The US also operated in the utmost secrecy. Only in 1995 did the White House
make public files about the mysterious Corona spy satellites. According to the
CIA, these spacecraft "were fundamental for the security of the US and prevented
the Cold War from escalating to the most terrible consequences”.
7
In the fifties, the Pentagon contracted Lockheed Corporation to design and build
the Corona satellites. The first one was launched in 1959. Until the seventies, these
spacecrafts took pictures every day over the entire Soviet territory, as well as over
any portion of the planet where the CIA needed a shot. Since the agency wanted
permanently updated photos, the Lockheed engineers developed incredible technologies for that time. They built an automatic electronic equipment that could
develop the photos directly on board the satellite, scan them with a sort of fax
machine and then send them back to Earth as soon as the satellites flew over US territory. Additionally, to send the footage as soon as possible without waiting for the
US overflight, the Lockheed team designed and built thousands of mini capsules
inside the satellites that returned from space with their precious payload immediately after the shooting. Special CIA airplanes equipped with huge nets – a sort of
giant butterfly catcher – would retrieve them in air at predetermined re-entry points.
During the Cold War, the Corona satellite, also named KH as Key Hole, took
one photo every ten minutes, capturing in total the equivalent of 88 times the total
area of the Soviet Union.
8
The US employed the spy satellites together with the
legendary SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance plane, which was able to fly at three
times the speed of sound at the edge of the stratosphere, photographing 250,000 km
2
of territory in one hour.
9
In little more than ten years, the Corona satellites took
over one million photographs in space, for a total of 400 miles of footage.
Satellite and aerial imagery gave the US a global surveillance system, providing a strategic advantage comparable to the one achieved in the forties by the
British, when the Enigma machine decoded all Nazi-encrypted communications.
10
In 1961, thanks to satellite imagery, the US realized that the high number of Soviet
intercontinental missiles, the so-called missile gap, was in reality much lower than
declared by Moscow,
11
and so they reduced their production lines to save costs and
resources.
Only in the eighties did the technological improvements in microelectronics
make both the space capsules and the butterfly catcher airplanes obsolete. By then,
satellites could be equipped with electro-optical digital cameras with storage and
7
Peebles, Curtis. 1997. The Corona Project: America’s First Spy Satellites. Annapolis, MD:
Naval Institute Press.
8
idem
9
Brown, Kevin. 1968. America’s Super-Secret Spy Plane. Popular Mechanics, June, 59–62.
10
idem
11
Day, Dwayne. 2015. Eye in the Sky: The Story of the CORONA Spy Satellites. Washington,
DC: Smithsonian Institution.
Beyond the Movies: The Real War for Space We Never Saw on Screen 35
make public files about the mysterious Corona spy satellites. According to the
CIA, these spacecraft "were fundamental for the security of the US and prevented
the Cold War from escalating to the most terrible consequences”.
7
In the fifties, the Pentagon contracted Lockheed Corporation to design and build
the Corona satellites. The first one was launched in 1959. Until the seventies, these
spacecrafts took pictures every day over the entire Soviet territory, as well as over
any portion of the planet where the CIA needed a shot. Since the agency wanted
permanently updated photos, the Lockheed engineers developed incredible technologies for that time. They built an automatic electronic equipment that could
develop the photos directly on board the satellite, scan them with a sort of fax
machine and then send them back to Earth as soon as the satellites flew over US territory. Additionally, to send the footage as soon as possible without waiting for the
US overflight, the Lockheed team designed and built thousands of mini capsules
inside the satellites that returned from space with their precious payload immediately after the shooting. Special CIA airplanes equipped with huge nets – a sort of
giant butterfly catcher – would retrieve them in air at predetermined re-entry points.
During the Cold War, the Corona satellite, also named KH as Key Hole, took
one photo every ten minutes, capturing in total the equivalent of 88 times the total
area of the Soviet Union.
8
The US employed the spy satellites together with the
legendary SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance plane, which was able to fly at three
times the speed of sound at the edge of the stratosphere, photographing 250,000 km
2
of territory in one hour.
9
In little more than ten years, the Corona satellites took
over one million photographs in space, for a total of 400 miles of footage.
Satellite and aerial imagery gave the US a global surveillance system, providing a strategic advantage comparable to the one achieved in the forties by the
British, when the Enigma machine decoded all Nazi-encrypted communications.
10
In 1961, thanks to satellite imagery, the US realized that the high number of Soviet
intercontinental missiles, the so-called missile gap, was in reality much lower than
declared by Moscow,
11
and so they reduced their production lines to save costs and
resources.
Only in the eighties did the technological improvements in microelectronics
make both the space capsules and the butterfly catcher airplanes obsolete. By then,
satellites could be equipped with electro-optical digital cameras with storage and
7
Peebles, Curtis. 1997. The Corona Project: America’s First Spy Satellites. Annapolis, MD:
Naval Institute Press.
8
idem
9
Brown, Kevin. 1968. America’s Super-Secret Spy Plane. Popular Mechanics, June, 59–62.
10
idem
11
Day, Dwayne. 2015. Eye in the Sky: The Story of the CORONA Spy Satellites. Washington,
DC: Smithsonian Institution.
Beyond the Movies: The Real War for Space We Never Saw on Screen 35