Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (U.S.) Search this
Physical description:
1 volume (various pagings) : illustrations, portraits ; 28 cm
Type:
Books
History
Place:
United States
Date:
2012
Notes:
"April 2012."
Shipping list no.: 2012-0363-P.
Contents:
Introduction -- Program overview -- Customer relationships and interfaces -- Technical design, manufacture and test -- Relationships and interfaces with associate contractors and subcontractors -- System integration, launch, orbital operations, and recovery -- Epilogue -- Hexagon imagery
Summary:
The United States developed the Gambit and Hexagon programs to improve the nation's means for peering over the iron curtain that separated western democracies from east European and Asian communist countries. The inability to gain insight into vast "denied areas" required exceptional systems to understand threats posed by US adversaries. Corona was the first imagery satellite system to help see into those areas. Hexagon began as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program with the first concepts proposed in 1964. The CIA's primary goal was to develop an imagery system with Corona-like ability to image wide swaths of the earth, but with resolution equivalent to Gambit. Such a system would afford the United States even greater advantages monitoring the arms race that had developed with the nation's adversaries. The system that became Hexagon faced three major challenges. The first was development of the technology, which was eventually overcome by the Itek and Perkin-Elmer Corporations. Perkin-Elmer took over development of the original camera system that would evolve into the primary camera for the Hexagon program. The panoramic camera system, designated KH-9, would image vast areas of the earth and prove an essential collection asset for verifying the Soviet Union's compliance with arms control treaties as well as address other intelligence questions.
