United States Air Force
US Air Force

OVERVIEW

Welcome to a Virtual Museum that tells the incredible story of US ingenuity in secretly developing the world’s finest satellites for beating the Russians in the Cold War.

The end of World War II marked the beginning of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. As the military strength of both countries grew, it became increasingly difficult to know the extent to which the Soviet Union could deploy forces against the United States and our allies. In particular, President Eisenhower needed to know more about the state of Soviet weapons development, how they would deploy weapons that could be used against us, their industrial strength for supporting military might, and other strategic indicators such as agricultural resources.

In the early 1960s, the Department of Defense created two new organizations – both in secret – to respond to the Soviet threat. In 1960, within the Department of the Air Force, the Secretary of the Air Force created the clandestine Office of Special Projects, referred to as SAFSP or SP. A year later, the Department of Defense (DoD) formed another clandestine office, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an umbrella organization of men and women from the Air Force, the CIA and the Navy to coordinate strategic intelligence across the Department of Defense. These organizations spied on the Russians and other adversaries through the Cold War (1960-1990).

This Virtual Museum recognizes the accomplishments of the Air Force organization, SAFSP. Industry and SP teams secretly developed rockets, satellites, ground antennas, communication systems and recovery aircraft that had never existed before. While some of these programs are still classified, three of the picture-taking satellites, CORONA, GAMBIT and HEXAGON, and a few of the electronic signals collection satellites have been revealed since 2011.

SP’s many accomplishments can best be appreciated by understanding the national threat faced by the United States back in those days, and the incredible technology employed to meet it. The satellites on display at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, stand in grateful recognition of the men and women who selflessly fought the Cold War, in silence – from above. As you tour this Virtual Museum, you will see some of the now-unclassified YouTube highlights of SP’s challenges and accomplishments.

SP Security

    Working on an SAFSP program required a high level of individual security discipline beyond simply top-secret protection of facts within a project. We had to disavow the very existence of those programs we supported daily. Even after gaining access to a program like HEXAGON we were only exposed to facts needed to do the job and that determination was made by others through a formal “introduction”. The name of the program and associated facts could only be discussed in designated SCIF areas with all those present being appropriately briefed, and the facts being discussed could not be revealed outside of those strict secure conditions. The program name became the trigger phrase concerning the facts that followed.
     Sometimes that became a problem in normal life. Once while deeply engaged in operational activities I was having dinner with the family and, since I couldn’t discuss my work, I asked my daughter what she learned in school that day. She responded, “The teacher told us all about HEXAGON!” (She was only talking about geometry, not satellites.) One of the more difficult security skills we had to learn is not to gag when you hear a statement like that outside of the work environment. Now, 50 years later after the declassification of the program in 2011 it still takes some discipline to discuss a program while protecting what remains protected under classification rules.

Air Conditioning

The CDC 3800 (Control Data Corp) was a state-of-the-art computer in the 1970’s and one of the few capable of creating the critical instructions required to operate our photo-reconnaissance satellites. Although it filled a large room and had eight banks of transistor-based processors, each the size of a home refrigerator, it had less computing power than the average home PC. It generated an enormous amount of heat that had to be cooled with dedicated air conditioners to prevent a shut-down. Several were housed in the Blue Cube, which was 100-feet tall but with only four floors. The extra space was reserved for cabling and cooling. The STC command generation (CG) team ran punch card input programs that took about 20-minutes for each pass, creating precise sequences of functions for the satellite camera and subsystems. The operations tempo was critical to prepare these instructions for each of the 16 station passes each day. Every 90-minutes the team was getting ready for a pass over a tracking station.

 

One day the air conditioner shut down in the middle of a computer run with no time to recover the program on another computer. The CG team opened all the processor cabinet doors and waved cardboard sheets to keep it from overheating until the end of the run. Then the computer’s thermostat shut down with seconds to spare. Few were aware that the importance of the targets taken that day was to the credit of a quick-thinking team and the program’s greatest “fans.”

The Bread Truck

When I first joined SAFSP, I was assigned to SP-10. One of our missions was to model the performance of current and future systems to perform analytic studies. As a by-product of that modeling and simulation activity, there evolved a cottage industry providing current and future intelligence products. These were sent to major theater military exercises around the world so they could train with representative overhead intelligence products.

We had a Lt Col who traveled to Korea, SAC Headquarters, Hurlburt Field and Europe for major exercises throughout the year. The simulations ran on the CDC 3800 computers in Sunnyvale. The products had to be transmitted around the world via whatever comms technology existed in the early 80’s. The SIGINT was fed to Army systems at the sites, but the notional simulated IMINT output was received by a non-descript blue Air Force panel truck which was jury-rigged with various radios, printers and what-have-you to produce representative products. This panel truck was affectionately known as the “Bread Truck.”

During one going-away party held for a departing SP-10 hero, he was presented with a toy van emblazoned with “Rainbow Bread” logos all over it. As a result of that event, my wife spent the next 10 years believing that SP-10 was in the business of making bread trucks.

My apologies to all the alumni who know the real details better than me and for mangling the descriptions of how this magic was really implemented.

-Scott Rounce

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TODAY - A date to remember

The first CORONA to return a bucket with actionable film was caught August 19, 1960 by the crew of Capt. Harold Mitchell. The 6593d Test Squadron (Special) received the Mackay Trophy. It is administered by the National Aeronautic Assn and has been awarded yearly since 1912, by the Air Force for the most meritorious flight of the year by a USAF person, persons, or organization.

After 13 failures , the Corona program images were grainy and of limited utility, but quality–and intelligence value–improved rapidly. Within a few months, CIA photo interpreters had dispelled both the missile gap and the bomber gap. 

General Bruce A. Carlson USAF (Ret.)

May 2024

Dear Friends,

Thanks for the good thing you are doing. The finest minds since the Manhattan Project all put their heads together to amke this magic work for over 6 decades. I hope you know that all of the full-scale engineering models of our earliest spacecrafts are at the museum in Dayton.

As the 17th Director of the NRO I first offered them to the Smithsonian. However, they were going to put them to storage. So, I made a deal with my good friend Jack Hudson, Lt Gen, USAF (Ret.) who was running the AF Museum and he found a great place for them.

Hope this little bit helps.

Warmest Regards,
Bruce

Debbie Reed

By Col Joe Parks head of SP-12

Barbara Reed was a long time SP-12 contributor that was a joy to work with. When it came time for her to get a step increase, I put in the paperwork to SP-5, probably had to wake them up to do that!! We waited, nothing happened, I checked with SP-5 numerous times, they blamed it on the Base Air Force Personnel Office. Before I was in SP, I was an Auditor at the Base and knew the people in Personnel. So, I walked over, it was lunch time and found Barbara’s paperwork in an in-box, took it to one of the people there who told me that the gal in SP said, “No Rush”! We cleared that up in a heartbeat and it was approved while I was there. The Lt Col who ran SP-5 got pissed that I went around him, came into my office and started ragging on me. I asked him what his date of rank was. I outranked him, so I told him to pound sand. He then went into Col Parrish’s office and complained. What a great guy Parrish was. Anyway, Parrish called me in, told me never to do that again, but as I was leaving, said. “I would have done the same thing.” Got to love that generation.

Joe 

Ronald Reagan

Speech by RONALD REAGAN for the
25th Anniversary of Project CORONA

“I’m sure that if President Eisenhower were here today to see what you have achieved from the programs begun as a result of his decisions, he would express a hearty well done!”

America is safer for your work, and I congratulate each of you· for so fully earning the gratitude of your countrymen by your
remarkable achievements during a long period of continuing peril.

The Dead Rev

In the mid-1970’s, HEXAGON Command Generation prepared commands to be sent to the tracking stations for upload during a pass. There were 6 stations. Once a night, the satellite would make a revolution out of sight of a station. Ergo, a “dead rev.” During this 90-minute span, the four junior officer team was free to do whatever they wanted. Read manuals, practice Black Jack, do their MBA homework, or best: go to play on the racquetball courts or take a sauna. Later, the dead rev was filled when Oakhanger, UK was added.