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A Big Shakeup In The Russian Space Program

Borisov Yuri Borisov, former head of Roscosmos (Source: Kremlin.ru) The more things change… by Bill Barry Tuesday, May 27, 2025 With everything else going on recently, you may have missed what has been happening in the Russian space program since the start of 2025. There have been substantial changes beginning in February which will impact US-Russian space relations. The first public evidence of the internal upheaval was when Yuri Ivanovich Borisov, head of Roscosmos since 2022, was suddenly replaced by Dmitry Vladimirovich Bakanov on February 6. Reports in the Russian space press suggest that this change in leadership came as a complete surprise to those in the industry. The Kremlin simply announced on social media that morning that Borisov had been relieved of his duties. When pressed on the issue later that day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Sergeyevich Peskov said that there were no complaints about Borisov’s work. Peskov characterized the change as simply a regular staff “rotation.”[1] While Borisov was generally considered a steady and effective leader, especially after the antics of his mercurial predecessor Dmitry Rogozin, his tenure was plagued by continuing problems. Bakanov Dmitry Bakanov (Source: Transport.gov.ru) The failure of Russia’s first science mission to the Moon since 1976, the much-anticipated Luna 25 probe in August 2023, may have been the most embarrassing incident on Borisov’s watch, but it was only one of many.[2] Under Borisov, like his predecessors, Roscosmos has continued to face charges of corruption, particularly in relation to major construction projects. This includes the on-going development of the Vostochny Cosmodrome in eastern Russia, and the new Moscow headquarters for Roscosmos – which features the 47-story National Space Center tower. Both projects are far behind schedule, suffering cost overruns, and have repeatedly been investigated for a variety of legal/financial irregularities. Although Roscosmos has not suffered a launch failure since 2018, the rate of space launches has been anemic for the last decade. Soviet/Russian space launch rates haven’t been this low since 1961.[3] tower Artist’s depiction of the Russian National Space Center Tower (Source: Mos.ru) Perhaps more telling than the launch rate is the fact that the bulk of Russian launches continue to be conducted on the Soyuz launch vehicle. Fifteen of the 17 Russian launches in 2024 were on versions of the Soyuz. Although much improved over the years, the Soyuz launch vehicle is a derivative of the venerable R-7, the rocket used to launch Sputnik in 1957. Last December 25th, Russia celebrated the 2,000th launch of the R-7 family of vehicles.[4] This is an impressive record, but it is also a revealing statistic about their limited progress in launch vehicle development over the last 60+ years. The long-promised deployment of modernized launch vehicles (and spacecraft) continues to slip to the right. The flagship of new launch vehicles is the Angara family of rockets. This project was begun in 1992 to create an all-Russian booster that would eliminate dependence on Ukrainian rocket makers and the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan. However, the first launch of the light version (Angara 1.2) didn’t happen until July 2014. Test of the heavy-lift Angara A5 (a replacement for the Proton launch vehicle) came just six months later. But, after 11 years, there have been a total of just nine Angara launches. The two non-Soyuz launches last year were an Angara 1.2 and an Angara A5. While there continues to be much talk about other launch vehicles and assorted new designs using cutting edge propellants or featuring SpaceX-style reusability, there has been little visible progress. launch Above: Launch of Sputnik, 4 October 1957 (Source: NASA) Below: Launch of Resurs-P No. 5, 25 December 2024 (Source: Roscosmos)launch Given the rather sad recent record for the once mighty Soviet space program, you may wonder how Borisov lasted as long as he did. But it was widely recognized that he had done a good job under very difficult circumstances. His real challenge was dealing with the sanctions imposed on Russia following the second invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the evaporation of the financial lifeline from NASA for International Space Station support in October 2020. Russian officials continue to tout the Kremlin talking points that claim Western sanctions have actually strengthened their economy. However, the fact is that the sanctions have been having a powerful effect, especially since 2022, including in the space sector. In particular, Russian satellite production has been crippled by the lack of access to Western electronic components due to the sanctions. A long-standing weakness, the Russian electronics industry has been hard-pressed to develop and produce domestic replacements for the components they can no longer legally acquire from the West. Last May the state-owned Rostec defense conglomerate announced that the Express-AMU4 satellite would be the first Russian satellite made with entirely domestic components.[5] This satellite is predicted to be completed in 2026. satellite Artist’s conception of Express-AMU4 (Source: www.reshetnev.com) After attacking Ukraine again in early 2022, many commercial customers for Russian launches cancelled their contracts. This left Roscosmos in the awkward position of having many launch vehicles prepared, but unable to come up with payloads for them. In October 2023, Roscosmos head Borisov found himself explaining on Russian television that the total production capability of Russia is only 40 satellites per year.[6] Russian President Putin was quick to demand that Russia move to serial production of satellites and Borisov responded with a plan that is supposed to ramp up satellite production to 400 per year by 2030.[7] The Russian civil space program had been critically dependent on financial support from the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Initially rationalized in the West as an investment that would reduce International Space Station costs and prevent proliferation of missile technology by unemployed Russian engineers, temporary US financial support quickly became an expectation. Even after the Russian economy found itself awash in oil revenues in the early 2000s, Roscosmos officials pled poverty and insisted on renegotiation of financial arrangements with NASA at every turn.[8] The Russian civil space program had been critically dependent on financial support from the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even after the Russian economy found itself awash in oil revenues in the early 2000s, Roscosmos officials pled poverty and insisted on renegotiation of financial arrangements with NASA at every turn. Under President Putin, funding flowed into reconstituting the GLONASS satellite navigation constellation and numerous new military space and missile projects, but the civil space program was expected to support itself from “off-budget” sources. The primary source of such revenues under Putin was cooperative agreements, which entailed international partners effectively paying Russia to “cooperate” on various projects. While there were quite a few partners willing to pay for Russian space services, it was NASA’s big budget and devotion to the International Space Station (ISS) partnership that made them the primary source of funding from “international cooperation.” The 2002 US decision to rely on Russia for ISS crew transportation, rather than build a US crew return vehicle, was a godsend for Roscosmos. As the political relationship soured, especially after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Roscosmos could continue to raise the price for Soyuz seats while its leader Dmitry Rogozin continued to bite the hand that fed him. Whether Russian leaders were too wedded to the cash flow (and the opportunities for embezzlement) or simply underestimated the capabilities of US industry, Roscosmos appeared to be unprepared when the SpaceX Crew Demo-2 mission succeeded in the summer of 2020. The $90 million Russia received for the launch of astronaut Kate Rubins on Soyuz MS-17 in October 2020 would be the last of the easy money.[9] Rogozin didn’t last long after that, and Yuri Borisov was brought in to fix the problems. The fact that Roscosmos continued to function despite the loss of NASA funds and the escalation of sanctions in 2022, is a testament to Borisov’s focus on the financial bottom-line and his managerial skill. His successor, the 39-year-old Dmitry Bakanov, has big shoes to fill. Although 31 years younger than his predecessor, Bakanov has enjoyed a meteoric rise through his short career. While working as an auditor at several banks he completed his master’s degree in economics in 2007. In 2008, he joined OAO Sitronics, a Russian microelectronics company, where he quickly moved from auditor to head of procurement. Three years later he was appointed president of the Gonets company. The Gonets satellite constellation provides secure store-and-dump communications. These satellites are a derivative of the military Strela communication satellites and Gonets services have been in high demand during the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine.[10] In 2016, Bakanov was promoted to director general of Gonets. In 2019, Bakanov received another promotion, this time into government service as the director of the Digital Transformation Department of the Russian Ministry of Transportation. Three years later he was promoted to Deputy Minister of Transportation. In the publicly released transcript of his March 31 meeting with President Putin, Bakanov’s work at Gonets was cited as the reason for his promotion to Director General of Roscosmos.[11] In addition to his experience in government and the space industry Bakanov comes with the cachet of a deep family connection to the space program. His father was a military engineer working at Baikonur, when Dmitry was born there in 1985. This was another point highlighted by President Putin in his public chat with Bakanov in March. Putin meeting Dmitry Bakanov (L) meets with President Putin (R) on 31 March 2025. (Source: Kremlin.ru) Leadership changes ripple through any organization and there have been plenty of them following Bakanov’s promotion to Roscosmos. Interestingly, Yuri Borisov didn’t simply retire to his dacha, but a dozen days after being fired was appointed as the special Presidential Representative for International Space Cooperation.[12] This was a position that had been held for several years by legendary cosmonaut Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev. On March 24, it was announced that Krikalev was being appointed as the Deputy Director General of Roscosmos for Manned and Automated Complexes.[13] Over the coming weeks there were several other changes in senior positions at Roscosmos and the appointment of new temporary heads of several major organizations under Roscosmos, including prime civil space company RSC Energia. During the first week of May, Bakanov made his first official visits to three major organizations now under his command: the Khrunichev State Space Research and Production Center, the Central Research Institute for Mechanical Engineering (TsNIMash), and NPO Lavochkin. In addition to briefings and tours of the facilities, Bakanov also took the opportunity to “introduce” the new leaders that he had appointed to each of these organizations.[14] Sometimes called “Putin’s Trump-Whisperer,” Dmitriev is at the forefront of re-opening US-Russian relations this year. The changes at Roscosmos are significant, but for the US there has been another development that may be of more importance. The involvement of the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Alexandrovich Dmitriev, in space policy is both new and concerning. On March 18, during a speech at the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Dmitriev announced that he planned to meet with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to discuss space cooperation with the US: “Our vision for cooperation with Musk goes beyond just Mars – it’s about leveraging the strong expertise within Roscosmos and Rosatom, which could contribute to making a Mars mission more efficient and safer.”[15] Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear corporation (whose senior officials were sanctioned by the Department of State in January) may be capable of supplying nuclear power generators for an outpost on Mars. Russia has signed an agreement with China to provide such a system to the International Lunar Research Station.[16] Rosatom has also been working on nuclear-powered plasma rocket engines that could speed up a trip to the Red Planet. In addition to specific suggestions about ways to cooperate, Dmitriev also made a point of stroking Elon Musk’s ego. During his March 18 speech, Dmitriev called Musk “…a unique leader committed to advancing humanity as a whole…(and)…one of the greatest leaders of our time.”[17] Dmitriev Kirill Dmitriev in a 2020 meeting with President Putin (Source: Kremlin.ru) Dmitriev has been CEO of RDIF since its creation in 2011. Both the RDIF and Dmitriev were sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury in February 2022 following the second invasion of Ukraine. According to the Treasury press release, “While officially a sovereign wealth fund, RDIF is widely considered a slush fund for President Vladimir Putin and is emblematic of Russia’s broader kleptocracy.”[18] Born in Kiev in 1975, Dmitriev came to the US as an exchange student in 1989 with limited English language skills, but finished a bachelor’s degree at Stanford and then an MBA at Harvard. He worked as an investment banker and consultant at Goldman Sachs and other companies in the West, prior to moving to Moscow in 2000. It isn’t clear howå Dmitriev came to then-Prime Minister Putin’s attention in 2011, but the Treasury Department sanction press release mentions a connection to Katerina Vladimirovna Tikhonova, Putin’s younger daughter. Dmitriev’s wife, Natalia Valerievna Popova, is reportedly a long-standing friend of Tikhonova and works as her deputy at the Innopraktika Foundation.[19] According to former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election, Dmitriev was one of several Kremlin representatives that made contact with the Trump team immediately after that election. Dmitriev reportedly told representatives of the incoming administration that “he had been tasked by Putin to develop and execute a reconciliation plan between the United States and Russia.”[20] Sometimes called “Putin’s Trump-Whisperer,” Dmitriev is at the forefront of re-opening US-Russian relations this year.[21] On February 23, 2025, Dmitriev was named “Special Presidential Envoy on Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation.” This came a week after Dmitriev had been part of the small Russian delegation meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Saudi Arabia on February 18. In late March, Dmitriev continued actively courting Musk on social media. Noting that he had already had a conversation with new Roscosmos Director Bakanov on expanding cooperation with NASA, Dmitriev has repeatedly made the point that 2025 is the 50th anniversary of the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission. In a post on Musk’s social media site X, Dmitriev said “Will 2029 be the year of a joint U.S.-Russian mission to Mars, Elon Musk?”[221] In other posts he parroted criticism of President Biden for refusing help in getting the supposedly “stranded” Starliner astronauts back from the International Space Station.[23] It is worth noting that X is blocked in Russia, but Bakanov reportedly opened an account on the service this spring.[24] In early April, the State Department temporarily lifted the sanctions imposed on Dmitriev so that he could come to Washington, DC, for meetings with Trump Administration officials. He was the first senior Russian official to visit the US since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In addition to his official meetings, Dmitriev made the news media rounds during his stay in Washington, appearing on both Fox News and CNN. It isn’t clear if space cooperation was included in any of Dmitriev’s meetings in Washington, but the next week he continued to highlight US-Russian space cooperation on his social media accounts. Following the launch of Soyuz MS-27 to the ISS (with NASA astronaut Jonny Kim aboard) on April 8, Dmitriev noted “Russian and U.S. cooperation in the space industry continues today.”[25] He again highlighted that the launch was the continuation of an enduring relationship that dates to 1975.[26] Bowersox NASA Associate Administrator Ken Bowersox (C) in a meeting with Roskosmos General Director Bakanov at Baikonur Cosmodrome on 7 April 2025 (Source: Roscosmos) The day before the launch of Soyuz MS-27, the new head of Roscosmos met with NASA Associate Administrator Ken Bowersox at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Bowersox was the senior NASA official at the launch. As has generally been the case since 2022, NASA press reports made no mention of the meeting with the head of Roscosmos. However, numerous Russian press sources covered the meeting. According to the Russian reports, Bowersox and Bakanov discussed cooperation on the ISS, launches from the Baiterek facility under construction at Baikonur, and “plans to commemorate the upcoming Soyuz-Apollo anniversary.”[27] In early May, Roscosmos Director General Bakanov announced that “…we’ll be speaking with [NASA Administrator nominee] Jared Isaacman soon.”[28] Will playing up the supposed advantages of their nuclear industry and launching a charm offensive on Musk work to get Russia the coveted position of integral partner in whatever future space exploration plans come out of the Trump Administration? Given the torrent of Russian press coverage on the topic, it seems clear that this is a high priority for Putin. Throughout April, Russian leaders continued to emphasize the continuity of space cooperation with the US and continued to appeal to Musk’s vanity. In response to a NASA post on X that briefly mentioned the anniversary of the first human spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin on April 12, Dmitriev responded with “NASA celebrating Gagarin. Cooperation will prevail.”[29] Shortly thereafter, Russian President Putin picked up the theme in comments to Russian university students that were widely reported in the Russian state press. Noting that cooperation first started in 1975 with the Apollo-Soyuz docking, Putin said that “This cooperation does not stop. It cannot stop, because so many countries are interested. Especially since we were and still are leaders in many areas. So, we are of interest to our partners.”[30] Putin also picked up on the potential for Rosatom involvement by claiming that plasma propulsion “…is our competitive advantage.”[31] While talking with the students Putin also paid the ultimate compliment to Elon Musk by comparing him to Soviet Chief Designer Sergey Korolev, the hero of early Soviet space successes. X post NASA Social Media Post, 12 April 2025 (Source: NASA) Will playing up the supposed advantages of their nuclear industry and launching a charm offensive on Musk work to get Russia the coveted position of integral partner in whatever future space exploration plans come out of the Trump Administration? Ironically, it may be hard to tell from US sources. But, given the torrent of Russian press coverage on the topic, it seems clear that this is a high priority for Putin. It is telling that when Trump’s representative Steve Witkoff met with Putin in the Kremlin on April 25, the Russian president was accompanied by just two advisors. One of them was Kirill Dmitriev. It seems likely that we’ll see a continued push from Russia for joint celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz in July, as a way to prime the pump on future “cooperation” in space. The US government would be wise to consider the history of the last 35 years of space partnership with Russia before making any commitments with the new leadership of the Russian space program. Endnotes Peskov linked Borisov’s dismissal to the need for rotation at Roscosmos, Izvestia, 6 February 2025. It had been expected that Luna 25 would finally give post-Soviet Russia a robotic space mission success. Their last, fully successful planetary mission was the Vega 2 probe that visited Venus and Comet Halley. It ended its mission in 1987. Eric Berger, Facing “financial crisis,” Russia on pace for lowest launch total in 6 decades, Ars Technica, 15 August 2024. Rita Tityanechko, Two thousand launches: the history of launches of the legendary family of R-7 rockets, ProKosmos.ru, 25 December 2024. (In Russian) First Russian satellite with import substitution to be launched in December 2026, TASS, 3 October 2024. Roscosmos faces grandiose task to start serial production of satellites – CEO, TASS, 27 October 2023. The President of Russia visited RSC Energia, where he held a meeting on the development of the space industry, Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 26 October 2023. (In Russian) As a point of comparison, SpaceX has already launched over 8,000 of its own Starlink satellites since 2018. This observation is based on my personal experience working on the Russia Team at what was then known as the Office of External Relations at NASA Headquarters from 2001 to 2010. Jeff Foust, The limits of space cooperation between the U.S. and Russia, SpaceNews, 22 October 2020. Russia’s Gonets satellite system in high demand for special military operation – official, TASS, 5 June 2024. Meeting with Director General of Roscosmos State Corporation Dmitry Bakanov, Kremlin.ru, 31 March 2025. Putin appoints ex-space agency chief representative for space cooperation, Reuters, 18 February 2025. Update: on May 22 Krikalev was reappointed as Special Representative for Space Cooperation. Krikalev appointed deputy head of Roscosmos for manned, automated complexes, TASS, 24 March 2025. Heading for Angara: Highlights from Bakanov’s visit to three key Roscosmos enterprises, Prokosmos.ru, 6 May 2025. (In Russian) Putin Envoy Dmitriev Says He Will Hold Talks With Musk About Mars Exploration, The Moscow Times, 18 March 2025. The International Lunar Research Station is a planned lunar base project. Although Russia claims to have a leadership role in the project, they appear to be a junior partner to China. Putin Envoy Dmitriev Says He Will Hold Talks With Musk About Mars Exploration, The Moscow Times, 18 March 2025. Treasury Prohibits Transactions with Central Bank of Russia and Imposes Sanctions on Key Sources of Russia’s Wealth, US Department of the Treasury, 28 February 2022. Kirill Dmitriev, Wikipedia entry Report On The Investigation Into Russian Election Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, redacted version posted by the U.S. Department of Justice, p. 157. Martin Fornusek, Who is Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s Trump-whisperer, The Kyiv Independent, 4 April 2025. Karolina Zulkarnaeva, Dmitry Bakanov: Without Russia, it is impossible to fly to other planets, Prokosmos.ru, 24 March 2025. (In Russian) Ibid. Anastasia Tenisheva, Kirill Dimitriev: The Putin Investment Envoy Navigating Peace Talks and Backchannel Diplomacy, The Moscow Times, 7 April 2025. Russia takes an American astronaut to the space station, Reuters, 8 April 2025. Since October 2020, NASA astronauts have continued to fly on Soyuz, and Russian cosmonauts on SpaceX Dragons, under a no exchange of funds barter agreement. Ibid. It is worth noting that formal U.S. – Soviet cooperation in space actually dates to an agreement signed in 1962, a decade before the agreement was signed that led to the Apollo-Soyuz mission flown in 1975. Roscosmos chief, NASA official discuss launches from Baiterek, TASS 7 April 2025. Baiterek is a joint Russian-Kazakh project involving conversion of an unused launch site. Russian officials have been trying to get NASA to invest in this project since the early 2000s. Head of Roscosmos announces upcoming talks with NASA Head candidate, TASS, 9 May 2025. Russian Direct Investment Fund chief convinced Russia-US space cooperation will prevail, TASS, 13 April 2025. Putin says many countries eager to cooperate with Russia in space industry, TASS, 16 April 2025. Russia attractive for international partners in space exploration, says Putin, TASS, 16 April 2025. William P. Barry, D.Phil., has been interested in the Soviet/Russian space program since the 1960s. From 2001 to 2010, he served at NASA in what is now called the Office of International and Interagency Relations. He then served as NASA Chief Historian until his retirement in 2020.

Defense Support Program (Part Three)

DSP The Defense Support Program infrared missile warning satellites were designed to detect the heat of ballistic missile launches. The first satellite was launched in 1971, and several remain in operation today. Over the decades they were modified and adapted to detect a wider range of thermal targets. Here a DSP satellite is carried in the Space Shuttle payload bay during the 1991 mission of STS-44. (credit: NASA) The origins and evolution of the Defense Support Program (part 3): The hangar queens and DSP-1 by Dwayne A. Day Tuesday, May 27, 2025 The Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites had entered development in the mid-1960s with the primary goal of detecting Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) launched from fixed silos in the Soviet Union, and a secondary goal of detecting atmospheric nuclear explosions based on the flash they made in the atmosphere. The satellites were large cylinders with an off-axis infrared telescope pointed out of their top: as the satellite spun at six rotations per minute, the telescope would sweep the face of the Earth, detecting heat sources. As the heat source moved, the data could be processed to reveal launch site, trajectory, velocity, and other information. By the 1980s, DSP’s capabilities were expanding even more, both in space and on the ground. DSP The DSP satellites underwent several major upgrades over several decades, most significantly in the late 1980s and the introduction of "DSP-1." (credit: USAF) Changing threats, emerging opportunities After the initial batch of DSP launches and the Air Force gained experience operating the infrared satellites, in the mid-1970s the DSP mission began to expand, and by the early 1980s they evolved beyond mere attack alert systems to produce valuable data on both ballistic missiles and an increasing list of infrared targets. DSP satellites could be used to detect the missile fields that missiles were launched from as well as their trajectories and impact areas.[1] (See “The origins and evolution of the Defense Support Program (part 1): Infrared for missile warning”, The Space Review, August 22, 2022, and “The origins and evolution of the Defense Support Program (part 2): DSP gets an upgrade,” September 6, 2022.) At high speed the bombers appeared to creep across the infrared sensors on DSP satellites and their slow speed compared to ballistic missiles and satellites led to them being designated “Slow Walker” targets. One of the original reasons DSP had been developed was to warn of Soviet Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) attack. However, by the late 1970s, the Soviets had deployed only 18 of the SS-9 FOBS, all at the sprawling Soviet launch complex at Baikonur, in Kazakhstan—then referred to as Tyuratam by the US intelligence community.[2] Some observers even went so far as to attribute the halt in the deployment of FOBS to DSP’s capabilities, although other reasons, including FOBS’ destabilizing nature, also deserve credit.[3] There were changes as well to various American ground-based warning systems. The unreliable and limited FSS-7 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) radars based around the U.S. coast were gradually updated with a phased array system known as Pave Paws. Likewise, the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) sites were also upgraded to include phased array radars. But while the FOBS threat faded, other threats, including tactical ones, emerged and DSP proved to offer some solution to them. By 1974 and 1975, several studies had shown that the DSP satellite was also useful at detecting tactical ballistic missiles—something that came as a bit of a surprise to those operating the satellites. In addition, DSP satellites also provided useful intelligence data on new Soviet missiles. By measuring rocket burn times and trajectories, this data could be used in conjunction with other data such as intercepted signals from the rockets to assess new ICBM developments. As Soviet Backfire bombers entered service in the 1970s, the DSP satellites began spotting them when they used their afterburners. The Backfire was used both as a strategic bomber and in an anti-shipping role. They were considered major threats to American aircraft carriers. But at high speed they appeared to creep across the infrared sensors on DSP satellites and their slow speed compared to ballistic missiles and satellites led to them being designated “Slow Walker” targets. They were of great interest to the US Navy, which began exploring how to best use DSP data to protect ships at sea from Soviet attack. In the early 1980s, the first vessels of the Soviet Union’s Slava class with their SS-N-12 Sandbox missiles were entering service, designed to attack American aircraft carrier battlegroups. (The Moskva, sunk by Ukraine in the Black Sea in 2022, was a Slava-class cruiser.) They were also joined at sea by the first vessels of the Kirov battlecruiser and Oscar submarine classes. Both the Kirov and the Oscars carried a new, massive anti-ship missile, the aptly named SS-N-19 Shipwreck, which shared some commonality with the earlier Sandbox missile. The Shipwreck could carry either a nuclear or conventional warhead and was powered by a turbojet giving it a range of 555 kilometers. It was over ten meters long and had a top speed of Mach 2.5.[4] DSP The Soviet nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser Kirov was photographed by an American reconnaissance satellite in 1980. Kirov was equipped with powerful anti-ship missiles for sinking American aircraft carriers. DSP was capable of spotting these missiles in flight, targets that were classified as “slow walkers” because they moved slower than ballistic missiles across the satellite’s field of view. (credit: Harry Stranger) The vessels could receive the locations of US aircraft carriers from RORSAT and EORSAT satellites and feed this information into the guidance systems of the missiles, which then burst out of the launch tubes on the deck of the ship, or from under the ocean, with the aid of two booster rockets. These booster rockets produced infrared signatures visible from space, but only for a short period of time. Like the Backfire bombers, such targets were also labeled “Slow Walker.” The new sensors on satellites DSP 5R and 6R could detect them.[5] By designating a special Area Of Interest (AOI) on the Earth and increasing the sensor’s sensitivity for this area, DSP could provide advance warning of an attack against US or NATO ships. The Oscar submarine was particularly worrisome because it was very difficult to track and the launch of a dozen missiles might be the first indication a US Navy admiral had that his fleet had been targeted. Other Slow Walker targets included the SS-N-12 on the Slava cruisers and the Kiev-class aircraft-carrying cruisers, the much-feared AS-4 Kitchen anti-ship missile fired by the Backfire bomber, and the SS-N-22 Sunburn missile also deployed during the 1980s. The AS-4 performed a rapid climb to altitude soon after launch which made it visible from space. The Sunburn, although not as massive as the Shipwreck, flew at speeds greater than Mach 2.5 and it covered its maximum range in under three minutes, meaning that there was little advance warning of its approach and almost no time to defend against it. Its small size made it difficult to detect on radar as it skimmed over the waves. Detection, classification, and notification of the potential target were vital in the short period of time available. A US Navy collection team first visited the DSP’s Overseas Ground Station in Nurrungar, Australia, in 1983, and a formal Operational Requirements Document was drafted in 1984 and rewritten in the late ’80s. The initial warning was apparently delivered by voice through a communications link from NORAD using an AFSATCOM channel. Later the Navy began a program to develop a direct receiving capability on command ships and known as Radiant Ivory. The overall effort was known as the Slow Walker Reporting System (SWRS).[6] The capability was almost certainly integrated with other Navy systems for detecting Soviet ships by satellite. (See “Shipkillers: from satellite to shooter at sea,” The Space Review, June 28, 2021, and “Spybirds: POPPY 8 and the dawn of satellite ocean surveillance,” The Space Review, May 10, 2021.) By the early 1980s a new threat had also emerged: SS-20 Saber mobile land-based missiles deployed in the Western USSR. The SS-20 carried three warheads and had a range of 5,000 kilometers. Because it was launched from a wheeled vehicle, detecting it was particularly difficult since it could simply fade into the forest. In 1984, more SS-20 bases were built than in any other year. This growing threat prompted the Pentagon to take action. After a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in March 1984, the Air Force moved the Atlantic DSP satellite, at 70 degrees west, eastward to a position at 37 degrees west. The satellite was possibly turned over to the control of the new European ground facility which had become operational in Kapaun, Germany, in 1982. By the end of the year, the JCS decided to leave the satellite at this position. By the 1980s, DSP had evolved from a system primarily designed to detect strategic ballistic missiles to a system that could provide detection and warning of many other kinds of threats, including those to tactical forces. The satellites also detected the flash of meteoroids exploding in the atmosphere. Although military users considered this data of no utility, in later years, civilian scientists sought access to the data for understanding the risk of asteroids impacting the Earth, a subject that became much more prescient when a meteorite exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013, causing many injuries.[7] DSP did not operate alone. Another infrared detection system mounted on classified satellites in highly elliptical orbits also provided data. That system, known by the general designation of “DSP-Augmentation,” provided overlapping coverage and different viewing angles than DSP satellites high over the Equator. The multiple data sources were integrated on the ground to produce a better understanding of the targets, but there is almost no information on DSP-A other than its existence. By the 1980s, DSP had evolved from a system primarily designed to detect strategic ballistic missiles to a system that could provide detection and warning of many other kinds of threats, including those to tactical forces. Soon, that capability would become highly valuable, and famous. DSP There were two DSP ground stations in the early years of the program. One was located outside of Denver, Colorado, and the other was at Nurrungar in Australia. The Nurrungar station was politically sensitive, and US officials worried that a change in government could result in its closure. (credit: Aviation Week & Space Technology) Increasing survivability As DSP became an important military asset in the 1970s, Air Force leaders were aware of its vulnerabilities. Early efforts focused on reducing the satellites’ vulnerability to radiation as well as possible blinding by lasers. But perhaps the most obvious vulnerabilities were the two large ground stations: the Continental Ground Station (CGS), located north of Denver, Colorado, at Buckley Air National Guard Base, and the Overseas Ground Station, located in a remote location in Australia known as Nurrungar. The Colorado ground station in particular had large satellite domes that were only a few hundred meters from public roads and small businesses. A Soviet Spetznaz special forces team with a rocket launcher in the back of a pickup truck could shoot at them from across the street. By the mid-1970s, the Air Force began initial development of the Simplified Processing Station, or SPS, a smaller, transportable DSP ground station. Early Air Force plans called for deployment of up to five SPS ground stations in various locations, including the continental United States and overseas. However, over time the SPS grew in size and cost, and the Air Force had difficulty gaining support for it. Eventually only one SPS was built. By 1981, the SPS was set up for testing at the decommissioned Cornhusker Army Ammunition Plant in Nebraska. The system was designed to be transportable within 30 days, and after an operational testing and evaluation phase it became the Small CONUS Ground Station. In 1982 the station was packed up and then deployed to Kapaun, Germany, where it became known as the European Ground Station (EGS). The Cornhusker site was closed.[8] DSP The potential vulnerability of the DSP ground stations led the Air Force to seek new solutions. One was the Mobile Ground Terminal that was packed into several road and air-mobile trailers. In time of crisis, the MGTs could be dispersed to remote locations in the American southwest. During Operation Desert Shield in 1990, MGTs were transported to the Middle East and used to warn of Scud missile launches. (credit: USAF) Instead of deploying multiple fixed SPS, which would still be vulnerable to attack, the Air Force began development of an even smaller system known as the Mobile Ground Terminal (MGT). The MGTs would be carried on a fleet of trucks to be kept at a base in the American southwest and intended to head out into the desert in times of heightened international tension. The trucks would drive to obscure locations where their crews could set up satellite antennas to communicate with Defense Support Program (DSP) missile warning satellites in case the balloon went up. Unlike the post-apocalyptic vehicles of Mad Max movies, they did not look that different from commercial trucks on American highways. But they were a vital part of a suite of upgrades and improvements made to the DSP satellites and support infrastructure in the second decade of their existence. The Air Force sought to procure five MGTs. The first MGTs arrived at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1984. From there they could also be loaded into aircraft to be transported around the world.[9] DSP In the 1970s, the Air Force expected to eventually launch all of its payloads aboard the space shuttle. This artist impression shows a DSP satellite carried by the shuttle. Although generally accurate, the telescope barrel is too long. (credit: Aviation Week & Space Technology) Hangar queens DSP satellites 5 and 6 had remained in storage for many years, undergoing periodic upgrades while their newer sister spacecraft had been lofted into orbit soon after leaving the production facility. But by the early 1980s it was not clear which launch vehicle would actually carry them into orbit. Originally, the satellites were to be made compatible with the Titan 34D/IUS configuration and the shuttle/IUS. But the Inertial Upper Stage program had fallen behind schedule and the Air Force decided to procure additional Transtages for use with the Titan 34D to serve as backup. This decreased the likelihood that the satellites would be grounded awaiting a launch, but meant that two satellites would each have to be made compatible with three launch vehicles—an expensive proposition. In early 1982, Space and Missile Systems Division (formerly SAMSO) appealed to Air Force headquarters for relief. In May, USAF headquarters directed that they drop the shuttle requirement and make satellite 5 compatible with the Titan 34D/Transtage and 6 with the Titan 34D/IUS.[10] A new infrared sensor was to act as the prototype for those mounted on satellites 14 and on, which would have greater lifetimes and capabilities. The sensor had a significantly increased number of infrared detectors, which gave the satellites the ability to not only detect the missile field that an ICBM had been launched from, but the specific silo it had come out of. This meant that the satellites could now be used not only to warn of attack, but to plan America’s nuclear counterattack by identifying empty Soviet silos as opposed to those still containing ICBMs. DSP satellites 5 and 6 had remained in storage for many years, undergoing periodic upgrades while their newer sister spacecraft had been lofted into orbit soon after leaving the production facility. But by the early 1980s it was not clear which launch vehicle would actually carry them into orbit. The new infrared sensor not only had increased capabilities, but also had a new cooling system designed to increase its lifetime, something that would prove amazingly successful. It also had two optical sections, with a “corrector lens” mounted inside the sunshade, apparently to protect against attempts to blind the satellites with lasers on the ground. In addition to the sensor and internal modifications to the satellites, more solar cells had to be added. The early satellites in the program had solar cells on paddles, surrounding the satellite body, and covering the conical section at the base of the sensor. But as the satellites evolved, more electrical boxes, including the platform for Advanced RADEC I nuclear burst detectors, were added to the conical section, decreasing the number of solar cells. This was offset by adding more solar cells to the body and the paddles. But the increased power use of the new sensor demanded even more cells and as a result new "notched" solar paddles were fitted to the satellites, increasing their area. Power generation for 5R and 6R was 890 watts.[11] By April 1984, Flights 6 and 7, serving as backups, had mis-identified several missile launches. In May of 1984, satellite F-9 suffered serious anomalies. F-9 had been troubled its entire lifetime, particularly suffering problems with its sensor. Unlike the earlier problems with the sensor, these problems included a fuel leak as well as problems with the KGP-29A encryption unit.[12] Air Force Space Command (which absorbed ADCOM, among other organizations) requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff approve a new DSP launch. Approval was given and the launch was scheduled for December 15, 1984. This was satellite 6R. Its launch slipped a week due to problems with the booster and it was launched on December 22, 1984—a decade after it was built. The satellite was launched atop Titan 34D-13 from Florida, and designated Flight 12 on orbit. Flight 12, unlike its sister satellite 5R, had an additional capability referred to as “second color.” This was a set of mercury cadmium telluride detectors capable of detecting emissions in the 4.3-micron band. They were apparently attached to the end of the focal plane array to give the sensor increased capability to detect above-the-horizon targets—mainly the second stages of ICBMs firing above the North Pole. To fully exploit this capability, F-12 would have to be located at the Indian Ocean spot so it could view the hot exhaust of the ICBMs tail on, but this is not where it was initially placed. F-12's new capabilities led to a more extensive period of testing. Whereas F-11 had been declared operational in less than two weeks, F-12 took five months, becoming operational in May 1985. While it was being tested, both F-6 and F-7 had been lost. F-7 had lost Earth lock and began drifting off station, uncontrolled. F-6 suffered the same problem but was boosted out of geosynchronous orbit in early March after end-of-life testing. Sometime during its testing, F-12 apparently took a new spot over the Pacific, moving from 134 degrees to approximately 152 degrees west. Also, as previously noted, F-10 over the Atlantic had shifted to a new position at 37 degrees west over the Atlantic, apparently under the control of the new ground station at Kapaun, West Germany. This meant that the operational satellites now occupied two new spots and one old spot: 153 degrees west, 37 degrees west, and 69 degrees east. As F-12 became operational at the new Pacific spot, F-11 was shifted to take over the Indian Ocean spot from the troublesome F-9, which was placed in reserve as the Eastern Hemisphere Limited Reserve Satellite at 75 degrees east. F-8 continued to serve in this backup role for the Western Hemisphere. By the time F-12 was operational, the constellation was in decent shape, with problems only with the backup F-8. But the sensors for F-10 and the older satellites were already exceeding design life, so the Joint Chiefs ordered that satellite 5R be launched in late September 1985. The satellite was shipped to the Cape in August and mated to its booster in preparation for launch. These plans were to crash headlong into a series of calamities that befell the US military and civilian space programs. Dark days for the American space program On August 28, 1985, a Titan 34D flying out of Vandenberg in California and reportedly carrying the seventh KH-11 reconnaissance satellite failed to reach orbit. This failure prompted a delay in the planned DSP launch from Florida. In January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, throwing future military space launches aboard the shuttle into doubt. Then, on April 18, 1986, a spectacular explosion of a Titan 34D at Vandenberg destroyed the last of the KH-9 Hexagon reconnaissance satellites, creating a toxic cloud and raining pieces of the classified satellite around the launch site. Because DSP satellite 5R would launch on the same kind of rocket that had failed in August 1985 and April 1986, the Air Force was unwilling to launch it until the problems had been fully identified. By June 1986, satellite 5R was removed from its launch vehicle and sent back to TRW, the manufacturer. The American military space program was firmly grounded. The on-orbit DSP constellation continued to function, although some of the satellites were showing their age. F-8, the backup, had lost its star sensors and suffered problems with its reaction wheel. It was written off by early August 1986. F-9 was running low on propulsion fuel. The active satellites had lost some backup capabilities, meaning that they could fail completely with the loss of a single component. F-11 was the most worrisome of these. Even before the April Titan 34D explosion, Air Force Space Command was concerned about booster availability. Satellite 14 was scheduled for a launch aboard the shuttle in May 1987, and if 5R were lost during launch, they would be in major trouble. In addition, the Air Force had begun procurement of the Complementary Expendable Launch Vehicle to pick up some of the slack from shuttle delays. But the combination of all the failures led to a “bow wave” effect as all of the military’s payloads began to slip further and further back and many had to be reconfigured for launch on the CELV, later renamed the Titan IV. Military and intelligence satellites began to stack up in clean rooms around the country. DSP The 13th DSP satellite launched was actually the fifth one built and had spent a decade in storage until it was upgraded with a new sensor. (credit: USAF) By 1987, the shuttle was still far from returning to operation, but a contingency plan had been produced to draft the venerable F-7 satellite back into service if need be. Fortunately, the situation was resolved. While the DSP users had been on pins and needles this entire time, the intelligence community had been even more anxious, as the April Titan failure left the United States with only one reconnaissance satellite on orbit. In October 1987, it was joined by another KH-11 imaging satellite. DSP satellite 5R was shipped to the Cape and mated to its booster. On November 28 it was launched into orbit atop Titan 34D-8. It was named Flight 13, finally reaching orbit almost fourteen years after it had first been delivered to the Air Force. Somewhat ironically, the new satellite type was also known as “DSP-1,” although it was the compromise solution resulting from the rejection of a more advanced “DSP II” proposal earlier in the decade. Like its sister, Flight 13 took longer than expected to reach operational status, not achieving this until March 1988, when it relieved F-10 as the Atlantic satellite. F-10 moved to the Pacific slot, replacing F-12. F-12 moved to the Eastern slot, replacing F-11, so that F-12 was now finally in its originally intended location where its additional capabilities would be able to spot the second stages of ICBMs when they fired above the horizon. F-11 was then shifted to a new position at approximately 10 degrees east and coming under the command of the ground control facility at Nurrungar in Australia. F-9 suffered a major failure in April 1988 and was boosted out of geosynchronous orbit. F-7 continued in its backup role. DSP Concern about the costs of several military space programs led in the early 1990s to a proposal for a “DSP II” that would build upon recent technology upgrades but packaged in a smaller spacecraft that could be launched on an Atlas rocket instead of the expensive Titan IV. This proposal was rejected, and the “DSP-1” design remained standard for the next decade. (credit: USAF) DSP-1/Block 14 Both F-10 and F-11 were predicted to fail sometime during 1989, so Air Force Space Command made the decision to launch the first of the newer satellites, number 14, which was originally supposed to fly in 1987. This new satellite was substantially larger than its predecessors and was the result of a DoD decision early in the 1980s to introduce major improvements to the DSP satellite design rather than to develop an entirely new satellite. A few years later, the beginning of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—popularly known as “Star Wars”—complicated the situation, because SDI would require far more advanced missile warning and tracking capabilities than DSP could provide. For complicated reasons, satellite 14 was equipped with sensor 17 (satellite 17 received sensor 14.) Satellite 14 would fly atop the first of the new Titan IV rockets, newly designated as the primary booster for the DSP. The launch was originally scheduled for March 1989, but slipped. On June 14, the satellite roared aloft atop Titan IV K-1 and began its lengthy checkout period as the first of a new, and final, class of DSP satellites known as "Block 14." Somewhat ironically, the new satellite type was also known as “DSP-1,” although it was the compromise solution resulting from the rejection of a more advanced “DSP II” proposal earlier in the decade. Each DSP-1 satellite weighed 2,386 kilograms, had solar arrays providing at least 1,290 watts of power for the required 1,225 watts for the sensor and other instruments. They were intended to have a three-year design life with a five-year goal. Although operating in geosynchronous orbit, these satellites also had a Molniya orbit capability like their predecessors. The satellites also had improved hardening to JCS Level-2 for electromagnetic pulse. The sensors had the second color capability as flown in satellite F-12. The Block 14s also had a new subsystem known as Mission Data Message rebroadcast system (MDM), whose purpose is unclear. MDM apparently didn't initially work as planned. In addition, the satellites carried two Department of Energy sensors to measure electric charges and radiation in the vicinity of the spacecraft. Known as the Magnetospheric Plasma Analyzer and the Synchronous Orbit Particle Analyzer, these instruments helped Los Alamos scientists to determine that the Earth's plasmapause is not simply teardrop shaped but irregular and wavy.[13] The sensors were newer versions of sensors known as Charged Particle Analyzers, which flew on DSP satellites apparently beginning with the Phase II satellites. Their results have been published in several physics papers, where the DSPs were usually referred to as the “Los Alamos Satellites.”[14] The Laser Crosslink System Since the beginning of the DSP program, the Overseas Ground Station in Australia had been a major political vulnerability. In return for operating a ground station on Australian territory, the Australians gained some access to the satellite’s early warning data. But there was always the possibility that a new government would end the agreement, or seek to renegotiate its terms. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the United States military and intelligence communities had lost access to important sites around the world in less-stable countries such as Pakistan, Ethiopia, Iran, and Turkey, and although Australia’s government was considered friendly, there was opposition within the country to becoming too closely aligned with the United States. (Canada also received DSP data through its association with NORAD, and other countries such as Israel have also received data, particularly during the Gulf War, through the use of a truck-mounted Mobile Ground Terminal.) The political situation prompted Air Force officials to seek a way to eliminate reliance upon the OGS, and an obvious solution was to send DSP data and commands through another satellite in orbit. Block 14 satellites starting with number 15 were intended to be equipped with a Laser Crosslink Subsystem (LCS), which was designed to provide secure satellite-to-satellite communication, allowing launch detection information to be passed to another DSP satellite within view of the continental United States and thus eliminating the need to route information through a ground station, up to a DSCS communication satellite, and then down to the United States. The primary contractor for the LCS was McDonnell Douglas, with Kodak supplying the optics. But due to severe design problems, LCS was not available for the first three DSP-1 flights. At least two production LCS systems were delivered to TRW, but the second system failed and was returned to the manufacturer.[15] Ultimately LCS was canceled after $400 million had been poured down what to some people had begun to seem like a bottomless hole. Tentative plans were to deploy LCS on DSP-17 in 1994, and 15 and 16 were supposed to fly with 91 kilograms of ballast.[16] DSP-14 flew with other sensors/systems in place of LCS, including a Strategic Defense Initiative “background and target data sensor” known as UVE for Ultra-Violet Experiment and often referred to as “third color”.[17] It also included two other sensors of unknown characteristics.[18] The satellites had two high-gain antennas for communications channels known as Link-1 and Link-2. The spacecraft also had eight encrypted communications links used to relay and downlink satellite data and command instruction along with their associated receivers, transmitters and antennas. They utilized KG-57 decryption units to protect the satellites from being taken over by a hostile ground facility.[19] After the LCS system was canceled, a Lockheed/McDonnell Douglas team began competing a laser-link system against a TRW developed extremely high frequency crosslink system for the DSP’s successor.[20] But this program was also canceled when the crosslink requirement for the DSP’s successor was eliminated to save weight and cost. DSP The 16th DSP satellite during installation aboard the shuttle Atlantis in 1991. (credit: NASA) DSP Becomes Famous After launch, satellite F-14 took up position over the Pacific, replacing F-10, which was presumably relegated to a backup status. The satellite was apparently originally slated to go to the Atlantic, where its lack of a crosslink would not have been a problem, but troubles with F-10 had led to the decision to send it to the Pacific. F-14 took a long time to declare operational, in part because no formal requirements for operability had been established. Sometime after reaching orbit it began to experience vibrations in its reaction wheel, which was bigger and rotated at higher rpm than the reaction wheels on previous satellites to negate the satellite’s greater mass. The solution was to decrease the rotation speed of the wheel and monitor it closely. On November 13, 1990, another satellite was launched atop Titan IV K-6. Once on-orbit, it was named F-15 and took the European spot at 10 degrees east, replacing F-11. F-11 was apparently assigned to a new backup slot at 110 degrees east, over the East Indian Ocean and probably under control of the ground station at Buckley Air National Guard Base in Colorado. DSPs were heralded as a great asset during the war, since they provided the first warnings of attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia. But there was also some public criticism of their limitations for detecting targets such as tactical ballistic missiles. In summer 1990, the armed forces of Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait, and the United States led the buildup of forces in the Persian Gulf to prepare to attack Saddam Hussein’s military. Iraq possessed numerous Scud medium-range ballistic missiles that could be fired at Saudi Arabia as well as Israel—by attacking Israel, Hussein hoped to fracture the coalition of Arab nations that opposed his invasion. It was clear to the United States military that finding and negating the Scud missiles would be a major effort, and detecting their launches would be extremely important for defending against them. In early 1991, the Persian Gulf War started. During the Persian Gulf War, satellites F-12, F-13, and F-15 were the primary satellites over the theater of operations. F-15 was still undergoing checkout and was not considered operational at the time. One of these satellites was moved to provide better coverage. This was probably F-13 over the Atlantic Ocean, which was most likely moved east. If it was not already, it was apparently placed under control of the Kapaun ground station at this time. Kapaun had now been renamed the European Ground Station (EGS). During the Gulf War the sensitivity of the sensors was increased to detect the cooler Scud missiles. This posed the risk of increasing the number of false alarms—a problem which happened early in the war but was corrected by its end. DSPs were heralded as a great asset during the war, since they provided the first warnings of attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia. But there was also some public criticism of their limitations for detecting targets such as tactical ballistic missiles.[21] DSP The 16th DSP satellite was carried into orbit in late 1991 aboard the shuttle Atlantis. (credit: NASA) On November 28, 1991, another satellite was launched, this time aboard the space shuttle Atlantis during STS-44. Nicknamed by the crew “DSP Liberty”, the satellite was formally named Flight 16 upon release from the shuttle bay.[22] It is most likely that this satellite took over the East spot at 69 degrees east. It relieved F-12, which headed to the East Indian spot. The satellite previously holding this position, the old F-11, may have suffered problems that required it to be moved east to approximately 150 degrees east in the middle of 1991.[23] It was discarded when F-12 took the operational slot at 110 degrees east. Both the first and second DSP-1 satellites suffered from blown fuses in the thermal control systems for their focal plane arrays. This problem was fixed on satellite 16, but it meant that F-14 and 15 could not see certain dimmer targets.[24] By the end of 1993, the Air Force became so concerned at the age of its DSP constellation that it did something that would have been unheard of only a year earlier—considered reversing the DoD decision to no longer use the shuttle for military satellite launches. The Air Force began negotiating with NASA to launch a DSP aboard a shuttle in mid-1995. However, the Air Force decided not to seek another shuttle launch.[25] On December 22, 1994, after several delays, another DSP satellite was launched from Florida atop Titan IV K-14.[26] This was named F-17 upon reaching orbit and most likely took over the Atlantic spot from F-13. F-13 was probably shifted to the East Indian spot where F-12 (formerly satellite 6R, built in 1974) was being discarded after ten years of operation—a dramatic improvement over the satellite’s original 19-month design lifetime, and proof that the problem of the overheating focal plane was apparently solved with spectacular success. In November 1996, the Air Force awarded a contract for development of the Space Based Infrared System, or SBIRS. The first contract was for SBIRS-High, the replacement for the DSP in geosynchronous orbit. At the time, the Air Force planned to launch the first SBIRS geosynchronous satellite in 2002. The Air Force had also canceled production of DSP-24 and DSP-25. Thus, it seemed as if DSP would finally be retired by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. That was the plan, but it was not what happened.[27] Next: DSP, the program that lives forever. Endnotes For a detailed history of the development of missile warning satellites, see: Jeffrey T. Richelson, America's Space Sentinels: DSP Satellites and National Security (2nd edition), University Press of Kansas, 2012, p. 82. Robert P. Berman and John C. Baker, Soviet Strategic Forces: Requirements and Responses, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1982, p. 119. Norman Polmar, The Naval Institute Guide to the Soviet Navy, Fifth Edition, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1991, p. 388. Defense and Aerospace Electronics, August 2, 1993, p. 3. Soviet Military Power, 1987, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 1987, p. 40. See Richelson, pp. 103-105. J. Kelly Beatty, "'Secret' Impacts Revealed," Sky & Telescope, February 1994, p. 26. See Richelson, pp. 89-93. Ibid., pp. 91-93; 148-156. History of Space Division, 1 October 1981-30 September 1982, Dr. Timothy C. Hanley, Dr. Harry N. Waldron, and Elizabeth J. Levack, Space Division History Office, p. 219. Contained in NASA History Division, Reference Collection files: "Air Force Satellites: DSP." Records are unclear on power. 5R and 6R have been reported as having a 890 watt Beginning Of Life and 750 watt End Of Life power generation capability. The 664-680 watts often listed as "power" for the satellites appears to be the power requirements of the satellite and instruments. History of Space and Missile Systems Organization, 1 July 1973-30 June 1975 Dr. Thomas S. Snyder, Timothy C. Hanley, Robert J. Smith, SSgt. Ronald Benesh, Lt.Colonel Earl Goddard, SAMSO History Office, p. 324. Contained in NASA History Division, Reference Collection files: "Air Force Satellites: DSP." Vincent Kiernan, "Defense Satellites Carry Secret Science Instruments," Space News, July 19-25, 1993, p. 25. R.D. Belian, T.E. Cayton, and G.D. Reeves, "Quasi-Periodic Global Substorm Generated Flux Variations Observed at Geosynchronous Orbit," Geophysical Monograph 86, Space Plasmas: Coupling Between Small and Medium Scale Process, American Geophysical Union, pp. 143-148. "McDonnell Douglas delivers second production DSP laser crosslink," Aerospace Daily, January 19, 1993, p. 95. "Dead Weight," Aviation Week & Space Technology, December 16, 1991, p. 11. Statement of Mr. Guido William Aru, Project Leader, System Architecture and Integration, Space-Based Surveillance Division, The Aerospace Corporation, Before the House of Representatives, Committee on Government Operations, Legislation and National Security Subcommittee, February 2, 1994, p.29. Reports on what has replaced LCS on the three DSP-1 (Block 14) spacecraft flown to date have been inconsistent. Air Force spokesman Major Dave Thurston, in a statement released September 24, 1993, stated that "400 pound weights" (as opposed to 91 kilograms--or 200 pounds--quoted elsewhere) have flown on two satellites, although Mr. Aru's statement would appear to contradict this. See: Neil Munro, "U.S. Air Force May Drop Satellite Laser-Link Program," Defense News, October 4-10, 1993, p. 28. Cargo Systems Manual: Defense Support Program (DSP), Operations Division, Payload Operations Branch, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, NASA, March 1, 1991, p. 2-7. "Air Force declassifies DSP program," Military Space, Vol. 9, No. 7, April 6, 1992, p. 2; and "McDonnell Pushing 'Low-Risk' Crosslinks," Defense & Aerospace Electronics, November 9, 1992, p. 5. DSP's Detected Fatal Scud Attack, Aviation Week & Space Technology, April 4, 1994, p. 32. Roelof L. Schuiling and Steven Young, "Atlantis Deploys Early Warning Satellite," Spaceflight, April 1992. Lieutenant Colonel A. Andronov and Captain S. Garbuk, "U.S. IMEWS Space System and Creation of an Advanced Ballistic Missile Launch Detection System," 95UM0227E Moscow ZARUBEZHNOYE VOYENNOYE OBOZRENIYE in Russian No 12, 1994 (signed to press 8 Dec 94) pp. 34-40, English translation in JPRS-UMA-95-011. Jeffrey M. Lenorovitz, "U.S. Copes With Aging DSP Warning Network," Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 28, 1994, p. 20. Ibid., see also: Ben Iannotta, "Shuttle Considered for More AF Launches," Space News, September 20-26, 1993, p. 6. Roger G. Guillemette, "Long-Delayed DSP Launch Casts Shadow on Titan IV's Ambitious Plans," Spaceflight, May 1995. Richelson, p. 237. Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.

A Soviet Venus Probe Finally Crashes To Earth

Venera 8 A museum replica of the Venera 8 descent craft that reentered earlier this month. (credit: NASA) Raiders of the Lost Venus Probe: a post-mortem of an interesting reentry and the confusion it left by Marco Langbroek and Dominic Dirkx Tuesday, May 27, 2025 It caused an unexpected media storm in the first week of May 2025: the uncontrolled reentry, on May 10, of the 53-year-old lander module of a failed Soviet Venera mission from 1972. Called the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft (COSPAR designation 1972-023E, SSC catalogue number 6073), it was the subject of an earlier article one of us wrote here (see “Kosmos 482: questions around a failed Venera lander from 1972 still orbiting Earth (but not for long)”, The Space Review , May 16, 2022). The lander, which was supposed to go to Venus but got stuck in Earth orbit, was designed to survive reentry through the Venus atmosphere. Thus, it is therefore very likely that it survived reentry through Earth’s atmosphere intact, before impacting at an estimated speed of 65 to 70 meter per second after atmospheric deceleration. Not your standard reentry! Maybe, one day, something odd with Cyrillian markings will wash up on an Australian or Indian beach. The media attention to this unusual reentry was unexpectedly high. News venues like the Daily Mail featured spectacular headlines with “Out-of-control Soviet satellite Kosmos could smash into the Earth TODAY”. All this for an object weighing about 500 kilograms and one meter in diameter, with a risk decidedly lower than that of the reentry of a Falcon 9 upper stage. And now it has finally reentered, the big question on everybody’s mind is: where did it reenter, and when exactly? Is there a Soviet time capsule full of ancient (well: 1970s) technology and a few Communist trinkets—the Soviet Union reportedly put patriotic medals in these landers—to be found and collected somewhere? It is very frustrating, but we cannot give a clear answer to that question, much to the dismay of some journalists. That it splashed down somewhere in the Indian Ocean seems to have the best papers, on the face of several reentry model results. Maybe, one day, something odd with Cyrillian markings will wash up on an Australian or Indian beach. Several groups followed the doomed probe as it was coming down the months, weeks, days, and hours before the reentry, and used each new orbit update to run reentry models, trying to forecast when and where it would meet its demise. This included us at the Aerospace faculty of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands, where we were using the upcoming reentry as a test case for a reentry model we have created using the open-source TU Delft Astrodynamics Toolkit (Tudat) developed and maintained at our faculty. Our final assessment with Tudat was reentry around 6:40 UTC near 38 degrees south and 130 degrees east, just south of Australia. But that assessment has a notable uncertainty interval of 1.5 hours on either side of the nominal value (i.e. two full orbital revolutions). Kosmos 482 Figure 1: Evolution of the TU Delft Tudat reentry forecast from November 2024 to May 2025. Over the last half year, the model prognosis has consistently hovered around May 9-10, 2025. Kosmos 482 Figure 2: Evolution of the TU Delft Tudat reentry forecast from 5 to 10 May 2025. Kosmos 482 Figure 3: Nominal reentry position and time by the TU Delft Tudat model, and the uncertainty interval. The blue line is the trajectory over the uncertainty interval. Likewise, reentry models by other groups—the US DoD (CspOC), ESA, EU-SST, and the Aerospace Corporation to name a few—were assessing the reentry, all producing somewhat different results. Although all projected the reentry nominally on the same orbital revolution (looking at the nominal reentry time forecasts, ignoring the considerable error margins), they spread widely in geography. The map below shows the nominal (so excluding error margins) final result of the reentry modelling by various organizations. Kosmos 482 Figure 4: Nominal geographic reentry locations (i.e. without their error margins) for the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft from reentry modelling by several organizations. The table below lists the same final assessments with their error margins. The listed nominal geographic positions for the center times are our estimates, based on these times. Note that an error of one minute in time equals an almost 500-kilometer error in geographic position. Table 1 Source reentry date/time & uncertainty LAT LON Tudat (TU Delft): 10 May 06:40 ± 91 min UTC aftercast 38 S 130 E Tudat (TU Delft): 10 May 06:39 ± 91 min UTC forecast 36 S 127 E Aerospace Corp: 10 May 06:29 ± 120 min UTC forecast 5 S 99 E Roscosmos: 10 May 06:24 ± ? min UTC aftercast 11 N 88 E ESA's Space Debris Office: 10 May 06:37 ± 197 min UTC forecast 31 S 120 E ESA's Space Debris Office: 10 May 06:16 ± 22 min UTC aftercast 35 N 65 E EU-SST: 10 May 06:04 ± 20 min UTC forecast 52 N 0 E CSpOC TIP: 10 May 05:32 ± 12 min UTC aftercast* 40 S 111 E * this TIP cannot be correct as a positive radar detection from Germany at 6:04 UTC was reported by ESA, well outside the listed uncertainty interval In the table, “forecast” means that the assessment was published before the actual reentry; “aftercast” that it is based on a post-reentry reassessment (including, among other things, better values for the actual space weather around the time of reentry used as input in the models, as forecasts used estimates of future space weather.) This highlights how limited geographic sensor distributions and limits in sensor tasking (as well as data sharing), influence the cadence of object tracking and timeliness of orbital data. The spread in results makes clear that reentry predictions are hard: there are too many factors that are not well-known involved. This includes variations in the actual state of the upper atmosphere, under influence of variable solar activity (the flux of solar particles into the upper atmosphere.) The atmosphere models used are, after all, only models, and in forecasting they have to work with estimated and averaged, and hence imprecise values for future solar activity. Hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute, latitude-to-latitude variations in space weather and atmospheric state are difficult to capture in a model. During the first few days of May 2025, space weather forecasts, when compared to reality, were wrong altogether, causing our reentry model to temporarily bump the reentry to May 11 for a few days. Other imperfectly known factors include uncertainties in the actual mass and the actual drag surface presented by the spacecraft, and any variations over time in the latter. While literature generally cites a mass of 495 kilograms for the lander, our modelling actually best matches the historic decay of the orbit observed over the 53-year period 1972–2025,if we use a mass of 480 kilograms, so we used the latter in our modelling. As a showcase for the complications of modelling the dynamics, we could replace this 3% reduction in mass by a 3% reduction in drag coefficient or a 3% increase in drag area and obtain largely identical results. Kosmos 482 Figure 5: Match of observed and modelled orbital evolution for the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft from 1972 to 2025, for a mass of 480 kilograms and 1-meter diameter. The last orbit update for the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft available from CSpOC has an epoch near 00:36 UTC on May 10, some six hours before the reentry is believed to have happened. That is a long time gap and a large window of fast orbital evolution, with plenty of room for uncertainties to develop. However, there are some constraints from later observations. ESA has stated in a blog post on the reentry that there was a last radar detection from Germany (by TIRA) of the object on orbit at 6:04 UTC, and a no-show one revolution later at 7:32 UTC. This would constrain the reentry to somewhere in the interval 6:04–7:32 UTC on May 10. Based on that last radar detection, ESA revised their nominal reentry point forecast from very close to our Tudat estimate, over west Australia, to over the southwest Asian mainland in their aftercast. This highlights how limited geographic sensor distributions and limits in sensor tasking (as well as data sharing), influence the cadence of object tracking and timeliness of orbital data. Gaps of half a day or even a full day or more between orbit updates for satellites are not uncommon: in its the last two weeks, often only one orbital update per day was published for the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft, and late April updates halted for three consecutive days altogether. In addition, publishing new orbit updates sometimes is a slow process, with elements only published half a day or more after the epoch of the orbit. That’s not a problem for your average piece of orbiting space debris, but for an object with a quickly evolving orbit about to reenter, one would ideally wish for very frequent detections and frequent timely orbit updates. But reality is different. What is very unfortunate, is that in this particular case there has not been a high-accuracy post-reentry final TIP (Time of Impact Prediction) published by CSpOC. It has in the past sometimes published post-reentry final TIPs of very high accuracy (listing uncertainty in time as ± 1 minute) that usually highly correlate with actual sightings of the reentry fireball from the ground. Jonathan McDowell and the first author of this article believe that these very accurate final TIPs likely are not based on a reentry model (as “normal” CSpOC TIPs are), but are based on actual observations of the reentry fireball by space-based US military sensors, such as SBIRS satellites. Alas, no such final TIP has been published. And the last TIP that CSpOC did publish clearly is incorrect in light of the radar detection from Germany at 6:04 UTC, which falls outside the TIP uncertainty window. The Russian State Space Agency RosCosmos published a statement on Telegram claiming that their “calculations” indicate that the reentry started at 6:24 UTC west of the Andaman islands in the Indian Ocean, and ended west of Java, Indonesia. The relevant area was in daylight, and most of it is ocean, which would explain why ground-based observations of the reentry are lacking. In Western media, this statement surprisingly has been taken as a kind of “final” verdict on the matter, as if this location and time would be more authoritiatve and accurate than the reentry model results of other organizations. There is no evidence it actually is. The Roscosmos assessment is likely the result of a reentry model extrapolating from an earlier last detection and orbit update—presumably from tracking by an instrument in Russia—just like the other model results, rather than an “exact” determination. There is no information provided about the uncertainty window for this result: one minute, 15 minutes, one hour? Hence it is impossible to assess how meaningful the listed positions and time really are. It also remains an open question how serious one should take Russian state organization statements these days, as sometimes pragmatic considerations (such as deliberate denial of responsibility or risk) are leading. Looking at the various model results, we feel that the reentry most likely happened between about 6:15 and 6:45 UTC (10 May 2025), over southwest Asia or the Indian Ocean. The relevant area was in daylight, and most of it is ocean, which would explain why ground-based observations of the reentry are lacking. Added note: the earlier Space Review article from 2022 discussed the history of the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft, and several related objects that reentered during the 1970-ies and early 1980-ies, in light of questions whether the object was the lander only, or perhaps included parts of the Venera main bus. A new piece of information has since popped up through the efforts of Anatoly Zak, who unearthed a declassified Russian military memo that points out that after the failure to leave Earth orbit, the lander was deliberately released from the Venera main bus by its operators. Marco Langbroek is a satellite tracker and Lecturer in optical Space Situational Awareness at Delft University of Technology, faculty of Aerospace Engineering. He can be reached via M.Langbroek-2@tudelft.nl. Dominic Dirkx is an astrodynamicist and Assistant Professor at Delft University of Technology, faculty of Aerospace Engineering.

From Laboratory To The Moon

book cover Review: From the Laboratory to the Moon by Jeff Foust Tuesday, May 27, 2025 From the Laboratory to the Moon: The Quiet Genius of George R. Carruthers by David H. DeVorkin The MIT Press, 2025 paperback, 456 pp., illus. ISBN 978-0-262-55139-7 US$75.00 Some time this fall, a Falcon 9 will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center carrying three heliophysics spacecraft for NASA and NOAA. Among the satellites on that shared launch is a spacecraft that will observe the Earth at ultraviolet wavelengths looking for emissions from the “geocorona,” a part of the upper atmosphere, to study how space weather interacts with it. The spacecraft was originally known as the Global Lyman-alpha Imager of the Dynamic Exosphere, or GLIDE, but in December 2022 NASA formally renamed it as the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory. While at White Sands preparing for a launch, a secretary came in at the end of the workday and told him it was five o’clock. “AM or PM?” he responded. The renaming is fitting. George R. Carruthers, the namesake of the spacecraft, studied the geocorona during his long career at the Naval Research Lab (NRL). He led development of a telescope, placed on the lunar surface during the Apollo 16 mission, that provided the first images of the geocorona from space. That work generated significant publicity for him, but only in part because of the science: Carruthers was the rare Black scientist working in the space program at the time. In From the Laboratory to the Moon, David DeVorkin, senior curator emeritus at the National Air and Space Museum, provides a thorough biography of Carruthers. His work on Apollo 16 was just part of his career that started by pioneering new technologies in ultraviolet observations from sounding rockets. He worked for decades in the field, becoming widely regarded, particularly among his colleagues at NRL. That alone would likely not make him worthy of a 450-page biography. However, Carruthers started his career in an era where there were very few other Black scientists in the field. Even at college at the University of Illinois just after Sputnik, he was one of the few, if not the only, Black student in his science and engineering classes. He became a role model, and for much of the later years of his career devoted considerable time to educational outreach. DeVorkin notes that Carruthers did experience discrimination, yet “there is no evidence, however, that it ever had an influence on his early life or career.” Indeed, he seemed able to shrug off what he did experience. In one example, a person comes to NRL to interview for a jab and mistakes Carruthers—dressed casually, as was often the case when working his lab—as a janitor. Carruthers laughs it off: “I dress like one, so everybody usually thinks I am.” Even in biographical interviews with DeVorkin and others, Carruthers “maintained his distance” and said little about his feelings about critical moments in his life. That may be linked to an intensity he showed in his work, dating back to college, shutting out everything else to focus on the task at hand. He arrived at the lab early and left late, and frequently worked weekends. While at White Sands preparing for a launch, a secretary came in at the end of the workday and told him it was five o’clock. “AM or PM?” he responded. The book is more of a professional history of Carruthers, in part because he said little about his personal life. DeVorkin writes that because of Carruthers’s reserve, “his voice is heard here less than the author wished.” Even in biographical interviews with DeVorkin and others, Carruthers “maintained his distance” and said little about his feelings about critical moments in his life. That included his decision to apply to become a NASA astronaut, one of thousands of candidates for the famous 1978 class. He had the technical qualifications, but it would also mean ending his research at NRL he was so dedicated to. DeVorkin concludes that his decision to apply has no “simple summation” but instead reflected his passions for both spaceflight and his research. (Carruthers was medically disqualified because of a vision issue.) Despite his groundbreaking work in ultraviolet astronomy in his early career, including the Apollo 16 telescope, his research faded later as his technologies were superseded by new ones, such as CCDs. Near the end of his career, as NRL dealt with limited office space in Washington, Carruthers’s lab was moved into a trailer outside the building where he had been for decades, but he continued work there, even after formally retiring from NRL. He remained fully engaged in educational work, though, until his health declined in his later years. He died in 2020. Should George Carruthers be better known today for his research accomplishes, educational outreach and as a role model? That’s hard to say, and after reading From the Laboratory to the Moon it’s clear his private nature likely contributed to a lack of greater awareness. But with book and, in a few months, the launch of the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, it’s worth reexamining his life and his contributions to science and society. Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

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Launch of First Satellite Data System Satellite In 1976

SDS Launch of the first Satellite Data System satellite in 1976 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. These satellites served as relays for reconnaissance satellites flying over the Soviet Union, beaming their signals directly back to a ground station outside Washington, DC. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection) Spinning in the black: The Satellite Data System and real-time reconnaissance by Dwayne A. Day Monday, May 19, 2025 Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of one of the most secretive communications satellites ever built, a satellite that received images from a reconnaissance satellite transmitted at a frequency that could not be detected from the ground, and then beamed them down to a ground station located outside of Washington, DC. Although many details of the satellite system remain secret to this day, enough is known about it to indicate that it was highly unusual, both in its design and the way it was developed. Using an additional satellite system in high orbit to relay images from ZAMAN satellites in low Earth orbit would be both expensive and complicated. But it also offered advantages over the direct transmission to ground approach. This relay satellite, given the obscure name of Satellite Data System, or SDS for short, was developed under a unique management arrangement. Although it carried a highly classified mission payload—“black” in the jargon of the intelligence community—the satellite itself was developed and procured by the unclassified—“white”—Air Force Space and Missile Systems Office, thus straddling the edge of the shadowy world of satellite reconnaissance, with one foot in the light and the other in the shadows. A declassified history by Vance O. Mitchell, “The NRO, the Air Force, and the First Reconnaissance Relay Satellite System, 1969-1983,” describes how this unusual management relationship was developed—and almost fell apart—during its early years. The CIA and NRO approve data relay In 1968, CIA official Leslie Dirks, who was then the program manager for the ZAMAN technology program, which had been underway for several years evaluating technology for a real-time imaging satellite, decided to rely on relay satellites rather than onboard data storage and transmission to a ground station for a future reconnaissance satellite. Existing reconnaissance satellites returned their images to the ground on film, which meant that it could be days to weeks from when a photo was taken to when it was seen by human eyes, but near-real-time technology was on the horizon, and required new approaches to imagery transmission. By October 1969, Dirks named his assistant division chief as the manager for the relay satellites. The manager’s name is deleted in the declassified history, but he is described as conservative, detail oriented, and very methodical. The concept of using a satellite to relay imagery from a reconnaissance satellite was not a new one and had existed since at least the early 1960s, when the Air Force considered using a relay satellite for its early SAMOS reconnaissance satellites. Transmitting high-quality imagery to the ground was difficult. Each image would contain a large amount of data, the satellite would not be able to store many of them, and if the satellite could only transmit the images while in view of a ground station, this would dramatically limit how many images could be sent each day because the satellite would only be over a ground station for a short amount of time: maybe only 15 minutes several times a day. But there was a solution: instead of transmitting signals directly down to the ground, the imagery satellite could send them upward, to a communications relay satellite in a much higher orbit, and that satellite could relay the images to the ground. This approach added complexity, but provided numerous advantages, including increasing available transmission time, and making near-real-time imaging possible. The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) was responsible for overseeing the development of intelligence satellites. The NRO included an Air Force component located in Los Angeles known as Program A and publicly acknowledged as the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Special Projects, or SAFSP. The NRO also included a CIA component housed in the CIA Deputy Directorate of Science and Technology's Office of Development and Engineering and known as Program B, which was then leading the ZAMAN effort. Program A and Program B had often battled each other within the NRO during its first decade of existence. In 1969, NRO officials began planning for relay satellites, and by June they became a separate line item in the NRO’s budget. The relay satellite program formally began in spring 1970 when a preliminary evaluation selected a small number of civilian firms for a year-long system definition phase to begin in July of that year. The plan was to downselect to a single company in October 1971. Using an additional satellite system in high orbit to relay images from ZAMAN satellites in low Earth orbit would be both expensive and complicated. But it also offered advantages over the direct transmission to ground approach, including longer transmission times. An added advantage of the relay system was that it enabled multiple satellite constellations, not just a single satellite at a time. Another advantage was that the imaging and relay satellites would be very far from each other and the ground station and it would be difficult for the Soviets to determine that the satellites were working together, thus increasing operational security. Many of the details of both programs remain classified, but while these early decisions about the data relay satellite were being made, ZAMAN was still primarily a technology program, not an approved satellite program. Nevertheless, it was clear to those running the National Reconnaissance Program—the formal term for the collection of top-secret intelligence satellites managed by the NRO along with their budgets—that these new systems were going to be very expensive. That created a dilemma for NRO leadership, who sought to be low-key even among those who had security clearance to know about the NRO. SDS Declassified illustration of the January 1977 constellation of two SDS relay satellites and a single KH-11 KENNEN reconnaissance satellite. From an orbit high over the northern hemisphere, an SDS satellite could be in line of sight with both a ground station in the United States and a low-orbiting reconnaissance satellite on the other side of the world. (credit: NRO) Spreading the responsibility and the costs On August 15, 1969, the NRO’s Executive Committee decided to give relay satellite development to the Space and Missile Systems Office (SAMSO). It was part of the Air Force Systems Command and not affiliated with SAFSP—the classified NRO Program A office—in Los Angeles. Unlike Program A, SAMSO was both overt and completely outside of the NRO. Giving a non-intelligence organization responsibility for a new satellite vital to national reconnaissance was extremely unusual. The only analogous situation was the transfer of a weather satellite program developed and operated by the NRO to the Air Force, which occurred around the same time. The NRO’s ExCom also gave the program an overt designation: the “Satellite Data System,” or SDS. According to Vance Mitchell’s history of the relay satellite program, there were three reasons to give development responsibility for the Satellite Data System to SAMSO: Funding it through Air Force channels would hold down the National Reconnaissance Program budget. The ExCom members were concerned about the NRO budget exceeding a billion dollars, believing that this was a threshold above which their program would receive added political scrutiny from the few elected officials who were cleared to know about the NRO. Other NRO programs had already shifted money into the Air Force side to keep the total NRO budget down, and launch costs for NRO satellites were not part of the NRO’s budget. It was not until the early 1970s that the National Reconnaissance Program budget finally crossed the billion-dollar mark. Having SDS as an Air Force program would imply to the Soviets that it was not connected to reconnaissance and therefore enhance mission security. The Air Force Satellite Control Facility was responsible for communicating with satellites and had acquired considerable experience. In addition, the Aerospace Corporation had been evaluating data relay satellites in 1968 into 1969 and had become knowledgeable about the subject. Aerospace worked closely with the Space and Missile Systems Office. SAMSO designated the SDS program as secret with a “special access required” (SAR) annex. There were only two other SAR programs at the time. One was the Defense Support Program (DSP) missile warning satellite, and the other was the military weather satellite program that had started as an NRO satellite system. SAR allowed the release of selected information about the NRO’s communications relay payload without divulging critical items that might compromise its mission. The CIA’s connection to SDS and details of the NRO communications payload were confined to a special compartment within the NRO’s own BYEMAN security system. Anybody requiring access to this information had to be cleared by the NRO. Giving a non-intelligence organization responsibility for a new satellite vital to national reconnaissance was extremely unusual. Once SAMSO was designated in charge of SDS, it immediately led to questions within SAMSO and the Air Force. Air Force personnel involved in SDS development believed that since the Air Force was providing the personnel, expertise, and offices to run the SDS development, SAMSO was now more than a junior partner in somebody else’s program and should be treated as a full partner. Brigadier General Walter R. Hedrick Jr., Director of Space and Deputy Chief of Research and Development, wanted changes in SDS to make it more responsive to Air Force missions. Hedrick wanted the satellites to serve both Air Force and NRO requirements. He wanted to add secondary payloads to the spacecraft in addition to the communications relay payload. CIA officials connected to the SDS development believed that the SDS satellites were supposed to have a single NRO communications relay payload and no other missions. They were concerned that the NRO might become a “customer” on its own relay satellite and have the satellite’s covert intelligence mission compromised in the process. By November 1969 there was pressure to create a management agreement that both sides would accept. CIA officials agreed to allow Air Force secondary payloads on SDS but demanded a guarantee that the intelligence relay mission still had priority. In March 1970, the NRO accepted the management changes demanded by the Air Force while the Air Force guaranteed the NRO communications mission top priority. SDS The early SDS satellites were based on Hughes' Intelsat IV commercial communications satellite bus. They had different antennas mounted on top. (credit: Hughes) Selecting satellites and payloads for SDS The contract definition phase for SDS began in August 1970, a few months later than planned. Two contractors were involved: Hughes, and one other aerospace firm whose identity was deleted from the official history but was probably TRW. Both companies, like Hughes, were involved in developing communications satellites. One of the secondary missions initially proposed for SDS was relaying data collected by Air Force DSP missile warning satellites then in development. But in summer 1970 members of the DSP program office—then operating under the deliberately obscure designation of Project 647—began to have reservations about using SDS relays for DSP satellites. Later in the year the Project 647 office withdrew from participation in the SDS in favor of relaying DSP data directly to the ground. That decision required DSP to stick with its own ground stations, including a politically sensitive ground station in Australia. It also meant that SDS again became a single payload satellite. This change annoyed Grant Hansen, the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Research and Development. Hansen wanted dual or multiple users on SDS. In a January 1971 meeting with several reconnaissance officials, he discussed the options. Hansen had justified SDS in front of Congress as having multiple payloads and did not want to go back and explain why that was no longer the case. To force both SAMSO and the NRO to develop other payloads for SDS, Hansen suspended funding to SDS and placed the program on temporary hold. In August 1970 three orbital configurations for SDS were being evaluated. The favorite option for several intelligence officials involved putting the relay satellites in geosynchronous orbit. But this was soon rejected. Although it provided good global coverage, it had a high price tag and an unacceptable level of technical risk. The other two options offered less coverage. One of these involved placing satellites in highly inclined, highly elliptical orbits so that they would swing low and fast over the South Pole and then head high up over the northern hemisphere, putting them in line of sight with both a low-orbiting reconnaissance satellite over the Soviet Union and a ground station in the United States. By early March 1971 Air Force and intelligence officials had identified at least six possible secondary payloads and two were considered most feasible. One of these was relatively minor: a small S-band transponder on each satellite could relay communications between the headquarters of the Air Force Satellite Control and a remote tracking station at Thule, Greenland, ending reliance upon balky land lines. The communications relay payload that was developed for the KENNEN used a 60-gigahertz frequency that did not penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere. This meant that if the Soviets listened in on the KENNEN they would detect no emissions coming from it. Another communications payload would support the Single Integrated Operational Plan, the Air Force’s nuclear war-fighting strategy. SIOP required communications with Strategic Air Command B-52 Stratofortress bombers and KC-135 Stratotankers. The SIOP at the time depended on ground-based high frequency broadcasts, which were vulnerable to jamming and nuclear disruption. An SDS payload in Earth orbit would be less vulnerable and could provide coverage in northern regions that were hard to cover. But according to Mitchell’s SDS history, the SIOP payload was regarded as a “heavy mother” requiring a helix antenna, transmitters, receivers, additional solar cells and cabling and structures weighing more than 136 kilograms (300 pounds). In late May 1971, the two contractor teams determined that the SIOP payload was not a good candidate and the Air Force ruled it out for SDS. Grant Hansen was apparently displeased that once again SDS was being reduced to a satellite system with a very limited mission. A review board including representatives from Hansen’s office slashed SDS funding for Fiscal Year 1972 to force program managers to go back and find another payload for the satellites. General Sam Phillips, who was then in charge of SAMSO but had previously played a major role in running NASA’s Apollo program, protested the funding cut. The relay program was reduced to minimum effort until they could reach an acceptable agreement, or the relay program was taken away from SAMSO and transferred back to the NRO. Although the specific details are deleted from Mitchell’s history, Mitchell indicates that the SIOP communications payload was eventually incorporated into the SDS satellite design despite its substantial mass and power requirements. Secrecy means bureaucracy By spring 1971 there was increasing USAF opposition to the special access requirements (SAR) in place for SDS and the two other space programs because of the difficulties they created for management and operations. Although at least one of the SARs was eliminated around this time, Deputy Director of the NRO Robert Naka wanted to keep the Satellite Data System’s SAR in place because he believed it enabled the transmittal of important information about the relay capability without clearing personnel into the more restricted BYEMAN security system. Finally, in January 1972 Director of the NRO John McLucas removed the SAR from the SDS program and withdrew all relevant material into the NRO’s own BYEMAN security compartment. General Phillips and one other officer did not think that an entirely covert SDS program was necessary, but they believed that SDS security should be tightened. They and NRO officials agreed that the NRO’s BYEMAN security compartment would be used to protect details on the satellite’s bandwidth, near-real-time operations, transmission, specific frequencies, and the NRO relationship. Documents about the program would be classified at the secret level and would only refer to the secondary payloads. They would also state that SDS satellites were deliberately “over-engineered” in case the Air Force wanted to add more payloads, thus explaining why such a large satellite had a relatively limited communications payload. Previously the NRO payload had been referred to as “User A” but documents would now indicate that User A had been deleted. The birth of KENNEN In September 1971, President Richard Nixon formally approved development of the ZAMAN electro-optical imaging system. By November its name was changed to KENNEN, although it would become better known to the public by the designation of its camera system, KH-11 (see “Intersections in real time: the decision to build the KH-11 KENNEN reconnaissance satellite (part 1),” The Space Review, September 9, 2019, and part 2.) With the imaging satellite development now underway, the Satellite Data System finally had a confirmed primary mission and a deadline requiring that it become operational before the first KENNEN satellite was launched. KENNEN was initially scheduled for an early 1976 launch, although this eventually slipped to late in the year. The communications relay payload that was developed for the KENNEN used a 60-gigahertz frequency that did not penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere. This meant that if the Soviets listened in on the KENNEN they would detect no emissions coming from it, creating the impression that it was passive even while it was sending signals up to the SDS. At an April 20, 1972, meeting of the NRO’s Executive Committee (ExCom), NRO Director John McLucas was satisfied with existing management arrangements for SDS. SAMSO would continue management, the NRO’s Program B—led by the CIA—would exercise technical oversight, and the Air Force would fund and publicly defend the program to Congress. The NRO officials also established a more streamlined chain of command from SAMSO to the Secretary of Defense level. The NRO director also moved SDS’s BYEMAN security responsibilities from the CIA-led Program B to the Air Force-led Program A (SAFSP), which strengthened the appearance of a strictly Air Force project and enhanced Air Force authority over the program. He also ordered that there be no further mention of the other payload outside the classified BYEMAN security channel, which meant that only people with BYEMAN clearances could speak or know about SDS’s communications relay payload. Information prohibited from public release included the number of satellites, orbits, technical descriptions, launch dates, finances, and mention of ground facilities. At some point, possibly even early during the 1970s, the SDS program received the classified code name QUASAR. That name was reportedly still being used into the 21st century. On June 5, 1972, SAMSO selected Hughes to build the satellites. According to a 2011 interview with former CIA and Hughes official Albert “Bud” Wheelon, the winning Hughes design was based upon the company’s proven Intelsat IV spin-stabilized satellite, which weighed more than 700 kilograms. The first Intelsat IV had been successfully launched into geosynchronous orbit in January 1971. Although both Intelsat IV and SDS were spinning drums covered with solar cells, SDS had a different set of antennas mounted to a de-spun platform at its top. Hughes engineer Anthony Iorillo was one of the people assigned to the SDS program. Hughes had a problem getting sufficient numbers of its own personnel security clearances, so Air Force officers at the captain and major level with the required security clearances were detailed to work at Hughes. SDS Image from a Rockwell International press kit for shuttle mission STS-53, which launched an SDS block 2 satellite into orbit. The satellite was based on the Hughes Leasat communications satellite bus. They had different antennas mounted on top. (credit: Rockwell International) Changes in payloads and operations The SDS had both the S-band transponder and the SIOP communications payload, but the satellite’s primary payload was always the communications relay for the KENNEN reconnaissance satellites. In August 1974, the Secretary of the Air Force approved adding a third secondary payload to the satellites, the Atomic Energy Detection System. This was introduced starting with the third satellite. Similar nuclear detection payloads—also known as “bhangmeters”—were already carried on Defense Support Program satellites. They could detect nuclear detonations in the atmosphere and space. Although the satellites all worked, according to several sources there were early operational problems with getting them to work together. According to declassified Air Force documents, the Air Force started procurement with a structural test model designated X-1, followed by a qualification model designated Y-1 and equipped with most of the electronic systems to demonstrate that the satellite could perform the functions it was designed for. The initial plan was to procure four flight spacecraft (designated F-1 to F-4) and refurbish Y-1 to be a flight spare. By the first half of 1975, testing of X-1 was completed, assembly of Y-1 was completed and it was undergoing initial testing, and fabrication of F-1 was well underway. By November 1975, the Air Force approved procurement of two additional satellites, F-5 and F-6, which were supposed to be compatible with the Space Shuttle. The first two SDS satellites were launched into orbit atop Titan III-34B rockets in June and August 1976. The first KENNEN was launched in December that same year. Although the satellites all worked, according to several sources there were early operational problems with getting them to work together. In 1977 a CIA employee sold a copy of the KH-11 user’s manual to the Soviet Union, giving away many of the secrets of the KENNEN satellite. However, Mitchell’s history hints that the Soviet Union did not understand the connection between the KENNEN and SDS satellites until the summer of 1978, confirming a claim that program planners had made about SDS early on, that it would be difficult for the Soviets to figure out that the satellites in highly different orbits were part of the same mission, especially since the KENNEN did not appear to be transmitting while over Soviet territory. The fourth and fifth SDS satellites were delivered in May and October 1980, and Y-1 was refurbished, redesignated F-5A, and delivered in May 1980. In 1981 the Air Force proposed purchasing satellite F-7. It is unclear how many of these satellites were eventually launched, and one or more may have been retired to a classified storage facility at the end of the program. Eventually, the first series of satellites was replaced by an updated version designed to be compatible with the shuttle from the start. The second block of SDS satellites was based on Hughes’ Leasat (Syncom IV) design, which was a squat cylinder made to take advantage of the shuttle’s wide payload bay. Five Leasats were built and launched from the shuttle, although the antenna configuration would have been significantly different for an SDS version. It appears that four of these block two SDS satellites were launched. They had the same 4.3-meter diameter as the Leasats, but whereas the Leasats were 4.3 meters tall, the block two SDS satellites had a bigger “antenna farm” on top and were 5.8 meters tall. The Leasats had a deployed mass of 6,894 kilograms, but the block two SDS satellites were anywhere from 2,268 to 4,536 kilograms heavier, depending on the source. In the late 1990s, the NRO surprisingly unveiled a new communications relay satellite that appeared to be based upon Hughes’ Intelsat VI design that may have been a block three version when later satellites launched on Atlas II rockets. In early 2017, NASA revealed that it had been offered a spare satellite from an unnamed government agency. That satellite was clearly the one seen in the late 1990s. (See “Spinning out of the shadows,” The Space Review, March 13, 2017.) It is likely that any block four SDS satellites were three-axis stabilized and based upon a commercial comsat bus like the earlier satellites. SDS Deployment of a Hughes Leasat communications satellite from the Space Shuttle payload bay. Leasat formed the basis for the block 2 SDS satellites. Leasat had a relatively simple antenna configuration, but the SDS had more antennas, increasing the overall satellite length as well as mass. (credit: NASA) The more things change… In October 1976, the Air Force announced long-range plans that did not include SIOP payloads on future SDS satellites. Instead, the SIOP payloads would be mounted on the planned Air Force Milstar communications satellites. Milstar was a highly ambitious and complex communications satellite system that would support multiple Air Force requirements. When first conceived, the Air Force planned to have Milstar satellites in geosynchronous orbit as well as a constellation of satellites in medium-altitude polar orbits. The satellites in their different orbits would be able to communicate with each other, creating a complex interlocking communications network around the Earth. They were also supposed to be protected against enemy jamming and hardened to survive the effects of nuclear weapons. If it worked as planned, Milstar would provide a tremendous leap in communications capability for multiple Air Force and other users. The early Air Force plan was for Milstar to begin operations in 1982, but Milstar soon ran into major development problems. Ultimately, the first Milstar did not launch into space until 1994. The CIA’s Leslie Dirks asked members of his staff to evaluate including the SDS relay capability on the Air Force’s Milstar. The initial concept was for three Milstar satellites in polar orbits to perform the relay capability for future KENNEN satellites. But CIA officials quickly grew skeptical about this proposal. Milstar was going to be very complex and face technical risks and problems in development resulting in delays that could affect the KENNEN relay mission. In addition, the NRO’s communications relay payloads would then become secondary payloads for satellites that had many other Air Force missions. CIA officials questioned what would happen if one of the NRO’s payloads failed on a Milstar satellite: would the Air Force launch an expensive replacement satellite simply to fulfill the NRO’s requirement? Two of Dirks’ aides recommended against putting the KENNEN communications relay payload on Milstar and Dirks agreed. Dirks’ decision proved to be a good one. The early Air Force plan was for Milstar to begin operations in 1982, but Milstar soon ran into major development problems. Ultimately, the first Milstar did not launch into space until 1994. The Air Force had to postpone plans to transfer the SIOP communications payload from SDS to Milstar, and SDS continued carrying SIOP payloads into the 1990s. Shuffling responsibilities Dirks’ decision to not transfer the KENNEN communications relay payload to Milstar meant that the SDS program would have to continue, and since the Air Force no longer had a requirement for SDS, the program would have to be transferred to the National Reconnaissance Office, with NRO funding and BYEMAN security measures. In November 1981, NRO Director Pete Aldridge approved the transfer of responsibility for SDS. Aldridge’s decision created controversy. Brigadier General Jack Kulpa, who headed SAFSP and was therefore the NRO’s Program A director, lobbied to transfer the SDS from SAMSO into Program A, arguing that this would provide continuity and Program A had sufficient experience to run the program, although KENNEN was run by the CIA’s Program B and there was still an ongoing rivalry between personnel in Programs A and B. Yet another suggestion was to create an NRO Program D office solely to manage the relay satellite program. SDS Director Colonel Clyde McGill and his supervisor, SAMSO commander Lieutenant General Richard Henry, lobbied to leave SAMSO responsible for SDS. They argued that withdrawing SDS into the National Reconnaissance Program benefitted nobody. Both the NRO and the Air Force needed SDS to serve as a “bridge organization” that could work in both the white and black worlds and provide access to evolving technologies for both sides. Although Mitchell’s history of SDS is unclear on this point, apparently Henry and McGill were successful at convincing Aldridge to maintain SDS as a SAMSO-led program, at least for a few more years. Now that the 50th anniversary of the dawn of the SDS is near, perhaps we will soon learn more about this enigmatic switchboard in the sky. Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.