by Dwayne Day
The CIA and the Air Force jointly examined a wide range of defensive measures that might protect CORONA. They considered inflating and deploying decoy balloons for the primary spacecraft. This solution had a fundamental flaw, because the balloons, following the laws of celestial mechanics, would periodically rendezvous with CORONA. Another option evaluated was orbital adjustment maneuvers that could change arrival time over defensive installations. This would require the satellite to expend fuel and to change camera sequences. To make a meaningful orbit change, one must use large amounts of fuel because the basic orbital speed is so high. Such corrections can be made only once or twice, and they would not defeat a determined attack.
None of these proposals were implemented, primarily because they required using a great deal of total payload weight. CORONA’s managers opted each time for increased film loads and hoped that the Soviet leaders would not attack. As the Soviet Union developed its own reconnaissance satellites, the Soviets saw mutual benefit in avoiding space warfare. A climate of mutual forbearance set in, which now serves both parties extremely well.
LESSONS LEARNED
By any measure, CORONA was a remarkable achievement. Its photographs provided the backbone of U.S. intelligence capability for 12 precarious years. It flew 145 times in that period, returning 167 film capsules with over 2 million feet of film. Its cameras covered a half-million square miles of denied territory—time after time. CORONA made an extraordinary contribution to world stability. It gave U.S. presidents poise and confidence when they were most needed. It guided U.S. national security policy during the worst years of the Cold War and eventually enabled arms control treaties to be negotiated and monitored with confidence—treaties that are now reducing nuclear and conventional arsenals dramatically. This first satellite reconnaissance system was truly a triumph of American technology.
Coming at the beginning of the space age, CORONA taught important lessons. It showed that one must clearly understand the objectives of a space mission before proceeding. CORONA’s objective was to get broad area coverage at 25-foot resolution as quickly as possible. One must be sure that the technology is ready in such undertakings. Technology is constantly changing, and it is right to anticipate and build on that progress. On the other hand, if one is working on an urgent program, one cannot depend on a romantic view of technological progress. Finding the natural intersections of technology and national need is a difficult task. Only a few gifted people seem to do it well.
CORONA showed that using a small team of committed people is the right way to carry out such programs. All experience since then has shown that using accounting systems, business school approaches, and management slogans cannot substitute for a small team of intelligent and highly motivated people.
If CORONA teaches anything, it is to be courageous and persevere. One can only admire the Bissell-Ritland team. They launched relentlessly until they got it right. Their incredible gift to the nation was the result of vision and determination. The country owes them an enormous debt.
DWAYNE A. DAY
3
THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVEMENT OF THE CORONA SATELLITE
In 1956 the U.S. Air Force formally started design and development work on a reconnaissance satellite at the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. Although by then the Air Force had been studying the concept of reconnaissance satellites for a decade, work on the satellite proceeded slowly, due to a lack of funds as well as other projects having higher priority. Ballistic missile research was considered more important, and until an adequate ballistic missile was developed, a reconnaissance satellite would have no way of reaching orbit.
Sputnik, and President Eisenhower’s intervention in the reconnaissance program in February 1958, would dramatically change this. Eisenhower directed that the CIA play a major role in the development of an “interim” satellite that would serve until the more ambitious Air Force satellite became available. It would operate under the cover story of a scientific and engineering program called Discoverer. A team of CIA and Air Force officials, together with engineers from industry, began work on this interim satellite. It was later said that the small number of people involved and their devotion to the program led to few turf battles.1 Everyone involved considered the development of a reconnaissance satellite to be a top priority for the United States.
The basics of the CORONA program were established by early April 1958, but with a lot of details left to be determined. The CIA’s Richard Bissell, who had overall responsibility for CORONA, scheduled the first CORONA spacecraft to be completed by June 1959. The interim program was planned to last only until June 1960. Bissell drafted a work statement for Lockheed on April 25 and began selecting supporting subcontractors.2 General Electric would be responsible for the reentry vehicle. Itek would also be a subcontractor, but to lessen the blow to Fairchild (which had assumed that it would design and build the reconnaissance cameras), Bissell decided that Itek would define the basic camera concept, manufacture the lenses, and oversee camera design and fabrication, whereas Fairchild would design and manufacture the cameras. This was also necessary because Itek lacked the resources to manufacture its own cameras. The contractors began work on April 28 and submitted designs for first review on May 14. Designs were frozen on July 26, 1958.3
Because of the secret nature of the program, Lockheed engineer and program manager James Plummer and his handful of assistants did their initial work in a room in a small hotel away from the main Lockheed factory complex. Plummer was told by Lockheed management to run this program like Kelly Johnson ran the Skunk Works, which produced the U-2 aircraft. The Skunk Works was a unique production company with highly streamlined management, the ability to operate with a high degree of secrecy, and a distaste for paperwork. So the program managers decided to do most of the work off-site from the main Lockheed complex in Palo Alto. As part of the prime contract, Lockheed leased an unused advanced development facility from Hiller Aircraft in nearby East Palo Alto.4 The facility, labeled “Advanced Projects,” was closed to all Hiller personnel, who assumed that Lockheed was conducting classified helicopter work. Those who worked at the facility referred to it as “AP” or as CORONA’s “Skunk Works.”
The AP facility was to be used for the design and fabrication of the spacecraft nose structure, support system, and for payload integration. The cameras and Satellite Recovery Vehicles (SRVs) would come from manufacturers on the East Coast. Everything would be assembled and tested before it was shipped to the launch site for integration with the Agena upper stage and the Thor booster. The AP facility started out rather simply, but grew as the program expanded. While Bissell and John Parangosky, Deputy Chief of the CORONA Program Office Development Staff of the CIA, ran the program from Washington, Brigadier General Osmond Ritland and Lieutenant Colonel Lee Battle ran the program on the West Coast.5 This new arrangement also relied upon streamlined management whereby program manager Jim Plummer and Lieutenant Colonel Battle reported only to Bissell and Ritland. This made decisions and accountability much easier than in other space programs of the period.
Due to the short life expected for the CORONA project, only twelve Thor boosters were procured; it was anticipated that the Air Force’s WS-117L (now called SENTRY) reconnaissance satellite would replace CORONA rather quickly. But Bissell soon realized that the Air Force was not going to provide the boosters he had planned. He knew he needed four test launches and three launches for biomedical experiments in support of the CORONA cover story. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), which felt that other military space missions also deserved support, refused to allocate DoD funds for these boosters. Bissell thus found himself having to go to a fiscally conservative president and ask for money to purchase nineteen launch vehicles not included in his earlier proposal. Although Eisenhower was not one to like these kinds of financial requests, he agreed to the additional funding.
Officially, Discoverer was supposed to be solely an engineering and scientific program. Five biome
dical vehicles were scheduled to be built, two to carry mice and one to carry a primate, with the other two to be held in reserve in case the primate vehicle failed.6 General Electric was responsible for developing the life-support systems for the mice and monkeys. A camera was placed between the monkey’s legs during tests of the life-support system, so that the monkey’s actions and emotional state could be observed. When the monkey’s stomach got in the way, the engineers installed a mirror over its head and shifted the camera so that it picked up the monkey’s reflection. In protest, the test monkey smeared feces all over the mirror. Even more serious, during ground tests of the primate life-support system, the monkeys kept dying.
LAUNCHES AND RECOVERIES
Photoreconnaissance satellites had to be in a polar orbit to maximize their coverage of the globe, which spun beneath the satellite as it traveled from pole to pole. The existing launch facilities at Cape Canaveral could not be used because the launch vehicles would overfly populated areas. Camp Cooke, located near California’s Point Arguello, already selected as the launch site for the WS-117L program’s Atlas launch vehicles, was perfect for CORONA’s purposes. A rocket launched from Cooke to the south would not overfly any populated areas. Cooke was also the home of the 672nd Strategic Missile Squadron, which operated the Thor booster. In October 1958 Cooke was renamed Vandenberg Air Force Base.
One feature of Vandenberg presented problems for CORONA (as well as all other launches from the base). The Southern Pacific Railroad tracks run directly through the base. Because CORONA satellites had to pass over the Soviet Union in daylight as well as be recovered near Hawaii in daylight, they had to be launched from Vandenberg in the afternoon. The overall launch window was thus broken into several smaller windows dictated by the Southern Pacific schedule.7 This was a safety concern, not a security concern—launch crews did not want to risk damaging a train if there was a launch failure.
Development of the CORONA payload and Agena upper stage continued throughout 1958.8 The initial camera design consisted of a reciprocating panoramic camera that would sweep through 70 degrees of arc and then slide back to its initial position. The film would travel forward to a take-up reel inside a gold-plated and insulated bucket (which looked more like a round-bottomed kettle).
Requirements for the camera system conflicted. It had to be sturdy enough to withstand the high vibration of a launch, but it also had to be light enough to be carried by the extremely weight-limited Thor launch vehicle of the time. Once it was in orbit, the camera’s lens/film relationship had to be maintained very precisely even though vehicle temperature would vary considerably as it traveled from hot sunlight to cold darkness every 45 minutes. All of this had to occur within an extreme vacuum, which was not a normal operating environment for any previous camera system.9
The Agena would serve as a second stage for the Thor, placing the payload in orbit and then supplying orbital power and stabilization. The Agena itself worked surprisingly well despite its complexity.10 Once in orbit, the Agena would immediately yaw 180 degrees so that the SRV faced the rear. This minimized the amount of gas used for stabilization and protected the reentry vehicle from molecular heating, a poorly understood but worrisome phenomenon.
Tests began on the reentry vehicle’s recovery system. Although the balloon program that contributed the basic camera design to CORONA had used an aircraft recovery system, that system had never been perfected or used extensively. The newly established 6593rd Test Squadron began training to make in-air snatches of payloads descending on parachutes. It operated out of Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, one of the bases attacked during the Pearl Harbor raid that had so galvanized the American intelligence program. Initial tests using various types of parachutes were disappointing. A different chute was also tested, again with disappointing results. The parachutes had high descent rates, making it difficult for planes to approach and snag the parachute lines. A new chute reduced the descent rate from 33 feet per second to 20 feet per second.11 If a capsule was missed and landed in the water, it would float while its strobe light flashed and its radio beacon emitted a steady signal.12 After one to three days, a plug made out of salt would dissolve and the capsule would fill with water and sink, thus preventing its recovery by an adversary.13
FIRST FLIGHT
CORONA/Discoverer preparations were conducted throughout California. The payload was prepared at AP, south of San Francisco, and shipped by truck to Vandenberg on the mid-state Pacific coast. The Agena was prepared at Lockheed’s main facility in Palo Alto, and shipped to Vandenberg. Systems integration and other preparations were conducted at Air Force Ballistic Missile Division at Los Angeles Air Force Base in southern California. The final preparation of all components and overall vehicle integration and testing was done at Vandenberg. After being tested individually, the payload and the Agena would both be taken to the launch pad and mated to the Thor booster. Everything would be tested again before the launch vehicle’s protective cover was removed and the rocket hydraulically lifted to a vertical position. Final checks would be made by the launch crew before liftoff.14
The plan was to prove all of the vehicle components quickly and sequentially. The first launch would test the Thor and Agena and the satellite control network. The second, third, and fourth flights would test the recovery sequence and related equipment, and would include the biomedical payloads. The fifth flight would include the first CORONA camera.
But the plan ran headlong into harsh reality. The first flight test of the Thor-Agena rocket combination (minus a payload and not assigned a number in the Discoverer series) was scheduled for January 21, 1959. During the last seconds of the countdown, a short circuit caused the explosive bolts connecting the Agena to the Thor to detonate. The small solid propellant ullage rockets, intended to fire just after the Agena’s separation from the Thor in order to push the propellants to the back of the tanks, also fired on the ground. The thrust from the rockets caused some damage to the Thor, and the Agena was a total loss.15 This test was commonly referred to as “Discoverer Zero,” or “1019” after the number of the Agena vehicle.
A review conference held two days later at Lockheed quickly identified the short circuit as the result of poor systems integration testing. It also identified the changes needed to correct the problem with little alteration of the schedule. The 1019 mission served as an example of how not to conduct launch preparations, and “1019” quickly became a rallying cry and a warning for those concerned with launch operations. Extensive testing of the entire system became a long-lasting rule for anyone associated with military space programs.16
On February 28, 1959, Discoverer I was launched carrying only a light engineering payload. It was not heard from again, although several ground stations claimed to have tracked it. Based on these initial reports, and more than a little optimism, the Air Force issued a press release declaring that the satellite was in orbit. Air Force Major Frank Buzard, in charge of writing the mission report, was told to prove that the spacecraft went into orbit. Consequently he issued a report saying that the vehicle had indeed entered orbit. Later, he concluded that the Agena stage must have malfunctioned during the second half of its flight and that Discoverer I had probably landed somewhere near the South Pole.17
Discoverer II was launched on April 13. The capsule carried a small biomedical payload consisting of a “mechanical mouse.” Two days later the Air Force announced that plans to recover the capsule near Hawaii had been canceled and that it would instead be recovered in the Arctic.
In reality, a human programming error had caused the capsule to be ejected early, and it had come down near the Spitzbergen Islands north of Norway.18 Although the islands belong to Norway, the Soviet Union had a lease to operate several mining facilities on them. The Air Force was less than accurate in its announcement because it did not want the Soviet Union to obtain the capsule. Its fiery descent and colorful parachute had supposedly been witnessed by Spitzbergen residents. The U.S. Air Force, with the aid
of the Norwegian military, began an intensive search for the capsule. On April 22 the Air Force terminated its search, declaring the capsule lost. An explanation was contained in a memo from Nathan F. Twining, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to the Deputy Secretary of Defense: “From concentric circular tracks found in the snow at the suspected impact point and leading to one of the Soviet mining concessions on the island, we strongly suspect that the Soviets are in possession of the capsule.” Twining’s memo also mentioned reports of ground sightings of the capsule hanging from its parachute, and provided a list of Soviet mining facilities in the area, the contents of the capsule, and a draft of a possible diplomatic approach that could be used by the State Department to obtain the return of the capsule and its contents.19 There were also rumors that a Soviet fishing trawler had suddenly left port right after the event. These rumors were not included in the memo.20
If an overture to the Soviets was made, it was unsuccessful, and the capsule was never recovered. From the capsule, the Soviets could have determined some preliminary information about the CORONA program, although what value that information was to them is questionable. The size of the capsule could have given them an idea of the diameter of the film cassettes carried inside later satellites, although that would have been of little use since a number of other factors determined the amount of film that CORONA could carry.21
Not everyone was convinced that the capsule had been recovered. Major Buzard initially felt that the capsule had come down on Spitzbergen, but later changed his mind and suggested that the vehicle probably came down in the water and sank, or never came down at all, suffering the same fate as later satellites that had problems with their retro-rocket de-spin system. There was no evidence on the ground to prove that Discoverer II had been recovered. “Witnesses” had been told exactly what to look for and may have merely repeated what they were told.22