apparent that all of the llbiomedical 11 

11 . b' d' 1 . 24 flights were not actua y returnlng lome lca speClmens. 

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 

llopen" Dis coverer 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 neces sary 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 es sentially 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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instance, Colonel Sheppard':' immediately contacted Bis sell with a 

request that the CIA official take action !fat the highest pos sible 

levelll to insure that the suggestion was withdrawn before it could 

become a matter of debate. Apparently the maneuver was effective, 

l5 

for no more was heard of that particular gem. 

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 reconnais sance 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 

26 

in the [Corona ]program. II The affair had its useful aspect, however, 

since it was inconceivable that one so highly placed could be unaware 

of actual reconnais sance 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 Itexperimental and 

biomedical" satellite vehicle kept tlinsisting that the overt part of the 

system be designed rationally to support the overt missions." In this 

On 8 April, General Schriever made Sheppard the Air Force Corona 

chief. Oder, as sociated with the WS 117L reconnais sance program, 

had to be removed from direct participation because of the danger that 

his association with reconnaissance would weaken the Coron_<:. 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 undes irable to air-condition a specimen chamber when 

the truthful reason was that the chamber in question must covertly be 

27 

made light tight. 

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, 

as sembling capable personnel, and locating equipment was much les s 

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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I the balloon reconnaissance operation that ended in February 1956. 

I Colonel Paul Worthman, who later became the Air Force director 

for Corona, had been instrumental in devising the ll9L capsule 

I recovery proces s and with others who had experience in that operaI tion was able to as sist in reactivation of the flight organization. The 

equipment had gone into storage after the cessation of activity in 1956 

I and es s entiall y required no more than refurbishing to qualify it for 

I re-use. The difference between hooking and reeling in a package 

parachuted from a high-altitude balloon and performing a similar 

I operation for a package descending by parachute after reentry from 

I orbit was not enormous. 

In the case of Corona it would be most difficult to conceal 

I the fact of a capsule recovery, particularly if, as seemed probable, 

I several hundred people were involved in interlocked shore, sea, and 

air operations. Briefing such vast numbers on Corona seemed rather 

I impractical, so the air-sea recovery portion of Corona became an 

I overt element. The fact that some publicity on the more newsworthy 

aspects of such a recovery activity would provide additional cover for 

I Corona- -as suming that the " package II itself could be adequately proI tected- -was another attraction. 

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Through "normal" channels --though with a fair amount of 

unde r-the-table pre - elanning- - BMD secured the authority to operate 

a recovery squadron without hindrance from any other command. A 

contingent of C-1l9J 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 moved to Edwards Air Force Base to begin intensive 

training and practice. Both balloons and high-altitude aircraft were 

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, 

and a plan for returning a recovered capsule to "black" channels after 

its "white" recovery, were arranged relativel y earl y. The matter of 

who should operate the tracking stations, particularly that at Kaena 

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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later difficulty, but during the surrHner of 1958 nothing of the sort 

28 

was accurately foreseen. 

Of lTIore ilTIlTIediate concern was a serious controversy 

between Lockheed and General Electric which threatened the stability 

of progralTI lTIanagern ent. 29 The apparent difficulty was inability of 

the two to agree on a work statelTIent for General Electric, although 

the real problelTI was lTIore 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, lTIuch like that sublTIitted in 

the October-NovelTIber-January brochures, proved unacceptable 

because of design lTIisconceptions and the difficulty of lTIating the 

General Electric-proposed third stage to the Lockheed second stage. 

Although an Air Force-Central Intelligence Agency ruling on the final 

design presulTIably resolved the issue in May, again in June the two 

custolTIers found their contractors at odds. To the Corona lTIanagers 

at BMD it appeared that they were jockeying for position, each 

cOlTIpany attelTIpting to insure a favorable position for future progralTIs. 

In a sense, General Electric held that Lockheed wanted General 

Electric to deliver basic hardware which Lockheed would thereafter 

engineer, lTIodify and install; while Lockheed lTIaintained 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 

30 acceptable to both. 

Lockheed, General Electric, and Itek designed their systems 

and subs ystems basically in conformance with a philosoph y jointl y 

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 

des ign 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 rel ease of 

31 

engineering drawings on 23 October. By all indications, the technical program was proceeding at a reasonable pace and without unanticipated difficulty. 

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As m.uch could not be said for all the program managem.ent 

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 scheduled 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 troublesom.e. 

As ARPA had as sumed 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 Iiscientific" 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 ll7L 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 ll7L. ARPA1s tendency to redirect 

WS ll7L toward new objectives indirectly affected the immediate conduct 

of Corona its elf, but ARPA I S attempt to exercis e 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" £lights--

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 117 L program money. The Air 

Force-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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of the Soviet Union. In June, Colonel Sheppard had convinced Air 

Force Secretary Jam.es A. Douglas of the need to provide enough 

additional m.oney (through ARPA) to keep ahead of the "lead tim.e 

problenl" 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 procurem.ent authority as 

32 

Sheppard had urged. 

The 14-vehicle program. thus constructed accom.m.odated the 

12 scheduled Corona flights and two engineering Or biom.edical 

tests. It lasted only until 6 August, when BMD learned of ARPA 

instructions that the "Thor- WS 117 L" program. was to be expanded 

by 9 vehicles additional to the 10 officially authorized. (Biom.edica1 

payloads were specified in the ARPA directive, though with the 

proviso that "special payloads ••• to investigate and m.easure 

33 

certain suspected space phenom.ena" m.ight later be substituted.) 

The new addition essentially provided for seven real biom.edical 

payloads in addition to the 12 Corona packages. Its tim.ing and the 

fact that ARPA was then attem.pting to retain control of the "Man in 

Space" program. that subsequently went to NASA, indicated that ARPA 

intended to use the Thor- WS 117L program., if possible, as a counterweight to the announced NASA biom.edical program.. 

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By virtue of these and related changes, the total WS 117L 

program had ris en 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 ll7L 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. Another $11 million, not shown in the "open" 

-.- -'-

totals, was CIA money supporting "black" Corona procurements. 

In this maze of figures, which one participant flatly called 

"chaotic, II ARPA Director Johnson in August identified $65.5 million 

as "open" Corona money, concluding that an additional $13 million 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 $129 million, the bulk of the increase 

arising from the re-estimates by Lockheed and its subcontractors. 

The 18 April plan approved by the President had contemplated expenditures of $7 million for "blackll hardware and R&D, plus $24 million for 

Thor and Agena development and procurement. That $31 million total 

reflected an increase of $11 million over the first (9 April) cost estimates. 

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ARPA had questioned the validity of the cost increase, protested its size, and passed the ITlatter to the CIA. Bissell, in his 

turn, was startled into a violent protest. Citing the fact that the 

funding estiITlates of April, used in obtaining approval for Corona, 

had totaled $31 ITlillion, he told General Ritland that if McElroy, 

Dulles, and Killian had been aware of the prospective costs in April 

they would never have recoITlITlended the prograITl to Eisenhower. 

Displaying the effects of having just been scored by Killian, Bissell 

told Ritland that "Corona [is] siITlply not worth $129. 000, 000 [in] 

ARPA funds plus $11, 000, 000 [in] CIA funds. II Dulles, Killian, and 

McElroy were slated to discuss the entire affair with the President 

in the iITlITlediate future, he added, and it s eeITled probable that 

11 cOITlplete cancellation of Corona will be considered. II 

Bissell concluded that Corona was being charged for undefinable developITlent costs that actually belonged to the reITlainder of 

WS 117L, urged that the two prograITls be disengaged for funding 

purposes, and ITlade SOITle rather unflattering references to llrubbery 

accounting systeITls 11 and "juggling costs. 11 In a separate ITlessage to 

Colonel Sheppard later that day, Bissell--soITlewhat less eITlotional 

than had earlier been the case- -said sadly that "all of us concerned 

with Corona have sorne eITlbarrassing explaining to do. 11 

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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 ll7L program 

34 

as a major contribution to the national space effort. 

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 subse'1uent 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 !futility inter-

:mediate" without authority "to steer or affect CORONA. ,,35 But 

the basic suggestion earlier endorsed by Bissell, that it would be 

advisable to separate Corona fro:m the balance of WS 117L, continued 

to receive attention. 

ARPA had taken a preli:minary step in this direction early in 

Septe:mber. All reaction was not favorable. Colonel Oder, for 

instance, contended that progra:m seg:mentation would draw too :much 

attention to Corona, since the rationale for the Thor- WS 117L progra:m 

was partly based on "engineering testsll of WS 117L upper stages. 

Oder also e:mphasized that once the Thor-boosted vehicle was recognized as a separate "scientific" progra:m, scientists would co:me to 

expect the recovery of data which it would be quitei:mpossible to fake. 

A counter argurnent, 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 

fact that efforts to i:mprove the i:mage of the United States space 

"progra:m" had caused WS 117L to be openly identified with reconnaissance- -and even glorified in that role- -tended to color all aspects of 

the original progra:m. The na:me "Sentry" given the WS 117L progra:m 

b 1 58 " . . If 36 in Septe:m er 9 was co:mpro:mlsing In ltse . 

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Early in NoveITlber, 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 cOITlpletely separated froITl the balance of the "Sentry'l 

prograITl and covered by a scientific satellite ITlission assignITlent. 

A1ITlost concurrently, a special scientific cOITlITlittee exaITlining the 

status of the entire reconnaissance prograITl encountered again the 

probleITl of ARPA interference. Dr. Edwin Land ITlade it clear to 

R. W. Johnson and I I of ARPA that Corona was considered 

"an operating prograITl to achieve a liITlited objective" and was not to 

be "subjected to or perturbed by R&D tinkering; and that the actions 

of all ITlust be priITlarily governed by security since exposure of the 

prograITl ITlust be a voided at all costs. " 

There was slight indication that the ARPA officials were 

iITlpressed. They proITlptly proposed the deletion of three of the 

scheduled bioITledical shots and the addition of a "Super-Coronal! 

satellite, essentially an Atlas-boosted Corona with an "iITlproved" 

recoverable payload. In other channels ARPA people also suggested 

that Corona be reoriented toward an electronic readout systeITl rather 

than a recovery payload systeITl. (Electrostatic tape systeITls were 

great favorites with ARPA that fall; the basic WS ll7L prograITl 

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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 ll7L 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. )3 9 

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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 proposed Thor-boosted shots and reducing the approved total from 19 

to 15 shots 0 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: 

II 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 II 

40 

would have to fund the program. 

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 

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would have to find the money for the rernainder. The fact that no 

ARPA money would be available for Corona after fiscal 1960, and 

that the Air Force presumably would have to carryon the program 

from its own resources, prompted thought for a com.pletely new 

program approach based on the transition of Corona to an "open!1 

but highly classified Air Force program managed under the WS 117L 

aegis. Toward this end, there was renewed discussion of separating 

41 the Thor-boosted satellite program from. Sentry. 

A succession of m.eetings in Washington took up the several 

critical issues arising frorn the latest ARPA actions. Late on the 

afternoon of 4 Decem.ber, Air Force Undersecretary Marvin A. 

MacIntyre wrote a rnemorandum to him.self, 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 "Discovere r, II to include If a number of systems 

and techniques which will be employed in the operation of space 

. 1 42 vehlc es. II 

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 

43 

eight Corona launches. 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 

44 

ARPA had just succeeded in stealing an Air Force satellite program. 

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 De cember 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. !I 

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 

reconnais sanCe implications. Finally, it would be es sential to obs cure 

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 I!a logical sequence 

of technical effort and the production of a product having military 

application. II 

The proper approach appeared to be to release enough information to dis courage 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. 'I Military and 

contractor personnel at the launch site, in the recovery force, and 

in related :military and corporate organizations fell into the latter 

category. 

Inas:much as the Corona configuration and the Discoverer 

bio:medical configuration would be outwardly indistinguishable, there 

need be no great concern for unauthorized obs ervation and no real 

need for 'I'closed" launchings. Press releases, by e:mphasizing 

hardwa.re tests rather than scientific probes, would help to prevent 

inter ference fro:m "the vast nu:mber of scientists who clai:m 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 fro:m the true purpose of Corona by 

filing pers onal requests for data on electronic counter:measures, 

ablation, vehicle :maneuverability, reentry control and guidance 

studies, :magnetic effects data, and infrared sensors, thus pro:mpting 

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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I United States, that recovery wa::l the only means of providing visual 

I inspection of equipment returned from orbit, that it provided the 

most accurate data records, and that it enabled the re-use of costly 

I equipment. Polar orbits (which were somewhat illogical in the light 

I 

of the facilities available for equatorial orbit tests) were to be explained in terms of range safety requirements and the pos sible 

I exercis e of the mis sile warning net. Thus the explanation that 

I Vandenberg Air Force Base was so located that only a polar launch 

was pos sible, that Air Force research vehicles had to be launched 

I from Vandenberg because of limited facilities at Cape Canaveral, 

I and the fact that the vehicle pas sed over the Soviet Union was incidental. The relatively low and scientific all y undesirable orbit could 

I be explained on the basis of limited United States ability and relatively 

I small boosters. 

Military and contractor personnel who became aware of the 

I pres ence of Corona cameras could be told either that they were 

I intended for astronomical observation and were not being publicized 

because of the possibility of misinterpretation or that they were used 

I as part of the stability tests, to provide a continuous record of the 

I 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 pos sibility that continuation of Corona 

might not be approved, the Discoverer office prepared a development 

plan providing for 20 open Discoverer-reconnais sance 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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Initiall y, Air Force Undersecretary MacIntyre 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 prob1eln. In the one instance, approval of 

Carrousel seelned to invite disclosure of the CIA role in 1959 Discoverer 

flights. On the other hand, attempting to bury a reconnais sance program 

through all of 1960 and 1961 when, in Sheppard's words, "we could 

obviously accomplish one, II 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 II for Carrousel and Sentry--although 

the customary scorn of a professional for an "amateur" perhaps 

explained much of the ilnplied 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 IIA had been "competing" with what became 

Corona. And it was handled ln 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 IIA, 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 reconnais sance 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 nece s sary "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 Dis coverers. Legally, 

under existing arrangements, funding had to corne 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, $20 million in "emergency funds" carne to hand, drawn 

from the President's reserve. Of the total, $2.4 million was diverted 

to the CIA to fund additional camera subsystems and $17.6 to ARPA to 

finance re-expansion of "Discoverer. II the Air Force scraped up an 

additional $10.4 million 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 IIA a year 

earlier, the entirely logical notion of using Discoverers to loft reconnais sance payloads had attracted a swanTI of eager devotees. Sheppard 

concocted the antidote. He sent to Bissell a message which could be 

transforrned 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 earl y 

in February, that the cost and risk of Carrousel were incornpatible 

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 2.5 flights lasting through 1960 and 

sufficient funds were available. 

On 2. 7 April, Air Force headquarters officially instructed 

BMD to undertake the l5-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 consistently marked by a high rate of program confusion. Although Corona 

schedules had since December provided for 20 flights, and thus for 

a total of 2.5 Discoverers, the official ARPA directives at various 

tirnes 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 

A ir 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 

ARPA 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 cOITlproITlised Corona 

security. 

46 

Thus continuation was feasible. 

A final installrTIent in the restoration of cOITlplete cover for 

Corona was an interchange of letters between L. E. Root, Lockheed 

vice president, and General Schriever. The ITlaneuver was planned 

in March as a ITleans of satisfying curiosity that ITlight have been 

aroused both in BMD and in Lockheed by the Carrousel proposal. 

The letters, classified Secret, handled through "norITlal" security 

channels and seen by any nUITlber of people at both sites, would in 

the norrnal course of events provide a "Secret" explanation for SOITle 

of the peculiar aspects of the Carrousel episode. 

Root's letter, dated 7 April, opened with a reference to 

"recent conversations 11 and the fact that the Sentry prograITl was 

relatively well known in industry as a readout effort. Root reITlarked 

that he had been approached by several concerns proposing recoverable photographic payloads for Discoverer capsules for the 1959-1960 

period, before Sentry becaITle available. What, he asked, should be 

Lockheed's position? 

By the tiITle the BMD reply was ready, General Ritland had 

replaced General Schriever as cOlTIITlander. 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 reasseSSITlent of the Discoverer 

reconnaissance potential, and had learned that it would take too long to 

get results through Discoverer reconnaissance. He explained that 

available caITleras were too heavy, that test schedules would not perITlit 

early introduction of photographic payloads, and that fl ••• the Discoverer •.. already has too ITlany cOITlplications of a sensitive nature 

without adding the probably unsolvable cOITlplication of a reconnaissance 

ITlission. II 

By all indications the letters served their intended purpose. 

(There was a last-ITlinute scraITlble to advise Dr. Land of Polaroid, 

who had been listed as head of a nonexistent lire-evaluation cOITlITlittee, fI 

that his naITle was being used as the authority for the iITlpracticality of 

Discoverer reconnaissance. Otherwise there were no iITlportant 

47 

cOITlplications. ) 

By ITlid-1959, then, Corona had been established, its technology 

applied to actual eq uipITlent, its cover perfected, and its tenure extended 

into the futur e. The next task was to pr ove out the actual s ysteITl 

through or bital 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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I The Flight Program 

I The first attempt to launch a Discoverer satellite, on 21 January 

1959, was aborted by the premature ignition of the accessory rockets on 

I the upper stage. The second stage vehicle was severely damaged and 

I the Thor so affected that it had to be withdrawn for major overhaul. 

Discoverer I--actually the second scheduled flight vehicle--left 

I the Vandenberg launch pad on 28 February 1959 and successfully estabI lished an orbit with an apogee of 605 miles and a perigee of 99 miles. 

Although somewhat more eccentric than planned, it represented success. 

I No capsule was carried and no recovery attempted. 

I Discoverer II was also reasonably successful in establishing 

orbit following its 13 April launch. Unhappily, a malfunction in the 

I satellite I s timer caused the capsule to be ejected hal£wa y around the 

I earth from the planned recovery zone. It descended near Spitzbergen. 

Although the Air Attache in Norway (aided by an eager BMD officer 

I who quickly flew into Oslo) made a thorough search of the probable 

I 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 

I of the more impressionistic program personnel concluded that the 

I 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 Hlight "surface" the Discoverer II 

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 Hous e quarter s. 

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. Concurrentl y, the Thor's fuel was altered. Later that Hlonth 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 "Lonesorne George, II 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 subs ystem, 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 

thos e 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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(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 pOVi.e 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 

permit additional engineering refinement of the Agena and the recovery 

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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 20 November, 

were as disappointing as their predecessors. Discoverers VII and 

VIII both experienced subsystem failures which prevented recovery 

of the capsule. And in neither instance did the camera system 

function properly. The Ballistic Mis siles Division again suspended 

52 

flight tests. 

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 c1imbout, 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 compromis e. 

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Although there was little reason for optimism at that point, 

BMD nonetheles s continued to insist that the program would eventually 

be successful. In January, the production and flight schedules had 

been expanded by four additional vehicle s 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 dis couraged 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 corne to anticipate a 

panic response to development problems that probably were inevitable, at 

54 least in a program so rushed as was Corona. 

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 per sonal 

a ttention 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 Agena 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 cours e probably would be to concentrate 

on recovery subsystem perfection and to accept any recovered film 

56 

as a program bonus rather than as an objective. 

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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) reconnais sance satellite, scheduled for September-October. There was 

a general feeling in the Air Staff that Corona was a llpoor manls" 

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. Additionall y, 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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I Because of such factors, the launch of Discoverer XIII on 

I 

10 August 1960 took on added importance. The second of the diagnostic 

flights programmed into Discoverer had become a hinge on which the 

I fate of the future program possibly depended. 

I Launch, orbit, capsule separation, and reentry were near 

perfect. Although confusion among the C-1l9's in the impact area 

I prevented aerial recovery, the capsule was retrieved fronl the water 

I 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 

I message across the cryptographic lines to Washington: "Capsule 

I recovered undanlaged. II It was both the shortest and the most inlportant 

of the thousands of communications over that network in the previous 

I 58 

two years. 

I Return of the capsule to the mainland and its ultimate disposition 

were supposed to conform to a pattern laid down 18 months earlier. The 

I plan called for capsule delivery to a courier from BMD, the courier IS 

I return to California by commercial airliner, and the surreptitious 

exchange of the container for a dummy shortly thereafter. The nominal 

I capsule container would go to Lockheed by a rather obvious route, 

I 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. 59 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 

neither camera nor film, being fully occupied by instrumentation 

and telemetry equipment es s ential to the diagnostic mis s ion 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 appar,entl y 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 predeces sor 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-1l9's were on hand 

to complete a smooth aerial recovery--the first in history. And, 

this time the capsule handling proces s 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, II 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 lIvery high quality, 11 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 1

, called flC-prime fI--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 

mile s ), gave 20 percent better res olution (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 

completel y altered the character of the national satellite reconnais sance 

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 

CIAls Bissell, whose intervention at White House levels was vital 

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 

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side, the deterITlination of the succes sive Corona prograITl directors, 

Colonels Sheppard and WorthITlan, kept the effort alive in the face of 

general degeneration of confidence at higher levels. And ITlore than 

any other individual, Lieutenant Colonel C. L. Battle, Discoverer 

P rograITl Director, kept engineering efforts on the right course and 

at the proper pace. 

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NOTES ON SOURCES 

1. Rpt of the Teller Ad Hoc Committee, 28 Oct 57, in USAF Hist 

Div files. 

2. Memo, R. Eo Horner, Asst SAF (R&D), to SOD, 12 Nov 57, 

subj: Outer Space Vehic:es, in USAF Hist Div files. 

3. Rand Rpt RM-20l2 (Adv Cy), An Early Reconnaissance Satellite 

System, 12 Nov 57, published iIi 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 ll7L, 

BMD, to R- W Corp, 14 Dec 56, subj: Recoverable Payload Package 

Study, in SSD Hist Div files: Agena. 

4. Brochure: "Pioneer Strategic Reconnaissance Satellite for ICBM 

and IRBM with Recoverable System, II 27 Nov 57, which cites and 

draws from "Strategic Reconnaissance for ICBM and IRBM Using 

Recoverable Satellite, II 29 Oct 57; brochure: "Pioneer Strategic 

Reconnaissance Satellite for ICBM and IRBM with Recoverable 

System, " 4 Jan 58; ltr, H. Wo Paige, GenMgr, GE Missiles and 

Spac e 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, II 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 becarne clear, the GE approach contained major defects, 

particularly in the complexity of the three-stage booster arrangement, the free-fall re-entry concept, the IIfloating 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; itr, 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. 

7. 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 ll7L. 

8, Memo, J. A. Douglas, SAF, to SOD, 1 Feb 58, subj: Reconnais sance 

Satellite, in SSD Hist Div files; Corona tape; Rpt, WS 117L Mgt Rpt 

No 8, prep by BMD, 23 Jan 58, in Ford files. 

9. 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. 

10, Memo, Col F. C. E. Oder, for Record, [27 Feb 58], subj: Record 

of Conference, in Oder papers; Corona tape. 

11. Memo, Oder for Record, [27 Feb 58J ; Corona chronology. 

12. Memo, R. W. Johnson, Dir/ARPA, to SAF, 28 Feb 58, subj: 

Reconnaissance Satellites and Manned Space Exploration; memo, 

Neil McElroy, SOD, to SAF, 24 Feb 58, subj: AF WS 117L Program 

Reconnais sance System, SSD Hist Div files. 

13. Memo, Oder for Record, 31 Jan 58; memo, Col F. C. E. Oder, 

Dir/WS ll7L 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 ll7L 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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15. Memo, Col F. C. E. Oder, for Record, 12 Mar 58, subj: Record 

of Conference, in Oder Papers; draft memo, prep by Maj E. J. 

Conway, BMD (WS 117L Dir), 27 Feb 58, subj: Recoverable 

Payload Proposals, in Ford files. 

16. Draft memo, prep by Conway, 27 Feb 58; Corona tape; Itr, R.S. 

Leghorn, Pres, Itek, to J. H. Carter, LMSD, 17 Feb 58, no subj, 

in Corona files. 

17. Memo, Col F. C. E. Oder, Dir /WS 117 L Prog, for Record, 

12 Mar 58, subj: Record of Conference; memo, Oder for Record, 

12 Mar 58, subj= Record of Conference, 12 Mar 58, both in Oder 

Papers; Corona tape; TWX, WDTR 3-l8-E, Cmdr ARDC to LMSD, 

12 Mar 58, in Schriever files. 

18. Corona tape; memo, Col F. Co E. Oder for Record, 25 Mar 58, 

subj: Report of Meeting, 15 Mar 58; memo, Oder for Record, 

25 Mar 58, subj: Report C;l~ 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. 

190 Memo, Col W. A. Sheppard, for the Record, 21 Apr 58, no subj, 

in Oder papers; memo, Oder to Schriever, 28 Mar 58. 

20. The fact that President Eisenhower personally approved Corona 

early in April in a meeting with Dulles, McElroy, and Killian is 

brought out in: msg 2956, R. M. Bissell (CIA) to BrigGen O. J 0 

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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23. Corona tape; ltr, F. W. OIGreen, TechDir, LMSD, to LMSD pers, 

51 Jul 58, subj: Advanced Engineering Tests, in Oder papers; memo, 

Col F.C.E. Oder, Dir/WS 117L Prog, for Record, 31 Jul 58, subj: 

Implementation Steps, in Oder papers. 

2.4. Corona tape; ltr, 0 'Greene to genl 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; msg (noted in action 

diary maintained by Col W. A. Sheppard, hereafter cited as 

Sheppard diary), 9 July 58, in Corona files. 

26. Sheppard diary, 12 Apr 58. 

27. Sheppard diary, 14 May 58. 

28. TWX AFOOP-OC-R53942, USAF to BMD, 10 Jul 58; memo, LtCol 

L. E. Vandeveer, BMD Ops Ofc, for Record, 21 Jui 58, Report of 

Meeting with TAC and ADC to establish a C-119 Squadron ..• ; ARDC 

GO 38, 22 Jul 58. In£orrnation 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. 

29. Sheppard diary, 26-30 May, 16-20 Jun 58. 

30. 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; rnemo, W.A. Sheppard, for Record, 

17 Jun 58, subj as above, noted that cy sent to CIA by MajGen B.A. 

Schriever, Cmdr BJ\1D, in Sheppard papers. 

31. Ltr, J. S. Carter, LMSD, to R. M. Bissell, CIA, 11 Nov 58, no 

subj, in Corona files. 

32. Corona tape; TWX AFCGM 52800, USAF to BMD, 2 Jul 58, Corona 

hist files. 

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33. TWX AFCGM 54161, USAF to BMD, 6 Aug 58, Corona hist files. 

34. 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 (Bis sell) 7 Oct 58; 

Corona chronology. 

35. Sheppard diary, 20-24 Oct 58. 

36. Memo, Ro W. Johnson, Dir/ARPA, to Cmdr BMD, 10 Sep 58, 

subj: Redefinition of WS 117L; memo, ColF.C.E. Oder, Dir/ 

WS 117L Prog, to Col W. A. Sheppard, 30 Sep 58, subj: Comments 

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; rnemo, 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. 

38. Ltr, R.S. Johnson, Dir/ARPA, to LtGenS.E. Anderson, Cmdr 

ARDC, 25 Nov 58. 

39. Corona tape. 

40. Memo Rpt, I I 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 ne twork. Only five BMD 

people saw the TOP SECRET version. Msg 0529, Col W.A. 

Sheppard, BMD, to CIA, 22 May 59. 

41. 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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42. Memo, R. W. Johnson, Dir/ARPA, to SAFUS, 4 Dec 58, subj: 

WS 117L Program, ARPA; Sheppard diary, 1-5 Dec 58. 

43, Memo, R. W. Johnson, Dir/ARPA, to SAFUS, 17 Dec 58, subj: 

Reorientation of SENTR Y Program, in Sheppard papers; Sheppard 

diary, 1-5 Dec 58. 

44. Sheppard Diary, 15-19 Dec 58. 

45. "Corona Cover Plan, " 8 Dec 58. 

46. 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 R. C. 

Wolson, DCS/D USAF, to MajGen J. Ferguson, et al (DCS/D), 

2 Feb 59, subj: AFBMD Presentation to Mr. MacIntyre; 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. 

47. Msg 0417, BSD (Col W.A. Sheppard) to CIA, 24 Mar 59; memo, 

Col W.A. Sheppard to Maj W. F. Weaver, 14 Apr 59, subj: RootSchriever, Schriever-Root Exchange of Letters; 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 depar'::ments); ltr, BrigGen 0 0 J 0 Ritland, Cmdr 

BMD, to L. E. Root, LAC, 6 May 59, no subj (multiple coordination within BMD). 

48. Msg 0612, Col H. L. Evans (BMD) to RoM. 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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I 49. Chart: Corona Summary (through Disc XXXVII), 15 Jan 62. 

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50. 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 

PoE. 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. 

Biss ell), 29 Sep 59, all in Corona corres files. 

51. Merna, Col F. Co Eo Oder, Asst D/ Cmdr Space Sys, BSD, to 

WS 117L Prog Ofc approx 5 Sep59, subj: LMSD Discoverer 

Recovery Report; Itr, R. Smelt, LMSD, to Cmdr BMD, 21 Sep 59, 

subj: Modifications Incorporated in Discoverer VII; merna, 

1vlaj F. S. Buzard, Disc Prog Ofc, for Record, 4 Sep 59, subj: 

Report on Meeting of 3 September; merna, Maj W. F. Weaver, Jr., 

Disc Prog Ofc, for Record, 10 Sep 59, subj: 8 Sep 59 Meeting. 

52. TWX, RDRRB 27-11-31-E, ARDC to USAF, 1 Dec 59, in USAF 

Hist Div files; Chart, Corona Summary, 15 Jan 62. 

53. Msg 1111, BMD (Col P. E. Worthman) to CIA, 19 Feb 60; Chart: 

Corona Summary, 15 Jan 62. 

54. BMD Dev Plan: Discoverer, 15 Jan 60; minutes of 45th AFBMC 

mtg, 10 Feb 60; ms g 1113, BMD (Col P. Eo Worthman) to CIA 

(John Sherman), 19 Feb 60; msgs 1150 and 1152, BMD (Worthman) 

to CIA (Sherman), 9 Mar 60; msg 8058 CIA (Sherman) to BMD 

(Worthman)' 7 1vlar 60, all msgs in Corona corres files. 

55. Ltr, Gen C. E, LeMay, VCS USAF, to Pres, LAC, 25 Apr 60, 

no subj, USAF Hist Div files; merna, LtCol R. J. Ford, Corona 

prog ofc, for Record, (2) May 60, subj: Program Review. 00 

1 May 60; Chart: Corona Summary, 15 Jan 62. 

56. Msg 1722, CIA (R .1vL Bis sell) to BMD (MajGe nO. J. Ritland, 

Cmdr), 1 Jul 60; Chart: Corona Summary, 15 Jan 62. 

57. 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. Msg 1352, BSD (Ford) to CIA, 12 Aug 60; Chart: Corona Summary, 

15 Jan 62. 

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59. Msg 7241, CIA to LAC, 27 Mar 59; msg 7551, CIA to BMD, 8 Apr 59. I 

60. Memos (3), Col P. E. Worthman, for Record, 12 Aug 60, subj: 

DISCOVERER Recovery Plan, in Corona corres file; msg 1362, 

BMD (Worthman) to CIA, 16 Aug 60; Itr, Col A. N. Moore, 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. 

6l. Msg 2804, CIA (R. Mo 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. 

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. II 

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 tirne. 

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 irnportance. 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 informa- I 

tion 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 feas ibility. Suspicion of 

intent and knowledge of capability might be enough, even without supporting 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 as sumptions of 

intent and postulations about capability. It is only reasonable to credit 

the Soviets with similar habits. 

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I only 53 ITlore. High res olution photographic systeITls were notoriI ously heavy. Soviet intelligence analysts could very reasonably 

have concluded that Discoverer was intended to test the feasibility 

I of various reconnaissance subsysteITls, perhaps even a liITlited capaI bility prototype caITlera, but they would not necessarily conclude that 

Discoverer was an operationally useful systeITl in its own right. 

I A second factor of SOITle iITlportance was developITlent style. 

I All the available evidence would suggest to the Soviets that the preferred, alITlost exclusive strategy for United States ITlilitary systeITls 

I developITlent was the ITlassive-resource approach applied to other 

I widely known prograITls--including SaITlos. The style of Corona developITlent was the cOITlplete antithesis of norITlal U. S. practice. It was 

I relatively cheap; liITlited resources and relatively few people were 

I involved in its developITlent, and notwithstanding its extreITlely clever 

design it was a rather conservative extension of the existing state of 

I the art. No other iITlportant AITlerican prograITl of the tiITle had those 

I attributes, and certainly no other ITlilitary space prograITl. (Knowledge 

of the alITlost pathetic Vanguard and Explorer prograITls of 1957-1960 

I could not but reinforce the assuITlption that ItsiITlple" AITlerican space 

I systeITls were likely to be uniITlpressive in perforITlance.) 

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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 optic al and 

camera industry at the end of World War II, the Rus sians nevertheles s 

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 Thor .. 

Agena 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 mis s ile s 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 respslDse 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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nature of "Discoverer, II they must have taken considerable comfort I 

from the thoroughly discouraging progress of the program during I its first 18 months. Of 15 attempts, only two missions proceeded 

more-or-less successfully from launch through capsule recovery. I 

And only one of the recovered capsules contained film; the other 

actuall y ~ an engine ering development satellite. 

I 

The first firing ended in a launch pad explosion and the I 

destruction of booster and vehicle. (No recovery capsule was part of 

either of the first two attempted missions; both were what they preI 

tended to be, experimental flights.) The second launch was successful. I 

It was therefore called "Discoverer I, II a semantic evasion that papered I 

over the initial launch failure so artfully that the unsuccessful operation 

was forgotten by virtually everybody. The operation called Discoverer II, I 

really the third in the series, included a recovery capsule but no camera 

or film- -which proved fortunate, becaus e 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 cas e, although 

The purported ability of mis s ion analysts to predict the impact points 

of reentry bodies that came down far from planned recovery zones was 

highl y regarded, notwithstanding a consistent lack of succ es s over 

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stealing it would have been a Soviet triurnph 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 

actuall y contained the ins trumentation devices represented to be its 

pa yload, a circumstance that was true for only three of the remaining 

flights in the first 15 Discoverer missions. 

In six of the ten rnission attempts that followed Discoverer II, 

the Agena spacecraft failed in one mode or another 0 The other four 

were marked by assorted malfunctions of film transport, orbiting 

vehicle, or reentry systern. 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 

aspe cts of the flight were rnarred 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 itenls. 

Toward the end of the 1960s and early in the 1970s, bits and pieces 

turned up thousands of nliles 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 assurnption 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 retneved from space--by 

anybody. 

One week after Discoverer XIII was ret overed and returned to 

Washington (to the aCt ompamment of enormous publicity that caused 

the carefully arranged cover plan to corne 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 mis sion 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 mis sion 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 process es. 

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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"Discoverer XVIII, 11 the thirteenth Corona, carried an improved 

camera system known as ~ (and, of course, called llC_Prime 11 in 

discussions). Both the original "Cll and the subsequent ~ had lenses 

with f/5. 0 maximum apertures and 24-inch focal lengths. C 1 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 .s; camera. The 

original ~ camera, flown on the first 12 Corona mis sions, 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 ~ (1IC-triple-prime 11 ) camera replaced it on the 29th Corona 

mission, in August 1961. Three additional flights with.s;' cameras 

followed, interspersed with three additional ~ systems. By February 

1962 the combination of two C 111 cameras in a single Corona-Mural 

system was ready for use and thereafter all Corona missions incorporated stereo capability. 

Between the appearance of S::' 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-l and E-2 readout 

systems would become available for operational use in 1961 and 1962; 

the E-2, in particular, prOlnised 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 re solution and area coverage capability than Corona, was 

progressing toward fllght and--nominally--toward a 1962 or 1963 

operational readlJicss date. In late 1960 both E-6 and Gambit entered 

development, and whlle neither was in any sense a Corona replacement, 

it was widely assumed that the combination of any of the high-resolution 

film recovery systems with one or both of the readout systems would 

almost surely make Corona redundant. 

Such reasoning was predicated on the plausible assumption that 

the various Samos calnera 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-l, the only 

Samos sytem certain to be available that year, had only about lOO-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 

he althy doubts about the validity of expectations for the se veral 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 I 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-6l or C" 

systems, on the assumption that one would be chosen and would carry 

that des ignation. 

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 cOluplex and 

too advanc ed to be reliable, while Lockheed judged (on much the same 

ground) that although neither Itek nor Fairchild had a full y 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 £ to ~ --about 15 percent. Such 

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, 

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 us ed 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 I camera systems 

be purchased against the danger that delivery of the new Itek system 

3 

might be delayed. 

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Earlier orders for long lead tillle itellls needed to proceed 

with the Fairchild ~ call1era were cancelled late in Septelllber 1960, 

and three additional ~ call1eras were ordered to protect launch 

schedules against slippages that lllight be caused by any delay in the 

Itek progralll. The prospective bill for developlllent of what was by 

then called e l " callle to $6.95 lllillion; the three "reserve" ~ call1eras 

cost about $250, 000 each. About $500,000 was retrieved frolll the 

cancelled ~ developlllent. Because previously progralllllled Agenas 

and Thors would serve all probable e ~ and ~ needs, no additional 

4 

vehicle costs were illllllediately incurred. 

As generally happened in such affairs, the original estilllate 

proved to be understated; by February 1961, Itek was estilllating an 

increase of about $300,000 in basic costs and had reduced the quantity 

to be delivered frolll 11 call1eras (including three test itellls) to eight (including two test articles)o eIA progralll lllonitors expected the eventual 

costs to be lllore nearly $5 lllillion for call1eras than the $3.5 lllillion 

5 

Itek had first estilllated. And in the end the eIA was nearly right. 

As delivered, the ~ call1era and its faster lens systelll 

effectively perforllled the illlprovelllent originally prolllised, though 

not with cOlllplete initial reliability. But the faster optics in cOlllbination with slower fillll and illlprovelllents in illlage lllotion cOlllpensaI tion schelllatics did have the effect of reducing illlage Slllear 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 materlals, and the elimination 

of skewed film rollers with the introduction uf aIr twists for turning 

the film as it moved from storage to take-up cassettes, vastly simplified the film transport operation. Nevertheless, ~ occupied the 

same space and used the same cassettes as C f. The combination of 

improved film, better equivalent shutter speeds, Inore effective image 

motion compensation, and larger maximum aperture improved ground 

6 

-,-

resolution to an average 2.0 to 2.5 feet'" (from about 35 feet for C 1). 

In the interval between the successful recovery of a Corona 

capsule on 10 December 1960 and the next following operational success, 

a wa ter pickup on 18 June 1961, four mis sion failure s of various origins 

and two "Discoverer" launches with other than Corona payloads had 

7 

occurred. 

Resolution figures used here are those generally cited for "ground 

resolution" of the com.plete systern. Under ideal conditions the C and 

~ cameras were capable of reproducing 100 to 130 lines per millimeter 

on the fihn, repres enting a 14- to 17 -foot lens -film res olution, and a 

system resolution of 19 to 22 feet. The C"I 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" mis sion 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 camera systems. 

Most program rec ords show 25 Dis coverer 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 1. 

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The successful recovery that ITlarked ITlISSlOn 1007 (18 June 1961) I 

signaled the start of a far better record. Counting that flight, seven 

succ essful capsule rec overies in 13 ITlis sions ITlarked the reITlaindcr of I 

1961 Q One of the failed missions car ried Argon equipITlent (that singu- I 

larly unfortunate systern thus experiencing its fourth successive failure 

in four atteITlpts), so Hl effect there were five Corona ITlission failures and I 

s~ven successes. Half of the caITlera payloads were in the..s:' con- I 

figuration and the reITlainder of..s: '" vintage, but three of the five failures 

I involved C I instruITlents. The Argon failure (2.1 July 1961) was caused 

by loss of guidance on the Thor booster, followed by a destruct signal. I 

All of the Corona rnission failures were chargeable to one or another 

of the Agena subsystellls. The culprits ranged frOITl guidance through I 

early gas exhaustion to ignition ITlal£unctioning. In three instances, I 

the Agena did not achieve orbit, and in a fourth an Agena power failure I 

precluded separation and recovery of the capsule. No probleITls attributable 

solely to the caITlera systeITl were experienced, and although none of I 

the successful rnisslons was untroubled by difficulty of one sort or I 

another, the returns were extreITlely goodon the whole. 

In all, ten..s: carneras, ten..s:' carneras, and six C'" caITleras were I 

involved in the 2. 6 rnonoscopic Corona rnission atteITlpts 0 Only one of 

the C ITlissions returned filrn, but seven of C 1 and four of the CIII rnissions 

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ended with retrieval. (The four Argon failures in four attempts have been 

sufficiently remarked.) Of the 39 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 

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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 dis cus sion 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 CI 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 III was 

the favored system, even though it had not yet flown in Corona, because 

the C Itl 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 Coronal 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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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-mis sion program would cost about $50 million, 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, II 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 "Dis coverer" 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 ~ cameras then available and 

using an available ~ camera to £1 y in place of one of the C 111 payloads. 

Theoretically, the I!Gen~ini" 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, II rather than 

"Gemini. II 

Charyk approved the start of work on SiX "stereo C I " " 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 ~ 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 ~ 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 than $1.4 million should be spent in what remaired of fiscal 

year 1961. That action proved premature; on 28 March the agency 

1 1 

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 agency1s 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 cour se the Charyk-Bis sell preference carried 

12 

the day. 

For the moment, Mural was compartInented 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 adequatel y advis ed 

on Mural matters, perhaps because of a prospective interference with 

plans to fly more Argon mis sions. Charyk and Bis sell 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 

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 carne 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 frarning camera is not and 

never has been considered as a substitute for the rnapping projects 

such as ARGON ... II (Much later, the incorporation of a considerably 

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better stellar-indexing carnera, DISIC, 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 rnapping 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 Arrny Mapping Service. 

The subsequent disappearance of Argon I s propos ed succes sor (called 

Vault/Tomas) and the cancellation of the E-4 (mapping camera) 

phase of Samos, even after four carneras actually had been procured 

and checked out, had the eventual effect of eliminating flights by 

dedicated llE.pping calDera systems, but that too was still in the future 

14 

in 19610 

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 fibn quality irnprovements. 

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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 readines s. 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 

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. 

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however; in a different guise, Itek's original proposal resurfaced a 

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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 dismis s 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 succes s in camera functioning and total failure 

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In recovery_ Notwithstanding that beginning, the National Reconnaissance I 

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 als 0 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 res olution 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 Ar gons in itiall y scheduled- -to the extreme distres s 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 succes sful 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 impres sions 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 enc ouraged the somewhat 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 as s embl y 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 mIS Slons 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 systenl 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 ab,mdance 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) occurnng from precisely the same cause as its 

predeces s or: 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 becaITle 

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 mlSSlon 

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 "area of the anomaly in the South Atlantic," LI ___________ _ 

The lessons of E-6 experience were chiefly responsible for the very 

different way in which GaITlbit development was thereafter conducted. 

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'--------------___________ ~f flight controllers called down 

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the capsule after 24 hours. -,. In other respects, and particularly in 

terms of quantities of highly useful photographs 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-~ payload with two recovery 

capsules, separately recovered, and capable of storage in orbit between 

two intervals of car-nera 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 augm.ented Thor --the booster originally created to provide 

a launch capability for the relatively heavy Lanyard. 

Prelirninary calculations had indicated that a I 

'-----~----~----~~ 

per day could be expected inside the recovery bucket. Rather surprisingly, analysis of the recovered film disclosed a maxim.um) ) 

I I at the take-up spools and 20 inside the bucket cover, 

apparently because of protection provided by the recovery parachute. 

One product of the experience was a I I payloads 

and to adopt a lower operating altitude for the mapping satellite. 

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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. It The success of selective and evolutionary 

inbreeding of technology, an example of a highly appropriate developrnent strategy, was rnarvelousl y illustrated in the Corona-Lanyard-Gam.bit 

programs. Lanyard, a transform of the Samos E-S 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-S and Garnbit concepts 

on Corona-M was not readily demonstrable but could reasonably be 

postulated. In any case, the claims of E-S to prirnacy in stereo 

applications were indisputable. 

It is not entirely pos sible to prove that the adaptation of an E- 5 

(Lanyard) carnera to the Discoverer-Corona reentry systern prompted 

later attention to the prospect of similarly converting Gambit, but when 

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I E-5 and E-6 experience dernonstrated the inherent frailties of "big 

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capsule" reentry systerns, Gambit was adapted to the Corona capsule, 

very probably eluding the unhappy fate of the earlier "big capsule" 

I systems in consequence. Similarly, the feasibility of operating in a 

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double-bucket mode had been extensively dernonstrated through Corona-J 

more than four years before the first double- bucket Gambit reached its 

I launch stand. 

I 

The technique of incremental and sequential development, and 

of building carefully on a base of demonstrated technology, was epitomized 

I by Corona and Gambi!, in their various models, but was also exploited 

I for other satellite systems developed under the aegis of the National 

Reconnaissance Program in the years before 1967. That experience 

I had a clear and substantial influence on the selection of developrnent 

I strategies for other major defense programs of the late 1960s and early 

1970 s. In sorne degree, the NRP experience affected strategy selection 

I because the same senior officials were involved in both NRP and "other 

I defense systern11 development activities. Drs. Alexander Flax and 

John McLucas, NRO directors, and David Packard and John Foster, 

I who held the second and third most powerful posts in the Department 

I of Defense, were particularly influential in that respect. 

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Another influence that could not be acknowledged or cited 

either in the open literature or in the "normal" security system was 

the advocac y of development strategies tes ted 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 Report11 

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 lO-year record of satellite development by the 

National R econnais sance 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 forrnally approved for developrnent until October 1962, the CIA in July 1962 authorized Lockheed, as 

the prilTIe contractor, to proceed with prelilTIinary engineering design 

of the s ystelTI. (Itek's work had been separately covered.) Approval 

for fabrication and long lead-tilTIe procurelTIent reached Lockheed in 

NovelTIber, still in advance of the final contract. At that point, first 

launch was planned in May 1963 with a one-per-lTIonth initial launch 

rate following, but with provis ions for a two-per -lTIonth rate starting 

as early as July 1963. That rather short schedule was lTIade possible 

by the expedient of converting previously built Corona-M systelTIs to 

the Corona-J configuration. ForlTIal notification of the ilTIlTIinence of 

Corona-J operations reached NPIC, the CIA, and the USIB I s COlTIlTIittee 

on Overhead Reconnais sance early in DecelTIber- - by which tilTIe it 

seerned clear that first flight would occur in "early sUlTIlTIer" rather 

than May 1963. 

The rationale for the Corona-J progralTI was heavily dependent 

on. as sUlTIptions about the utility of ZOlTIbie-lTIode operations. Effecti vel y, 

Corona-J consisted of a thrust-auglTIented-Thor, an Agena D, two 

lTIodified Mk Ia recovery systelTIS, and a lTIodified Corona-M calTIera. 

In effect, a Corona-J lTIis sion provided a capability of perforlTIing two 

Corona-M lTIissions at the cost of one booster, one Mural calTIera 

systelTI, two reentry vehicles, and two stellar-index calTIera 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 reconnais sance use was planned, 

controllers would reactivate the satellite for a second four-day period 

of photograph Yo Some 15, 000 feet of film were carried for each of the 

2.4 

four-day periods of operation. 

Although the first of eight 1963 Corona-J mis sions 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 us e the TAT (Thrust Aug.mented 

Thor) booster caused a sudden and alarming interruption of intelligence 

returns from satellite overflights during the early months of 1963. The 

first two Lanyard mis sions failed becaus e 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 becaus e of the TAT failure - -a cons equenc e 

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 Reconnais sance Office in March 

1963, decided to launch proven Corona-M_s rather than untried Corona-Js 

during the early sun1mer 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 rnission. 

1£ the dependence of the United States on satellite pllotography 

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 lithe importance of this 

type of intelligence to our National Security cannot be over-enlphasized 

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. 11 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 Argon 

mission of 26 April, the sixth Argon failure against one "good" 

operation and one II partial success. 11 

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... [Defense Undersecretary Roswell] Gilpatric and I have agreed that 

the NRO will continue to ernploy 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. II One of 

the additional precautions that McMillan immediately insti tuted, in 

addition to continuance of the I'special inspection and system checks II 

introduced earlier, was to instruct General Greer that 'Iexperiments 

and additional payloads II were not to be carried on future Corona or 

Gambit flights if there was any possibility that their inclusion would 

jeopardize the primary mission: II ... the successful recovery of 

27 

photography from the main payloads. II 

Notwithstanding such precautions, Corona-J operations began 

somewhat inaus piciousl y, 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 Historyll 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 probleITl was a fundaITlental failure in ITlission 

concept. In each of the first two flights, capsule nUITlber one was 

recovered cOITlplete with four days of filITl take, but the second capsule 

was lost. On one occasion an inverter failed and the caITlera systern 

could not be reactivated after a period of ZOITlbie operation (the 

recovery systeITl later failed, also), while a decoder breakdown in the 

Agena systeITl ITlade it iITlpossible to reactivate the systeITl and caused 

the loss of capsule nUITlber two during a ITlission conducted in SepteITlber 1963. 

In SOITle respects, the first two atteITlpts to operate Corona-J 

could not be counted as ITlajor failures, because in fact one capsule 

cOITlplete with filITl was recovered in each instance and that recovery 

represented an achievernent cOITlparable to the success of any earlier 

Corona ITlission. But the cost was substantially greater, and it was 

also true that each of the first Corona-J rnissions had been intended 

to provide ITlore and better data than could have been obtained frorn 

two of the earlier Corona-M operations. 

section to its ITlanufacturers for repair and recalibration. The next 

vehicle scheduled for launch, already nUITlbered Mis sion 1004, was 

ITloved forward on the schedule. Mission 1003 reappeared as a 

March 1964 oper ation. Owing to electrical problerns in the Agena, 

it becaITle one of the increasingly rare total failures of the Corona 

prog raITl. 

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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 irll_pact 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 nl.onth earlier, on 

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I 7 July, on a farm some 500 miles south of Caracas in a remote rural 

I region of the Andes near the Columbian border. The object, Davilla 

reported, carried among other lnarkings one that read "United States, II 

I and another that read "Secret. II Davilla did not mention that he had 

I photographed lithe object" or that the farmer on whose land it lay had 

been trying to sell it--as a whole or in parts. 

I Not until Monday, 3 August, after a second call from Davilla, 

I did the Army attache notify the assistant Air attache of the reported 

find. They were unable, that day, to find an aircraft to take them to 

I the site of the impact. On Tuesday, after interviewing a comrnercial 

I pilot who had also viewed lithe object" at close range and--predictably--

had returned to Caracas with a souvenIr piece, the Army attache flew 

I to La Fria, the village nearest the find, only to discover that the 

I Venezuelan army had arrived first and had taken the object to San 

Cristobal, the provincial capital. 

I Requests for release of the object to U.S. authorities were 

I initiall y unavailing. With the U. S. Army attache in tow, the Venezuelan 

army flew it to Caracas, promising to deliver it to the Americans on 

I the following Friday, 6 August. There intervened yet another delay, 

I however. Upon its arrival in Caracas the object (now known to be the 

remains of the Corona reentry vehicle from mission 1005) was taken 

I 

I 

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directly to the office of the Venezuelan Minister of Defense. It 

finally returned to Am.crican hands on Tuesday, 10 August. 

Well before reports of the capsule's survival reached American 

authorities, Davilla photographed it, local fanners 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 Ilno cornment. If 

The Army attache noted finding an Arnerican five-cent piece 

and a quarter among the odds and ends in the wreckage. 

... ,,,,,'.-

"'1"''"'''' 

He also 

took possession of the film that remained in the fractured cannisters. 

It was "well cooked. If 

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 ln 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 obvious 

that local Communist bloc people could easily have seen the remains and 

certainl y 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 mis sing when Americans finally 

recovered it on 10 August, the implication being that it too had become 

a souvenlr. 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 dernonstrated 

that the inherent stability and good ablative shielding of the capsule 

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ITlade randoITl-entry survival a very real possibility--which was 

s oITlewhat disconcerting to security people. 

In the end, two positive actions resulted froITl the "1005 incident. " 

First, all classification ITlarkings were reITloved froITl orbital Corona 

vehicles before launch and a "reward for return to AITlerican authorities" notice, in eight languages, was substituted. Second, inspection 

procedures were reinforced to protect against the stowage of ITlore 

AITlerican souvenir coins during fabrication and checkout. The 1961 

injunction that such objects ITlust not be carried because they ITlight 

29 

interfer e with s ysteITl functioning had obviousl y lost its effectivenes s. 

In the wake of the first two Corona-J flights, both rated partially 

successful, ground tests of J - systeITls had been disappointing. PrograITl 

Security had yet another epilogic traUITla even after the reITlains had 

been retrieved froITl the Venezuelan Ministry of Defens e. In order to 

obscure the destination of the packaged capsule wreckage, the real 

Corona parts were sent to Lockheed by v,ray of a eecure air route and 

a dUITlITlY package containing paper, odds and ends of ITletal scrap, and 

pieces of wood, was boxed for shipITlent to the hOITle address of a DIA 

officer assigned to the Pentagon. Unhappily, the scrap fill plus the 

carton weighed only 80 pounds although the shipping luanifest specified 

a 250-pound cargo. Alert custOITlS officials at McGuire Air Force Base 

decided they had uncovered a dope cache and opened the box. After 

fruitles sly sorting through the expensively freighted junk, they contacted the addressee and advised hiITl sternly that they were "going to 

investigate." Stalling custOITlS for the ITloITlent, the officer put through 

a frantic call to the CIA to "cut this one off." The Agency, with its 

own contacts in the CustOITlS 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.2. -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 TA T vehicle s available and indir ectl y acc ounted 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 I 

for August and October 1963 launches. Perversity took a hand there 

I too; both went well, providing the second and third largely succes sful 

Argon operations in ten mis sion attempts. (Another Argon was chari- I 

tabl y accounted a partial succes s.) The Corona-M launches of November 

I 1963 were failures. Apart from the Thor malfunction, an Agena breakdown caus ed failure of capsule reentry as the climax of a mis sion that I 

began with a 27 November launch. But the final Corona-M (9062) I redeemed its breed, operating almost £lawles sly from its 21 December 

launch to capsule recovery on 26 December 1963. The paradox remained, I 

however; in its final days the nominally reliable Corona-M experienced 

major mis sion problems, while the almost untested Corona-J operated 

reas onabl y 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-J 

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 

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issued instructions that until further notice all Corona-J systems were 

to be operated on "continuous missions II 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-J, mis sion 

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 opportunity to revalidate Corona-J as an eight-day 

rather than a 20-day system. In both of the succeeding Corona-J 

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-J missions were happy 

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parallels of the sixth. Although minor difficultie s 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 o-t:her recovered Gambit capsules. 

Thereafter, for nearly a year, Corona operations could best 

be sumrnarized as routine and returns as excellent. In Novelnber 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, prograrn rnanagers 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 lTIOre favorable altitudes, or requirelTIents 

to hold calTIeras in orbit in anticipation of a specific event for which 

coverage was wanted.) 

Launch crews delTIonstrated further enlargelTIent of Corona-J 

utility in April 1965 by keeping a cOlTIplete systelTI in one-day-frolTIlaunch (R-l) status for two weeks, a considerable enhancelTIent of 

systelTI responsiveness. Gradual extension of lTIission life for 

Corona-J frolTI its original six days to 10 days was one product of 

the proven " zOlTIbie lTIode I! operation. Modest enlar gelTIents in the 

thrust capacity of TAT (by lTIeans of a Thor fuel tank enlargelTIent, 

:::~ 

the vehicle being called Thorad) and in the orbital durability of the 

Agena were undertaken early in 1965, the goal being 14-day lTIission 

operations. Launches of the ilTIproved systelTI were scheduled to 

34 

begin in July 19670 

Thorad differed irOlTI the original TAT (Thrust-AuglTIented-Thor) 

in having 13 feet lTIore length to accolTIlTIodate additional fuel and 

oxidizer, and in SOlTIe relocation of cornponents. With Sargeant 

strap-on solid rocket boosters attached, a Thorad-Agena D cOlTIbination could put into orbit 400 pounds lTIore than could TAT-Agena. 

Modification of launch facilities at Vandenberg (to accolTIlTIodate the 

talle r Thorad) and the engineering required to transforlTI TAT into 

Thorad cost about $2.8 lTIillion. ygit cost of Thorad was only about 

$75 thousand lTIore than for TAT. 

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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 

C orona-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 

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 that had undercurrents of both personal and institutional 

antagonism. As signrnent or reassignment of res ponsibility for Corona 

development and operations was one other elernent of the involuted 

controversy, particularly after it became obvious that the "interiln" 

and "transitory" status repeatedly as sumed for Corona and its variants 

from the early days of the program was thoroughly erroneous. By late 

1964 virtually all participants in the satellite reconnais sance 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, managernent authority, 

and personal prerogatives had become So troublesorne that the only 

reas onable 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), becarne 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 Reconnais sance 

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 pTogressed 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 es sentiall y 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, 

smne 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 

problerns, 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 Slnce 

mid-1964, was afforded formal contractual coverage for work in 

progres s- -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, Jr.) 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 Coro~ 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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37 I 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 I 

progress during the McMillan era of the NRO. In terms of capsules I 

launched as against capsules successfully retrieved, the record from 

March 1963 to February 1964 was nine successes in 13 trials; for the I 

following 12 months, it was 23 successes in 28 trials. That represented I 

an increase of successes from an initial 69 percent to a later 82 percent--

and notwithstanding some difficulties during the summer of 1965, the 

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 J -1) represented considerably less in the way of new technology 

or added operational capability than had earlier changes, it received 

not merel y 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 llm serial (September 1967) and extended 

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I through H17, the final flight in the Corona program (May 1972). J-l 

and J -3 missions were much more intermixed than had been the case 

I with earlier transitions from C to C I, to C "', to Mural, and thence to 

I the Corona J -l. 

I 

Even though the J - 3 designation signified a model improvement 

of Corona, the J -1 model had graduaH y but significantly been improved 

I during its operational life. Lifeboat, a back-up sys tern for insuring 

I 

de-orbit of the recovery vehicle in the event of Agena power failure, 

was incorporated following its development and demonstration as an 

I element of Gambit. Orbit-adjust capability was also added, again 

I partly in consequence of Gambit experience. From eight days of 

operational camera life in 1964, the J-l extended its mission capability 

I to 15 days during 1967. And the J -1 was a participant in the remarkable 

I skein of succes s es from 1966 to 1970, during which time 28 capsules 

were placed in orbit and 28 capsules were recovered. Reliability 

I had appreciably improved since 1962, when a single one- day 

I 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 lOO-nautical-mile altitudes, with a corresponding 

inlprovenient 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 sys 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 iniprovements derived froIn Gambit experience. The 

J -3 was also the first Corona to be flown with its recovery capsules 

facing forwar d, in the dir ection of flight. 

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away from the sun. The incorporation of DISIC in combination with a 

variety of other irnprovements in camera precision effectively created 

a mapping capability in Corona J -3 that finally obviated any need for 

fl ying dedicated mapping mis sions. (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 addi39 

tional Argon rnissions 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 norninall y 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 filnl subsystern. Its lack of acceptancl~ 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 les s sweeping functional improvements in the Corona-M; and third, 

Lanyard had operated in a similar mode. 

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the commi tInent 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 expenence d some shifts of pos i tion 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 

lnember 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 bas ic 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 Petzvallens (scaled up from the Mural-C"I 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 fihn (for which Lanyard provided 

s orne 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. Herbe rt Scoville, CIA I 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 discus sion 

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 developm ent and deployment. That choice, Greer's panel suggested, should 

be delayed until on-orbit experience had demonstrated the superiority 

of one of the pair 0 

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The rationale for the comparlson study was a statement of 

need from the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) 

and an anticipated endors ement of the NPIC "requirementll by the 

United States Intelligence Board (USIB). The M-2 variant of Corona 

actuall y seemed to have a potential for better resolution than would 

an "improved E-6, II 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 I'by far, the greatest promise 

and minimum design risk of any design available for this time period"--

41 

except for the Ilimproved E-6. II 

* The sequence of events was roughly this: E- 6 had begun development 

in November 1960 as a means of satisfying a USIB requirement for 

la-foot search coverage resolution at a time when Corona was returning 

about 20-foot resolution Ila small percentage of the time. II 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 ll 

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 

42 

successful satellite reconnaissance team in the U.S. II 

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-2, 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 1962. 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 Coro:::: subsystem.s leading to 

ITlore consistent perforITlance of the existent systeITl. Because the 

Purcell Panel recoITlITlendations had been rather general, McMillan 

44 

also wanted the Corona office to propose specific iITlproveITlent ITlodes. 

By ITlid-August 1963 the Corona office had identified those iteITls 

of detail iITlproveITlent that seeITled ITlost likely to satisfy the specified 

NRO requireITlent. They included ITlore careful lens selectivity and 

the procureITlent of better optical glass; ITlore precise caITlera focus 

adjustITlent, through expanded testing; incorporation of yaw steering 

and vernier attitude control features; experiITlentation with autoITlatic 

exposure control devices, ultiITlately leading to their incorporation in 

production systeITls; a better prograITlITler; and experiITlents using high 

sensitivity filITl (for night photography) and color filITl in orbit. (In 

essence, these and related iITlproveITlents, plus dual recovery capsule 

capability, led directly to the Corona J -3 systeITl.) McMillan accepted 

the basic recoITlITlendations late in August, and early the following ITlonth 

45 

reported to the Director, CIA, his plans for acting on theITl. 

But an iITlITlinent funding crisis intervened, and late in SepteITlber 

the advance authorization of work on the ITlenu of Corona iITlproveITlents 

was revoked- -a developITlent that proITlpted a ITlodest Hareup of anxiety 

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about the soundness of Corona management arrangements and, in the 

end, a suggestion from General Greer that the Corona Configuration 

Control Board (which ultimatel y decided what modifications would be 

incorporated in production systems) be overhauled. As with similar 

46 

proposals earlier and later, Greer's suggestion had no effect. 

The 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 Hareup 

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 abandonment 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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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 lOOth Corona flight, in December 1968, a review 

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 site s, the other the coverage of the 

Middle East crises and the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 (liThe 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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51 

I have merited mention in monthly program summaries. Corona was, 

I 

to all intents and purposes, a fully mature system--and one with no 

real prospect of enduring in operations past the introduction of Hexagon, 

I an event that was apparently imminent. The possibility that more 

I 

Coronas than were in the inventory might be needed to provide an 

adequate overlap with Hexagon received careful scrutiny between June 1969 

I and January 1970, and on three occasions the review committee concluded 

I 

that no additional Coronas need be purchased. Although there were 

dissenting opinions here and there, and particularly in the Bureau of 

I the Budget (Office of Management and Budget), and in the office of the 

52, 

I President's Science Advisor, the decision was repeatedly reaffirmed. 

Yet through and past all that, efforts to preserve and extend 

I Corona capability continued. 

I Between May 1967 and October 1968, consideration of an improved 

Corona-J, eventually to be called Corona J -4, reached the stage of 

I serious evaluation of performance potential and probable costs. The 

I system being considered would include an improved camera--one of 

two Itek designs having focal lengths of 32 and 40 inches--with central 

I resolution of 4.5 feet or better, a l2-inch focal length stellar-indexing 

I camera, and a more powerful booster than required for the J - 3 model. 

That combination of elements would provide a potential 18-day orbital 

I lifetime for a Corona J -4 system. 

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The assumption underlying consideration of a still further 

improved 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 systelTIS scheduled for launch by June 1971; 

procurement of 20 Corona systerns in a J -4 configuration would permit 

Corona operations to continue through mid-l97 3. Development and 

procurement of the camera systems had an estin~ated cost of $37 to 

$38. 7 million, to which would be added recovery vehicle and orbital 

vehicle costs (about $54 million) and the cost of 20 booster systems. 

Buyi llg the J -4 in preference to additional J -3 Coronas would effectivel y create an enhanced search capability at an estin1ated per-launch 

additional cost of about $L 3 million. That real costs would exceed 

53 

estimates by 15 to 20 percent was virtually certain, however. 

By June 1967, initial expectations of quick progres s in Hexagon 

development had largely dissipatedo Acknowledgement of difficulties 

carne 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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use of Corona to December 1970, the least overlap with Hexagon that 

54 

Flax deemed prD.dent. 

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 di££iculties. They aros e in part, Flax explained, becaus e the Hexagon 

requirelnent was "not really an intelligence collection requirement, 

but a statement of systern parameters." The NRO had therefore found 

it difficult to optirnize the system design lito meet real collection needs" 

and had been obliged to consult both COMOR (Committee on Overhead 

Reconnaissance) and USIB to clarify the requirernent. In the Spring of 

1967, Richard Helms, CIA director, had asked Flax to delay the start 

of work on supporting Hexagon subsystelns until recently disclosed 

problems of Hexagon cost effectiveness could be resolved. Not until 

June 1967 had Perkin-E1rner, the camera contractor, fully resolved 

systeln definition uncertainties--all of which implied a continuing 

55 

requirernent for additional Corona operations. Indeed, although the 

pros pect was not specified then, further Corona improvement was not 

out of the que stion. 

The proposals to inlprove Corona through the incorporation of 

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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defined and at a time when requirements for photography in the corning I 

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 I 

to satisfy national needs for search and surveillance in the 1970s. The I 

camera proposed in 1967 was an improved-optics version of the constantI rotator Corona J -3 camera. By all indications, it could provide fivefoot resolution capability and, in combination with Gambit-3, would I 

satisfy basic national satellite reconnaissance requirements in the early 

I 1970s at a price several hundreds of millions of dollars less than that of 

Hexagon. Brigadier General James T. Stewart, director of the NRO I 

staff at the time, suggested to Dr. Flax that one implication of the I renewed interest in a Corona J -4 was that perhaps Hexagon should be 

scaled down- - four- to five-foot re solution, 16 -day orbital life, and two recover~ 

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- -eventuall y tended to focus on financial benefits. In 

June 1968, while the fiscal 1970 budget was being shaped, they extended 

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also to some as sumptions about Corona perform.ance 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 the LI ____ -----" 

anticipated "best resolutionl! 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. If 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 cOlllbined operations with Gambit 

were overstated (no account was taken of the cost of buying additional 

Corona systellls 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 as suming that estimates of the time were accurate. That, 

too, was a gross error; as had been true of virtually all orbital reconnais sance systems, Hexagon did eventually incur substantial cost growth, 

the actual costs exceeding those predicted by the Bureau of the Budget. 

"Additional costs 11 for Corona J -4 system.s probably would have been 

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about $50 million; that would have been offset# in the event, by the 

considerable excess of real Hexagon costs over those estimated ln 

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 requireTnent for Corona area coverage at Gambit resolutions. 

The April 1966 decision by the Executive Committee of the National 

Reconnais sance Program to proceed with Hexagon development had 

capped a two-year controversy over a "successor search system. II 

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 chos en as the uppe r stage ("satellite basic as sembI y") 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 Coro~ operations well past the nominal date 

of Hexagon first flights. 

Further, the cost-effectiveness issue was real, not contrived. 

Corona missions cost between $9 and $11 million; Hexagon operations 

would cost about $55 million each. Development of Hexagon would 

::::::>!;;: 

presumabl y cost between $400 million and $600 million; Corona J -4 

could be developed for no rnore than about $100 million, and perhaps 

And, it must be noted, Gambit was rnaking steady progress toward 

res olution capa bility (from its original 30-inch performance) 

in those years. 

In the event, it cost DlOre. The J -4 cost estimate was more likely 

to be accurate because it essentially involved the addition of new subs ystems with relati vel y conservative new technology to a proven 

operational system. 

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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; desigllers 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 systems - -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 0 

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. O-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 

$l2 million and $17 million, assuming an eight-missions-per-year 

60 

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 Hexago:: was representative of an excess capability--and 

61 

unwarranted costs 0 

That Hexagon was an approved program with reasonable prornise 

of success did not preclude consideration of options that either began 

with or included the cancellation of that program and "indefinite II 

reliance on Corona. In August 1967, more than a year after the formal 

start of the Hexagon prograrYl, 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 reconnais sanee 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-monopol y on the production of 

satellite-reconnaissance camera subsystems, was by 1966 faced with 

having no future satellite reconnaissance work once Corona phased 

out. FulcrurYl had originall y embodied a proposed Itek can:lera system, 

but in a 1965 development shuffle (occasioned partly by Eastman Kodak's 

preference for Doric:..r::.. 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 carnera 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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that developITlent of an iITlproved Corona would cost about as ITluch as 

cornpleting Hexagon developluent. (That observation eITlerged in 

NoveITlber 1968, after Hexagon had ITlade SOITle progres s toward 

operational readiness, but before an initial schedule slippage of ITlore 

than one year had been acknowledged and befare there was readines s 

to face the prospect that another schedule slippage of about the saITle 

m,agnitude was pending 0 ) 

The second option considered in August 1967 was siITlply to 

delay Hexagon availability for a year--a contingency then discarded as 

unnecessarily costly, but subsequently iITlposed on the Hexagon prograITl 

by nece s sity rather than choice. In NoveITlber 1968 the option was to 

cancel Hexagon and substitute for the planned Hexagon-GaITlbit operations 

(either four or five flights of each per year) a GaITlbit-Corona cOITlbination involving seven flights of each annually. What ITlade the cancellation 

attracti ve in 1968 was the pr ospect that it would perITlit a budget saving 

of between $680 and $775 ITlillion in fiscal years 1968 through 1973. But 

the offset would be expressed in ground resolution; there was virtually 

no possibility of iITlproving 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. 

Interestingl y, CIA Director Richard HelITlS was not convinced, in the 

Spring of 1968, that getting I I resolution, as proITlised on the MOLDorian prograITl, was worth its cost. 

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Finall y, the National Reconnais sance 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 panoramlc 

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 several hundred million 

dollars." The judgment: an austere Hexagon program was preferable 

to cancelling Hexagon and relying on Co~ for the 1970s. 

In cost-effectiveness terms, the comparison had this appearance: 

System 

Corona J-3 

Hexagon 

Corona J-3 mod 

Corona J-4 

New or 

Remaining 

Cost for 

Resolution Development 

(feet) ($ million) 

7 -10 0 

2-5 150-200 

5.5-8 75-100 

4-7 150-250 

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~ 

Operational 

Costs Contract 

($ million) Needs 

(per year) (new) 

72 none 

140 none 

100 sole source 

110 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 "would 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 $480 rnillion 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 estim.ated 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 

pres s,ues that accompanied the change in adm.inistr ations following 

the election of 1968. Such influences were nearly certain to reopen 

what were widely assurued to be closed issues--including the future 

of Corona. 

Notwithstanding the occasional Bureau of the Budget efforts 

ln 1967 and in 1968 to induce substitution of Corona for Hexagon in 

the National Reconnais sance Program, it was not until the change of 

adrninistrations occurred in January 1969 that such an alternative 

becarne 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 I'improved" Corona operations. Robert 

Mayo, the President's new budget director, argued that the five-year 

cost differential could be as large as $900 million- - 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 anomal y 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 carryover 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 arguments used by the same people in 1967 and 1968. "What 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. 

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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 predict.able; 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. II The firm 

wording suggested an end to consideration of rellance 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 de£ens e 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 reconnais sance 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, coneluded that the scope of the program had to be reduced. He therefore 

proposed to incoming Deputy Secretary of Defense David Padcard that 

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I two of the scheduled early manned flights of MOL be cancelled, leaving 

I 

three unmanned (Dorian) and two manned flights in the initial lot. 

Packard approved, and by so doing made Dorian rather than "man" 

I the principal element of MOL-Dorian. The scientific community, 

I represented by Dr. Lee DuBddge, President Nixon's choice for 

Science Advisor, was les s than favorable to the decision. DuBridge 

I tended, thereafter, to be less than enthusiastic about MOL. 

I The issue, in the end, was which should be cancelled, Hexagon 

or MOL-Dorian. Apart from financial considerations and institutional 

I preferences, other influences had to be weighed. One, of some 

I importance, was the earlier endorsement of MOL by both President 

Nixon (while a candidate) and his new Secretary of Defense, Melvin 

I Laird (while a congressman and critic of Johnson Administration 

I defense policies). A second was the BoB position, a happy (from the 

President's view) carryover from earlier proposals rejected by the 

I Johnson Administration but now in good concert with the Nixon AdminiI stration I S goals. 

The Bureau of the Budget favored cancelling Hexagon and 

I continuing MOL-Dorian--which by indirection required extension (and, 

I 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 by $440 million, and the fiscal 1970-1974 

budgets by a total of $1. 93 billion. 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 $135 million less, in the end), but as Mayo 

now saw the situation, J:iexagon would have great utility as a confirming 

factor for any strategic arms limitation agreement, and MOL had a 

"more questionable II 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 

consideratlOn 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 Pres ident' 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 of I I 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 about 1'-----____ 1 resolution (Mahon remembered the 

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incident a year later.) CLA 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 decis ion 

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 irnproved 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 pos si bility disappeared, and with it any real pos sibility for 

continuation of Corona, with the President's decision, early in June, 

tq 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 propos al 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 Sarnos 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 progralll, it ultilllately 

put finis to the progralll. Essentially, these seelll to have been the 

contributing elelllents: the Bureau of the Budget identified either 

Hexagon or MOL-Dorian as a prillle candidate for cancellation in 

order to satisfy the President's strongly expressed desire for a 

substantial reduction in lllilitary-progralll spending in fiscal 1970 

and after. Because earlier studies had convinced SOllle carryover 

BoB staff specialists that Hexagon was unnecessarily costly--and 

unduly cOlnplex- -the BoB re cOllllllendations forwarded by newly 

appointed BoB officials tended to be less than favorable to Hexagon. 

Further, both Defense Secretary Laird and the President hilllself had 

earlier expressed thelllselves as favoring the developlnent of a lllanned 

lllilitary satellite; Laird, while a Congresslllan, had written a lllinority 

report criticizing the Departlllent of Defense for not supporting MOL 

lllore adequately. The advisors lllOst likely to influence the President 

in the early days of his adlllinistration were precisely those who, given 

a choice between Hexagon and MOL-Dorian, would be lllOSt likely to 

favor the latter. That sufficiently explains the original (9 April 1969) 

verdict: cancel Hexagon. Afterthoughts influenced both Laird and 

Mayo; Helllls, who was entirely in favor of Hexagon, caused SOllle of 

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them, but convincing representations of the greater reconnaissance 

value of Hexagon carne 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. 

Dro 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 Pres ident 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 

(mis sion 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 

Agena guidance system, and two other mm sions (1049, December 1968, 

and 1051, May 1969) returned degraded film. Although all represented 

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serious problems, in varying degree, mission 1107 was the first in 

rnore 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 pos sible through only part of a mis sion. 

The fundamental probleIYl appeared to be a gradual but not yet 

severe degradation of quality control in the Lockheed facility {which 

actuall y 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 

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security clearance procedures and the definitely limited future of 

Corona work militated agai nst any easy solution. 

Further, as both manufacturing and production tapered off, 

the availability of replacements for failed items les sened. A spares 

program had not hitherto been es s ential because manufacturing had 

continued at a level rate for more than 10 years, and owing to the 

nq.ture 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 ani 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 

readines s. The solution to per sonnel 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 

un.derlay part of the quality control deficiency) would smooth out 

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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 mis sions 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-l 

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- bas e 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 ceas ed during 

the 1960s, and in actuality only Corona people remained thereafter. 

They were legall y Hiller employees, and because of union regulations it was not pos sible to move Lockheed employees into the plant 

to replace the departing "Hiller" workers--who were similarly 

foreclos ed 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 nearl y $2 million to recycle 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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71 

series was scheduled for a NoveITlber 1971 launch. In the event, the 

date proved to be May 1972, and the August 1969 decision to update 

systeITl 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 systeITls in running out the Corona overlap with Hexagon 

received a final staITlp of approval in February 1970. A special Hexagon 

review cOITlITlittee 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 

ITlargin of safety existed. Therefore the cOITlITlittee recoITlITlended 

abandoning plans to purchase additional Corona s ysteITls. By 12 February, 

Richard HelITls of the CIA and Lee DuBridge, the President's Science 

72 

Advisor, had concurred in the recoITlITlendation. 

One other relTIote pos sibility reITlained for the continued us e of 

Corona, though surely not under that naITle or with Corona operational 

objectives. The National Aeronautics and Space AdITlinistration (NASA) 

had approached the National Reconnais sance Office in 1969 with a 

tentative plan to satisfy requireITlents for an earth resources survey 

satellite by adapting Corona s ysteITls 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 NASAls basic 

requirements for multispectral imagery and for stereoscopic coverage. 

And because Corona was a thoroughly reliable, fully developed system 

for which complete fabrication and te sting facilities existed, it would 

provide a most inexpensive way of satisfying NASA needs. But NASA 

had to choose between Corona and alternative specialized 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. Horner Newell, NASAls 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 

DISIC 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 KH-4 systems may be 

74 

operated. II 

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. II Otherwise, coverage would have been grossly 

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inadequate--owing to a restricted flexibility in reconnaissance satellites that steITlITled directly froITl the liITlited residual of Corona 

vehicles. When Hexagon becaITle 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 $65 ITlillion a launch, 

Hexagon was not suited to crisis scheduling. Nor was GaITlbit. 

Given the probable five- to six-year wait for an operational readout 

systeITl, Cline suggested that it ITlight be advisable to "reassess [the] 

need for a satellite crisis capability at least as good as that previousl y 

provided by the KH-4 (Corona) standby. " 

Cline's object was to stiITlulate a new exaITlination of the basic 

issue, but he conceded that funding probleITls and previous COITlITlit75 

ITlents ITlade 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 roehlke, who was charged by Pack ard with integrating various defense 

intelligence activities. Bennett proITlptl y contacted Dr. McLucas and 

Deputy Secretary of Defense Packard to express basic agreeITlent with 

Cline IS stand, again expres sing 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. II 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 ther e is nothing scheduled 

77 

and we might want to la unch 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 $20 

million 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. ff 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 Reconnais sance 

Program Executive Committee meeting of 29 January 1971. In the 

course of the discussion, LI ______ -----"I. the NRO Comptroller, 

estimated that additional Corona systems could be purchased -and 

operated at costs ranging from $20 million each in lots of two, to 

$15.1 million 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 lllany systellls that the total would cause 

lllajor perturbation of fiscal 1971 and 1972 budget ceilings), cancellation after two 1ll0nths would cost about $15 lllillion and after five 1ll0nths 

about $25 lllillion. That calculation had been perforllled as a direct 

response to a question frolll Dr. E. E. David, the President's Science 

Advisor (and a lllelllber of the NRP Executive COllllllittee); if additional 

Corona systellls were illllllediately ordered, but a successful Hexagon 

launch in March 1971 allowed terlllination of the procurelllent, 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 Decelllber 

1970 launch, Corona launches were planned so as to provide an 11-lllonth 

overlap. When Hexagon incurred another schedule slip, the response 

was to or der a special Galllbit Higherboy kit that would perlllit Galllbit, 

operating at an altitude of 525 llliles, to take relatively wide-area photographs that would partly satisfy an interilll search capability requirelllent, 

thus protecting the 11-lllonth overlap through March 1971. A Hexagon 

slip to June or July 1971 would leave a seven-lllonth overlap potential. 

In the worst case, if Hexagon did not becollle operational until late 

1971, a coverage gap of 5 to 11 1ll0nths conceivably could result. 

See Chapter on Galllbit for details of that 1ll0dification. 

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Protective ll1easures included further stretchout of Corona launchings 

(awkward at a till1e when, as it happened, there were rising dell1ands 

for a greater frequency of Corona ll1is sions), or buying another 

Higherboy kit and substituting a Higherboy-Gall1bit for a scheduled 

Gall1bit-3. 

In the end, it appeared to Dr. David that insurance against a 

major Hexagon slippage could be purchased for between $14 and $20 

ll1illion--if the decision to order ll10re Corona systell1s were taken 

at once. He asked McLucas to poll the Executive COll1rnittee 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 ill1ll1ediate and urgent requirell1ents 

arising, partly, froll1 the untill1ely 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 succe ssful 

satellite program to be conducted under !lAir Force II 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-llaunch 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 sys terns acquired vast! y better optics 

within two years of their initial missions (~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.nanagers 

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 mis sions lasted for 19 days and 

each brought returns on about seven million square nautical miles. 

Sixteen Corona missions were flown In the last three vears 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 Hexago~. 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 lIB, 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 l6-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 

Agena 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 reconnais sance 

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infor:mation that ranged fro:m good to exceptional in ter:ms both of 

81 

photographic quality and intelligence worth. 

By the ti:me the Corona series ended with the final capsule 

recovery on 31 May 1972, it had ostensibly included 145 :missions--

or :mission atte:mpts--in all. In actuality. if the generally ignored 

initial :mis sion failure was counted, there were 146 flight attempts, 

of which 26 involved objectives and payloads other than those of the 

fundamental S::orona progra:m. ~< 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 ca:mera system. Two of 

the first 2.5 "Corona" flights carried infrared sensor syste:ms developed 

for the subsequently cancelled Midas progra:m; at the ti:me they were 

publicly represented to be bio:medical payloads. (So:me biological 

speci:mens 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 ca:meras; such diagnostic 

instru:mentation was inserted into the flight schedule in response to 

the initial sequence of :mission failures and was intended to provide 

infor:mation that would identify and support the correction of spacecraft design defects. The end su:m of "Corona" flights, no:minally 

145 but actually 146 in all, included 12 Argon :mapping camera payloads, three Lanyard instru:ments, and two other payloads irrelevant 

to the Corona progra:m (flights nu:mber 54 and 99). (Starting with 

flight nu:mber 54, two of the surviving su:mmaries of Corona program 

activities have contradictory flight and :mission nu:mbers. Flight 

number 54 is not counted as a Corona progra:m flight in one set, 

co:mpiled 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 ofLI ___________________ _ 

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As originally flown in 1960, the ground resolution of the mono- I 

scopic Corona camera was about 35 to 40 feet. That improved to 

I about 35 feet with the introduction of the C' camera. Twelve years 

later, after a succession of improvements and changes that extended I 

from reliability enhancement in a host of minor components to new 

I boosters and spacecraft and four major evolutionary improvements 

in camera configuration, CorOna routinely returned stereo photography I 

with a normal re solution of seven to ten feet from 100 nautical mile 

photographic altitudes and had demonstrated a "best resolution" of I 

4.5 feet from 90 nautical miles. With a 19-days-on-orbit mission I 

capability, a single Corona flight in the 1970-1972 period usually I 

returned pictures of 8.4 million square miles of "denied" territory. 

Originally flown with only the sketchiest sort of weather information I 

input, and thus subject to random cloud-cover degradation, Cor ona I 

was, by 1972, capable of an adaptive response to weather information 

less than 90 minutes old. Further, the addition of a DISIC (dual improved I 

stellar imaging camera), conceived in 1964 and fir st flown succ essfully in 1967, provided extremely accurate altitude and position 

information and added a supplemental mapping capability to Cor ona 

that largely offset the need for special mapping missions. (The Argon 

program, which had its last operation in May 1964, was not succeeded 

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by another cartographic program. chiefly because of the DISIC enhancem.ent of prim.ary Corona capability. ) 

Although the original concept of film. returns by way of a 

recoverable reentry capsule proved highly successful once a set of 

relatively m.inor but irksom.e operational difficulties were overcom.e, 

im.provem.ents in that aspect of Corona operations in the years after 

1961 were nearly as im.pressive as other system. im.provem.ents. 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. m.alfunction 

of the vehicle recovery com.m.and system.), although recourse to water 

pickup becam.e necessary twice in the succeeding seven years (once in 

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July 1967, again in August 1969). 

In the context of its operational utility, exploitation of technology, 

and enhancem.ent of the nation I s fund of intelligence inform.ation, Corona 

had to be rated an outstanding success. Originally considered an 

interim. system. and assum.ed to have, at best, three or four years of 

operational utility, Corona rem.ained the sole source of overflight 

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intelligence for the United States for nearly five years, and was 

a prim.ary source of basic inform.ation 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 I 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. 

Corone" achievements were legion. Among those accounted 

most memorable when the program ended was a list of IIfirsts" that 

ranged from IIfirst satellite in polar orbit" through IIfirst 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 E?st, 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 s ucces s to adoption of Corona recovery capsule technology. 

Accessory products of the Corona engineering effort included a 

variety of succes sivel y improved space vehicles (the seve ral 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 outstanding 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 repeatedly 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 intelligenc e over Soviet territory in the 1960s. 

True, only small lots of people knew that until 1965 all of the many 

other U. S. reconnais sance 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 there 

was a sentimental movement to preserve one example for posterity. 

That was a bit more difficult than for Gambit-I, 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 cho sen 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 contributor s to C orona I s 15- year history: 

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Ritland and Bis s el, Worthman and Battle and Buzard, Charyk and 

McMillan and Flax and McLucas, LI ____ ---"I and 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 reconnais sance 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 1960s had demolished plans to rely on readout 

satellites for information about Soviet strategic capabilities. In 1972, 

when Corona was retired, technology finall y had advanced to the point 

at which a readout satellite with the capability envis aged for that 

breed twenty years earlier was realistically achievable. Its need 

was justified, at least in part, by the ur gency of continuing in an era 

of detente the sort of coverage Corona had provided for more than a 

decade of cold war 0 

And one final item: the bill. The 1958 program estimate 

for what it was as sumed would be a total of 12 Corona mis sions 

(plus four launches to test equipment and concepts) was about $59 

million. Some early optimists had thought it could be bought off 

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for $20 million or s 0- -plus launch and launch vehicle costs. The 

total co st, through May 1972, was between $810 and $950 million. 

(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 

$7 million for each attempted Corona mission; what with odds and 

ends not accounted for elsewhere, $8 million was 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, II 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 becaus e 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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1. Corona Briefing Portfolio, 22 Jan 59. 

2. 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. 

3. Msg 3555, R.M. Bissell, D/ Dir CIA, to MajGen O. J. Ritland, 

Cmdr, 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. Msg 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. Msg 8200, CIA to LMSD, 27 Feb 61; msg 1007, CIA to Battle, 

13 Oct 60. 

6. "Fact Sheet, Corona, II 6 Apr 61; "Corona Performance Chart, II 

May 62, both in SAFSS files; msg 4221, CIA to BMD, 13 Nov 59. 

7. Details of the origins and early operations of the Corona program 

are provided in Ch. 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. 

9. LMSD Planning Proposal: A Convergent Stereoscopic Camera 

System, about Sep 60, in SAFSP files. 

10. MFR, Col P. E. Worthman, Corona ofc, 23 Jan 61, subj: LMSC 

Proposal - Stereo Triple Prime; MFR, Maj H. C. Howard, 

Office SAF, Mis siles 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 s ubj, all in SAFSS / SAFSP file s • 

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13. 

14. 

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Msg s 9468 and 9559, ClA to LtCol C. L. Battle, Corona Ofc, 

30 Mar and 6 Apr 61; msgs 8691 and 9240, ClA to LMSD, 

13 Mar and 28 Mar tJl, all in SAFSP files. 

MFR, LtCol R. J. Ford, Corona ofc, 25 May 61, no subj, in 

SAFSS file s • 

Memo, J. V. Charyk, U/Sec AF, and R.M. Bissell, D/Dir 

ClA, to Dir DlA, 7 Feb 62, subj: Exploitation; memo, Charyk 

and Bissell to DIA, 12 Feb 62, same subj, in DNRO files; see 

also Vol I, this ms s. 

Memo, J. V. Charyk, U /SAF to Dir DlA, 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/lntel, 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. 

15. NRP Rpt to FlAB, 1961: National Satellite Reconnais sance 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. 

16. 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. 

17. See Vol II, this ms s, for details of E-6 development; memo, J. V. 

Charyk, U /Sec AF, to Chm, FlAB, 15 Jun 62, subj: Status of 

Satellite Reconnaissance Program, and incl, same date, "Summary 

of Satellite Reconnais sance Program, " in NRP Rpt to FlAB, 1962, 

in SAFSS file s • 

18. Memo, Charyk to Chm FlAB, 15 Jun 62; memo, Curtin to Charyk, 

13 Mar 62. 

19. Ltr, I IClA, to Col C.L. Battle, Corona ofc, 13 Ju1 62, 

no subj, SAFSS files; rpt, 241 Progm Perf, May 64, in Goppert 

files. 

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20. Rpt, Summary of Satellite Reconnaissance Program, 27 Sep 62; 

rpt, National Reconnais sance System Status, 7 Dec 62, both in 

NRO Rpt to FIAB, 1962, in SAFSS files; NRP Satellite Launch 

History, to Oct 72. See Vol II for further details of E-6 program 

activities. 

21. NRP Rpt to FIAB, 1962, rpts for 27 Sep and 7 Dec 62. 

22. Memo, LtCol H. C. Howard, DNRO staff, to Col C. Battle, 

SAFSS, 18 Sep 62, no subj, in SAFSS files. 

23. See p. 13, "Launch Schedule, II in 7 Dec 62 rpt, "Summary of 

Satellite Reconnaissance Program, II 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. 

24. Msg, 1 12747, CIA to Lockheed, 12 Feb 63; msg, Adic 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. 

25. NRP Rpt to FIAB, 1962, summary for 27 Sep 62; memo, B. 

McMillan, DNRO, to Chm, FIAB, 12 Sep 63, subj: National 

Reconnaissance Program Status, and atchmt, National Reconnaissance Program Status (Satellite), 10 Sep 62, in NRP Rpt to 

FIAB, 1963. 

26. Memo, J .A. McCone, DCI, to DNRO, 9 Apr 63, subj: Special 

Procedures for Satellite Reconnaissance Missions, in DNRO files. 

27. Msg, I 10832, B. McMillan, DNRO, to MGen R. E. Greer, 

Dir SP, 19 Apr 63, in SAFSP files. 

28. Memo, B. McMillan, DNRO, to Chm, FIAB, 1 Oct 64, subj: 

National Reconnaissance Program; memo, J. p. Coyne, FIAB, 

to DNRO, 26 Aug 64, subj: National Reconnaissance Program 

Status; atchmt to memo, McMillan to Chm, FIAB, 4 Aug 64, 

subj: National Reconnais sance Program Status, Atch 1, "National 

Reconnais sance Program Status (Satellite, II 6 Aug 64, all in 

SAFSS file s. The "Program Status Report, II in various formats, 

was prepared for and forwarded to the FIAB on a recurring 

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30. 

31. 

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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-dune, July-December). At the suggestion of the 

FIAB, 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 FIAB 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 semiannuals.) 

Details from: msgs XC-2 and XC-3, US Air Attache, Caracas, 

to Hq DIA, 4 and 5 Aug 64; 1 19015 and 9108, CIA Caracas 

to CIA Hq, 11 and 12 Aug 64; Adic 1877, CIA to NRO, 10 Aug 64; 

Adic 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. Ma2('" NR 9 

Security Ofc, to Col P. E. Worthman, 12 Oct 64, subj: 1 J 

6024 (Attached); msg, I I 6024, DNRO to Dir SP, 9 Oct 64; 

memo, McMillan to Chm, FIAB, 1 Oct 64, subj: National 

Reconnaissance Program, in NRP Rpt to FIAB, 1964. (All in 

dnro, SAFSS files. ) 

Briefing record, DNRO to USIB, 14 Nov 63, in Rpt NRO to 

FIAB, 1963. 

NRP Program Status Rpt, 29 Jan 64; memo, B. McMillan, DNRO, 

to Chm, FIAB, 30 Jan 64, subj: National Reconnaissance Program 

Status, in SAFSS files. 

Msg,1 '---_~12296, Dir/SP to CIA, SAFSP, 13 Feb 64, in SAFSS 

Corona files. 

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Memo, B. McMillan, DNRO, to Chm, FIAB, 4 Aug 64, subj: 

National Reconnaissance Program Status, in NRP Rpt to FIAB, 

1964. See also summary rpts dtd 30 Jan and 2 Jun 64, same 

source. 

NRP Rpt to FIAB 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 Admin, 

NASA, 19 July 1965, no subj; memo note, B. McMillan, DNRO, 

to Brown, 19 July 65, both in DNRO files. 

36. 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. 

37. Memo, A. H. Flax, DNRO, to NRP ExCom, 22 Apr 66, subj: 

CORONA Management in DNRO files. 

38. Memo, B. McMillan, DNRO, to SoD, 30 Sep 65, subj: Comments 

on NRO and NRP, in DNRO files. 

39. NRP Rpt to FIAB, 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. 

40. 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, Maj C. F. Coy, 

Jr, 19 Mar 63, subj: Itek Cost Proposal for (M-2) Single 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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41. 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 lInproved Search Type 

Satellite Reconnais sance 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). 

42. 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). 

43. Memo, E. M. Purcell, Chm, Recon Panel, to DCI, Jul 63, subj: 

44. 

Panel for Future Satellite Reconnais sance Operations, with rpt 

attached. 

Msg, 1 10517 , DNRO to Dir/SP, 11 Jul 63 and 1 10524 

to DirL,/~S=p~,~l6 Jul; msg, 1 1 3160, Dir /SP to CIA, 12 Jul 63; 

msg, Adic 0209, CIA to Itek, 17 Jul 63, all in SAFSP files. 

45. Memo, B. McMillan, DNRO, to Dir, CIA, 11 Sep 63, subj: 

Implementation of the Purcell Panel Recommendations in 

DNRO files; msgs, 1 17862, c=J 7926, c::=J 79ZBJ17925, 

LMSC/CIA to Dir/SP, 27 Aug and 4 Sep 63; msg, ~98, 

DNRO to Dir/SP, 26 Aug 63. 

46. Memo, MGen R.E. Greer, Dir/SP, to Col J.L. Martin, Dir/NRO 

Staff, 6 Nov 63, subj: CORONA Management, in SAFSS files; 

msgs, I I 3480 and j 13509. 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 Nov 63, no subj, in Dir /SP files. 

47. Memo, Berg to Flax, 2 Aug 68. 

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MeITlo, B. McMillan, DNRO, to SoD, Dir CIA, 25 May 64, 

no subj, DNRO files. 

MeITlo, A. H. Flax, DNRO, to Dir Recce, CIA, Dir SP, 22 Jun 66, 

subj: CORONA Planning and Organizational Responsibilities, in 

DNRO files. 

MeITlo, J. J. Crowley, Dir SP, CIA, to D/Dir Sat Ops, NRO, 

12 Dec 61, subj: CORONA PrograITl History, with atch: II A Century 

of Corona, II in SAFSS files. 

MeITlo, J. J. Crowley, Dir SP, CIA, to DNRO, 24 Feb 69, subj: 

The Utilization of UTB in the CORONA PrograITl, in DNRO files. 

Report of the Hexagon Review COITlITlittee, 20 Jun 69 (ChITl, 

F. R. Naka); Second Report of Hexagon Review COITlITlittee, 

4 Nov 69; Third Report of Hexagon Review COITlITlittee, 22 Jan 70; 

ITleITlO, J. L. McLucas, DNRO, to NRP ExCoITl, 2 Feb 70, subj: 

Adequacy of Corona/Hexagon Overlap; ITleITlO, F. R. Naka to 

DNRO, 28 Jan 70, subj: Second and Third Reports of the Review 

COITlITlittee; ITleITlO, R. HelITls, Dir CIA, to DNRO, 5 Feb 70, 

subj: Adequacy of the Corona/Hexagon Overlap; ITleITlO, L. A. 

DuBridge, SciAdv to Pres, to Dr J.L. McLucas, DNRO, 

12 Feb 70, subj: CORONA/HEXAGON Overlap, all in DNRO and 

ExCoITl files. 

Rpt, "IITlproved Corona SysteITl, 'I ap~arently prepared by 

Corona project office for U--___ ---lJ NRO COITlptroller, 

28 Oct 68, in SAFSS files. 

MeITlo, A.H. Flax, DNRO, to DSoD, 26 Jun 67, subj: FY-1968 

Obligation and Expenditure Indications for the NRP, in NRP 

ExCoITl files. 

MeITlo, A.H. Flax, DNRO, to DSoD, 6 July 67, subj: National 

Reconnaissance PrograITl (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. 

57. Memo, BGen R.A. Berg, Dir/NRO Staff to Dr D. Steininger, 

PSAC, 13 Jun 68, no subj, NRO files. 

58. NRP Rpt to FIAB, Nov 65-Apr 66, SAFSS files. 

59. See particularly, NRP ExCom Minutes, mtg of 20 Aug 68 In 

N RO files. 

60. 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. 

62,. 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. 

63. Position paper (BoB), "The Need for the Hexagon Photogr aphic 

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. ) 

64. Ltr, R. P. Mayo, Dir /BoB, to R. Helms, DCI, 22 Mar 69, no 

subj; Itr, L.A. Bross, CIA, to J. L. McLucas, DNRO, 4 Apr 69, 

no subj, both in DNRO files. 

65. 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. 

66. 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 Feb 69, subj: Briefing to the Deputy 

Secretary of Defense; msg, I 11018, 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 ~ ~ 

(Land Panel on Reconnaissance), to Pres, 6 May 69, all in 

DNRO files; interviews, Maj H.S. Coyle and S.H. Watts, by 

R. PerTY, 23 Mar 73, LtCol F. Hofmann, by R. Perry, 

27 Mar 73. 

Memo, L.A. Snyder, Corona ofc, to various, 29 Jul 69, subj: 

Minutes of Meeting Regarding CORONA Mission 1107, in SAFSS 

files. 

Memo, C. Duckett, Dir CIA Reece 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. 

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. 

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; Itr, McLucas to Newell, 26 Mar 70, 

no subj; both in DNRO files. 

Memo, ColL.L. Rall, AsstDir, DIA, for Mapping, Charting. 

Geodesy, to DNRO, 31 Mar 70, subj: DISIC Launch Schedule, 

in SAFSS files. 

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75. Ltr, R.S. Cline, Dir/IntelandRes, Dept of State, toR. Helms, 

Dir, CIA, 4 Sep 70, no subj, DNRO files. 

76. 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.) 

77. 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. 

78. Ltr, R. Helms, Dir CIA to D. Packard, D/SoD, 17 Nov 70, no 

subj, in DNRO files. 

79. 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. McLllcas. DNRO. 3 Feb 71, no subj, 

both in DNRO files; memo, liDIA, to McLucas, 

20 Feb 71, subj: Talking Paper on Need for Scheduling Adjustments, 

in DNRO files. 

80. 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. Msg, Whig 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, II SAFSP. 

83. Early Samos flights returned small lots of inferior data in 1961. 

See Vol II. 

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Rpt to President's FlAB, 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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