US spy satellite agency declassifies high-flying Cold War listening post

The JUMPSEAT satellites loitered over the North Pole to spy on the Soviet Union.

See full article...

 

[mattlindn]

Thanks for the article Stephen, that was quite interesting.

 

[Chuckstar]

The name seems pretty appropriate. Like someone looked at the satellite and said “you know what that kinda looks like…”. And it stuck.

 

[Painted]

The fact they have a spin stabilized body and non-spinning antennas is remarkable to me. It seems that that would be unreliable in the long run, but I say that without any knowledge of how bearings hold up in space. Clearly it worked, and was at the design time a good solution to the problem of sat stabilization.

 

[Resistance]

The molniya orbit is interesting, the high latitude of most of the population in the USSR made this a requirement for USSR communications satellites, a constraint not present in most of the US which IIRC used a higher proportion of geostationary satellites compared to the USSR.

This quirk of geography/orbital mechanics supposedly (it's been a while since I read this, too tired to do a fact check) meant that the USSR was further ahead on communications handoff tech for a while, out of necessity.

 

[Jupitor13]

Interesting reference to IR ICBM launch detection. I wonder if the DSP satellites supplanted the need for that capability.

 

[Sarty]

The National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton has several optical intelligence satellites on display, including aforementioned Corona and Hexagon. I hope they're joined by SIGINT example systems as these come out from behind the curtain.

Well worth a close look if you're anywhere near the area (obviously this goes for the entire museum in general).

 

[mpotter1024]

Thanks for the article Stephen, that was quite interesting.

Was given my Dad was USAF Liason Officer for some of the Hexagon program such as KH-9 of the Keyhole series. While NRO may not have declassified the program until 2011, a retired admiral disclosed most of the KH program in Hexagon in his 1986 book “Deep Black”. My Dad obtained a copy was quite shocked how much the book disclosed. Thus seems much of the project as related to later KH series was already well known. My Dad let me read it. He had highlighted much of the book indicating what he knew. He even highlighted the index of the many people he knew. Is recommend reading if you can find it. Last I checked went out of print few decades ago. Funny while my Dad was involved as a meteorologist scientist, my Dad told us kids as a joke he flew paper airplanes at work. Interesting although declassified, well after 2011 my brother was getting his clearance renewed. The clerk showed him my Dads Military record that was almost entirely redacted. Thus if anyone wants to know what he did I’d have to say it’s classified although my family has figured it out from Deep Black.

 

[redbike]

“The historical significance of Jumpseat cannot be understated,” said James Outzen…

If that's — indeed — what Outzen said, I wonder what he meant. /pedant alert

 

[Antron Argaiv]

Didja ever wonder how our side of "the story" about some international incident includes transcripts of the other side's fighter pilots talking to each other and to their ground controllers? And how we would have had to be recording before we knew anything was going to happen? And where the receivers were? And how we could record everything, and search it, and pull out just the conversations we needed?

There's a lot of tech and a lot of money goes into being able to do that...

 

[GFKBill]

Didja ever wonder how our side of "the story" about some international incident includes transcripts of the other side's fighter pilots talking to each other and to their ground controllers? And how we would have had to be recording before we knew anything was going to happen? And where the receivers were? And how we could record everything, and search it, and pull out just the conversations we needed?

There's a lot of tech and a lot of money goes into being able to do that...

And given the state of technology then, a lot of it must have been people sitting at consoles with headphones on, typing furiously!

 

[The_Motarp]

The molniya orbit is interesting, the high latitude of most of the population in the USSR made this a requirement for USSR communications satellites, a constraint not present in most of the US which IIRC used a higher proportion of geostationary satellites compared to the USSR.

This quirk of geography/orbital mechanics supposedly (it's been a while since I read this, too tired to do a fact check) meant that the USSR was further ahead on communications handoff tech for a while, out of necessity.

When the first Soviet satellite was launched into a Molniya orbit, scientists in the US thought it was a failed attempt to launch into geoststionary orbit. Then they launched some more satellites into the same orbit and the Americans realized it actually had advantages for somewhere as far north as parts of the Soviet Union were.

 

[Nora Lenderbee]

The fact they have a spin stabilized body and non-spinning antennas is remarkable to me. It seems that that would be unreliable in the long run, but I say that without any knowledge of how bearings hold up in space. Clearly it worked, and was at the design time a good solution to the problem of sat stabilization.

There would need to be a rotating coupler for any wave guide or coax that went from the spinning equipment section to the non-spinning antenna section. And if power was needed up the mast, to power the low noise amps, then slip rings for power, or power fed up the coax center conductor. The complexity of it all seems remarkable to me as well.

It dawns on me that those sats, in those orbits, couldn't have been conceived until the electronics became sensitive enough and quiet enough - right about the same time that geostationary sats started to get spiffy.

 

[Resistance]

When the first Soviet satellite was launched into a Molniya orbit, scientists in the US thought it was a failed attempt to launch into geoststionary orbit. Then they launched some more satellites into the same orbit and the Americans realized it actually had advantages for somewhere as far north as parts of the Soviet Union were.

I wish we had as much transparency from the Soviet side as we do from the US side (which is still not a heck of a lot) I'm sure there's tons of equally interesting stories about how the Soviets perceived Americans that will never be told.

 

[beb01]

What rocket were they launched on?

 

[shawnce]

What rocket were they launched on?

Titan IIIB

 

[Albino_Boo]

The name seems pretty appropriate. Like someone looked at the satellite and said “you know what that kinda looks like…”. And it stuck.

Thats a no no. Names shoukd be deliberately picked not to be associated with the purpose or appearance. The Germans named one of their night bombing navigation systems Wotan. British electronic intelligence, led by Dr R V Jones worked out the fact that it was a single beam system from the fact Wotan was a one eyed God.

 

[LazLong]

And given the state of technology then, a lot of it must have been people sitting at consoles with headphones on, typing furiously!

Even in the very early '90s when I performed this job it was computers, headphones, and recorders. Manually scanning thru the spectrum looking for interesting traffic and recording it, then transcribing. Even tho the receivers were digital by then, we had custom keyboards with a dial on them to control the frequency scan. We called it "Spinning and grinning."

 

[sfbiker]

In the diagram of the orbit, the part of the orbit nearest to earth is at the south pole and the farthest is at the north pole/

Why wasn't it reversed to put the satellite closer to Russia?

Nevermind, I answered my own question at the wikipedia page for the Moniya orbit.

This orbit maximizes the dwell time over the target. I misread the article and thought it was saying that these satellites only had 15 minutes of time over Russia, but that was referring to low earth orbit satellites.

 

[EllPeaTea]

In the diagram of the orbit, the part of the orbit nearest to earth is at the south pole and the farthest is at the north pole/

Why wasn't it reversed to put the satellite closer to Russia?

It's not about distance, it's about loitering. The further away from the earth a satellite is, the slower it goes. So at the highest part of the orbit, the velocity is slower, which means it can spend more time looking at Russia. So you could get 24-hour coverage with just two or three satellites.

An orbit is like going up and down a hill. At the bottom of the hill (closest to the earth), a lot of speed has built up as earth's gravity pulls the satellite down towards it. And as it swings by the closest point, it starts climbing back up the hill, and as it gets closer to the top the speed gets slower and slower, until it reaches a minimum right at the top of the hill. at which point it starts accelerating back down the hill again.

 

[Albino_Boo]

There would need to be a rotating coupler for any wave guide or coax that went from the spinning equipment section to the non-spinning antenna section. And if power was needed up the mast, to power the low noise amps, then slip rings for power, or power fed up the coax center conductor. The complexity of it all seems remarkable to me as well.

It dawns on me that those sats, in those orbits, couldn't have been conceived until the electronics became sensitive enough and quiet enough - right about the same time that geostationary sats started to get spiffy.

The history of electronic intelligence goes as far back as WW1 but really became in earnest during WW2. The British had aircraft up hunting for German radar navigation systems in mid 1940. As the bomber campaign got under way electronic intelligence gathering aircraft accompanied formations and later jaming aircraft also were in the skys over Germany. The US learnt from British experience over Germany and flew specialist B24s near Japan to gather intelligence on Japanese radar. In the immediate post war era most of the electronic intelligence gathering was done by high altitude aircraft over the Soivet Union combined with ground based listening stations in the surrounding areas. As Soivet air defences got better high altitude flights became increasingly risky, see Gary Powers, and were replaced with the more expensive satellites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferret_mission

 

[butcherg]

And given the state of technology then, a lot of it must have been people sitting at consoles with headphones on, typing furiously!

I taught the 20-WPM typing block at the command post school at Keesler AFB in the '70s. We got a lot of Morse code operator cross- trainees when they closed that career field; had one fellow who could do 70 words per minute with his two index fingers. In a timed trial he'd scan the text, flurry of fingers, done, no errors. Refused to learn home- row touch typing, but he easily did 20WPM so I passed him...

 

[butcherg]

It's not about distance, it's about loitering. The further away from the earth a satellite is, the slower it goes. So at the highest part of the orbit, the velocity is slower, which means it can spend more time looking at Russia. So you could get 24-hour coverage with just two or three satellites.

An orbit is like going up and down a hill. At the bottom of the hill (closest to the earth), a lot of speed has built up as earth's gravity pulls the satellite down towards it. And as it swings by the closest point, it starts climbing back up the hill, and as it gets closer to the top the speed gets slower and slower, until it reaches a minimum right at the top of the hill. at which point it starts accelerating back down the hill again.

One of our sergeants modeled a molniya in STK when we got a copy of the program at my last AF assignment, put the camera on the sat. Downhill is screaming at the earth, sporty- looking even on a computer monitor.
.

 

[JohnCarter17]

Was given my Dad was USAF Liason Officer for some of the Hexagon program such as KH-9 of the Keyhole series. While NRO may not have declassified the program until 2011, a retired admiral disclosed most of the KH program in Hexagon in his 1986 book “Deep Black”. My Dad obtained a copy was quite shocked how much the book disclosed. Thus seems much of the project as related to later KH series was already well known. My Dad let me read it. He had highlighted much of the book indicating what he knew. He even highlighted the index of the many people he knew. Is recommend reading if you can find it. Last I checked went out of print few decades ago. Funny while my Dad was involved as a meteorologist scientist, my Dad told us kids as a joke he flew paper airplanes at work. Interesting although declassified, well after 2011 my brother was getting his clearance renewed. The clerk showed him my Dads Military record that was almost entirely redacted. Thus if anyone wants to know what he did I’d have to say it’s classified although my family has figured it out from Deep Black.

Ordered.

FYI: There is a 1986 hardcover and a subsequent 1988 paperback. HPB only has the paperback, Amazon has a bunch of used hardbacks.

 

[GaitherBill]

Would these fit in an X-37B?

I wonder if an X-37B has been used to deploy these or something similar.

 

[NetMage]

had one fellow who could do 70 words per minute with his two index fingers. In a timed trial he'd scan the text, flurry of fingers, done, no errors. Refused to learn home- row touch typing, but he easily did 20WPM so I passed him...

I self taught typing as part of my early fascination in programming, which meant BASIC (started computer programming on a Wang PCS II), and I only used two index fingers but I could type keywords faster than home row users. At some point (a decade?) later, I decided to use all my fingers and taught myself to fully touch type, which was more useful for programming in other languages (though it did nothing for APL ).

 

[MaxCat]

Something not mentioned in the article is that the Molniya orbit type orbit, which is named after a Soviet communications satellite program first orbited in the late 1960s, isn’t just a random high apogee, low perigee orbit. It is an extremely precise orbit with a period of approximately half a sidereal day that has to have an exact placement of perigee altitude, inclination, period, and nodal positioning to get it to stay in the desired orbital path that gives a repeating maximum ground coverage while minimizing the necessity of orbital maneuvers required to correct orbital drift due to earth oblateness effects. It is an extremely useful orbit for polar operations.

Also, for those commenting on the spin-despin platform of Hughes satellite, that particular satellite bus was an extremely popular platform for well over a decade and used in numerous military and civilian satellites of the time.

 

[Bill T.]

"the Jumpseat spacecraft loitered high over the Arctic, Russia, Canada, and Greenland...."

Alaska and Norway say hi.

 

[khoadley]

The history of electronic intelligence goes as far back as WW1 but really became in earnest during WW2. The British had aircraft up hunting for German radar navigation systems in mid 1940.

Started before the war - pre-war the Germans flew the Graf Zeppelin airship along the British Chain Home radar network looking for signals, found nothing (they were looking at too short a wavelength) and thus believed that the British had no operational radar ...

 

[beb01]

Titan IIIB

Thanks

beb

 

[PurpleBadger]

Started before the war - pre-war the Germans flew the Graf Zeppelin airship along the British Chain Home radar network looking for signals, found nothing (they were looking at too short a wavelength) and thus believed that the British had no operational radar ...

Another fun thing: When British aircraft began using radar to find U-boats, in '42 the Germans deployed an early detector called Metox, which was clunky to use but arguably better than nothing. In '43 U-boats began getting clobbered by British aircraft. A British prisoner told the Germans that British aircraft were homing in on signals from the Metox device itself. Metox did produce a little noise from oscillators in the circuits, but that wasn't what was going on. The truth was that British had begun using a higher frequency that Metox couldn't detect, but for a while the Germans believed the POW's line of BS.

 

[cynrh]

Thats a no no. Names shoukd be deliberately picked not to be associated with the purpose or appearance. The Germans named one of their night bombing navigation systems Wotan. British electronic intelligence, led by Dr R V Jones worked out the fact that it was a single beam system from the fact Wotan was a one eyed God.

He was mistakenly lucky however, as the original two beam system was the original Wotan. The single beam advancement was Wotan 2.

 

[maclifer]

For anyone interested in Deep Black, it's available to freely read at the Internet Archive... yay! I've highlighted the link in the book title. Enjoy.

EDIT: Bummer and I'm sorry. Turns out it's a limited preview. Guess I will be buying the book at some point used from Amazon.

 

[SomewhereAroundBarstow]

I wonder if this is what I saw re-enter the atmosphere on Election Night 1980. I was 14 and Reagan was winning easily, when I stepped outside and saw a strange ball of fire in the sky. For a second I was terrified as it looked like was headed for the nearby Air Force's nearby B-52 base, but then it became clear it was on a different trajectory and it kept going from southern horizon to northern, leaving a long trail of sparks behind it the entire way. The next day NASA issued a terse statement that it was "a Hughes orbital platform" which said more in what it didn't say than what it did.

If it was a Jumpseat it should have be nearing the farthest point of its orbit as it passed over, but it intuitively makes sense that if it had — for whatever reason — lost velocity by skimming the atmosphere at its lowest point it might fully reenter farter north. At any rate whatever it was, it was a wild sight that is deeply connected to all my other memories of what it was like growing up during the Cold War.

 

[Albino_Boo]

He was mistakenly lucky however, as the original two beam system was the original Wotan. The single beam advancement was Wotan 2.

Incorrect. Don't treat Wikipedia as a reliable source. The name used by the Germans in their own engima transmission when referring to Y-Gerat. X Gerat did not use the code name Wotan in enigma to distinguish the two systems. I suggest you read Most Secret War by R V Jones and The Battle of the Beams: The secret science of radar that turned the tide of the Second World War by Tom Whipple.

 

[Albino_Boo]

Started before the war - pre-war the Germans flew the Graf Zeppelin airship along the British Chain Home radar network looking for signals, found nothing (they were looking at too short a wavelength) and thus believed that the British had no operational radar ...

German scientific intelligence was poorly organised, under resource and subject to random changes in policy. When Hitler or Goring bothered to meet with experts it was with individuals and each one was given often conflicting decisions. Churchill or Attlee meet with experts regularly and allowed them to, often quite forcefully, argue their respective positions. Then decisions were made, resources were allocated and everyone knew where they stood. One of the German experts was Carl Bosch, the son of the Bosch in the Haber Bosch process, who had worked with R V Jones at the Clarendon Lab in Oxford. They were notorious for playing practical jokes.

 

[Jupitor13]

The history of electronic intelligence goes as far back as WW1 but really became in earnest during WW2. The British had aircraft up hunting for German radar navigation systems in mid 1940. As the bomber campaign got under way electronic intelligence gathering aircraft accompanied formations and later jaming aircraft also were in the skys over Germany. The US learnt from British experience over Germany and flew specialist B24s near Japan to gather intelligence on Japanese radar. In the immediate post war era most of the electronic intelligence gathering was done by high altitude aircraft over the Soivet Union combined with ground based listening stations in the surrounding areas. As Soivet air defences got better high altitude flights became increasingly risky, see Gary Powers, and were replaced with the more expensive satellites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferret_mission

I was assigned to the 9th SRW, 9th AMS, SAC, Beale AFB, RADAR (SLR). Worked the SR-71 on deployments to RAF Mildenhall when the Soviets were expected to enter West Germany through the Fulda Gap.

I cross trained from Avionic Sensors to Space Systems. I ended up back at Beale at PAVE PAWS West. I never did get to see Woomera or Buckley.

Interestingly I built a CDMA network in Ekaterinburg where the Museum of War had a piece of Powers U-2.

 

[InvariantCapitalist]

"the Jumpseat spacecraft loitered high over the Arctic, Russia, Canada, and Greenland...."

Alaska and Norway say hi.

Finland doesn't mind being forgotten. It likes to stay undercover as much as possible.

 

[Chuckstar]

I taught the 20-WPM typing block at the command post school at Keesler AFB in the '70s. We got a lot of Morse code operator cross- trainees when they closed that career field; had one fellow who could do 70 words per minute with his two index fingers. In a timed trial he'd scan the text, flurry of fingers, done, no errors. Refused to learn home- row touch typing, but he easily did 20WPM so I passed him...

The class in high school I took that was most directly relevant to the rest of my life was typing. I don’t deny those other classes helped add up to who I am today, my analytical and cognitive skills, etc. But from the perspective of direct applicability: typing.