KH-11 KENNEN

[Jim]

Did the shuttle in the end  ever return any other free flying satellites apart from LDEF ?

STS-41-C (launch) / STS-32R (retrieve): LDEF
STS-41-B (launch) / STS-51-A (retrieve): Palapa B-2 and Westar 6
STS-46 (launch) / STS-57 (retrieve): EURECA
H-II Test Vehicle 3 (launch) / STS-72 (retrieve): Space Flyer Unit

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/15094/what-satellites-did-the-shuttle-retrieve-from-orbit

 - Ed Kyle

It retrieved others but did not return them
HST
Intetsat VI
Syncom IV
Solar Max

Also, deployed, retrieved and returned
Several SPARTANs and SPAS

[edzieba]

Was HST even capable of being returned to Earth by the Orbiter?
Even assuming any latched-for-launch components could be relatched by manual intervention for retrieval or allowed to fail and be replaced groundside, returning would mean subjecting HST to EDL G and shock loads laterally, which was not the launch configuration. If retrieval meant risking permanently warping the telescope structure, damaging the primary mirror, or both, then a retrieval mission followed by a complete rebuild would make less sense than launching a new HST using the same spare parts (with the possibility to rendezvous and science instrument transfer to save pennies on the dollar) and saving an entire STS launch in the process.

[LittleBird]

Was HST even capable of being returned to Earth by the Orbiter?
Even assuming any latched-for-launch components could be relatched by manual intervention for retrieval or allowed to fail and be replaced groundside, returning would mean subjecting HST to EDL G and shock loads laterally, which was not the launch configuration. If retrieval meant risking permanently warping the telescope structure, damaging the primary mirror, or both, then a retrieval mission followed by a complete rebuild would make less sense than launching a new HST using the same spare parts (with the possibility to rendezvous and science instrument transfer to save pennies on the dollar) and saving an entire STS launch in the process.

Presumably it was at least in theory supposed to be able to survive a launch abort though, but that would be in a more robust “furled” state I guess.


However Eric Chaisson’s book says that Riccardo Giacconi for one thought that if HST ever came back it would end up in the Smithsonian, though this may have been as much about the backlog of launches as any other reason. I’ll upload the relevant page about this later.


I know Blackstar has written about the consideration given to KH9 servicing missions, I’ve forgotten if anything is known about what was decided about KH11 in that respect?


Presumably the LDEF is the largest object ever returned intact from space apart from the orbiters themselves ?

[Emmettvonbrown]

Was HST even capable of being returned to Earth by the Orbiter?
Even assuming any latched-for-launch components could be relatched by manual intervention for retrieval or allowed to fail and be replaced groundside, returning would mean subjecting HST to EDL G and shock loads laterally, which was not the launch configuration. If retrieval meant risking permanently warping the telescope structure, damaging the primary mirror, or both, then a retrieval mission followed by a complete rebuild would make less sense than launching a new HST using the same spare parts (with the possibility to rendezvous and science instrument transfer to save pennies on the dollar) and saving an entire STS launch in the process.

Dang, NASA has expressly touted the Hubble-Shuttle couple since 1971, so twenty years by 1991. All this for naught ?!!! Hubble needed Shuttle for maintenance, and Hubble maintenance helped selling the Shuttle - in the very difficult years 1970-72 (when it almost kicked the bucket a few times).

[John Santos]

Did the shuttle in the end  ever return any other free flying satellites apart from LDEF ?

STS-41-C (launch) / STS-32R (retrieve): LDEF
STS-41-B (launch) / STS-51-A (retrieve): Palapa B-2 and Westar 6
STS-46 (launch) / STS-57 (retrieve): EURECA
H-II Test Vehicle 3 (launch) / STS-72 (retrieve): Space Flyer Unit

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/15094/what-satellites-did-the-shuttle-retrieve-from-orbit

 - Ed Kyle

It retrieved others but did not return them
HST
Intetsat VI
Syncom IV
Solar Max

Also, deployed, retrieved and returned
Several SPARTANs and SPAS

Plus the MPLMs, which were launched and retrieved 11 times, but maybe don't count because they weren't free-flyers.  (They were always attached to either the shuttle, the station or both.)

[hoku]

<snip>
However Eric Chaisson’s book says that Riccardo Giacconi for one thought that if HST ever came back it would end up in the Smithsonian, though this may have been as much about the backlog of launches as any other reason. I’ll upload the relevant page about this later.
<snip>

For context: Riccardo Giacconi considered the concept of a "refurbishable" space telescope in LEO as an inferior choice with respect to cost and observing efficiency as for up to 50% of its ~92 min orbit, Earth blocks the telescope's view.

In early 1994, when the first post SM-1 images obtained with WFPC2 and COSTAR were released, Giacconi stated that in his view launching a new space telescope every 5 to 8 years with updated instruments into a higher orbit would have been much smarter, but would have been impossible to get funded by the US congress. According to Giacconi, the serviceability of HST was the compromise NASA and the astronomical community had to accept in order to get a space telescope at all.

[Blackstar]

I know Blackstar has written about the consideration given to KH9 servicing missions, I’ve forgotten if anything is known about what was decided about KH11 in that respect?

In an effort to return the KH-11 thread back to the topic of the KH-11, I recently talked to somebody who told me that he was involved in studies about putting the KH-11 inside the shuttle bay. This included demonstrating that it could handle the launch loads as well as proving that it did not pose a threat to the astronauts.

[Blackstar]

One thing I got confirmed: the mirror technology developed for MOL was then incorporated into KH-8 and then into KH-11 and then Hubble.

Also, when NASA was going to build Hubble, they wanted a 3-meter mirror. But only Perkin-Elmer could make a 3-meter mirror and NASA needed to hold a real competition. NASA went to Kodak and asked them to bid on Hubble and Kodak said that they could not make a 3-meter mirror, but they could make a 3.5-meter mirror. So NASA set the requirement at 2.4 meters, P-E and Kodak both bid, and Kodak lost. I know why Kodak lost, and it partly had to do with their experience with KH-11--they knew too much and their bid was too high as a result (in other words, they knew what it should really cost to do the work).

The "funny" thing, though, was that Kodak's bid included an end-to-end test. PE didn't have the facilities to verify the image quality of a complete optical telescope assembly with large mirrors, and setting up such a facility might easily have doubled their bid. Kodak could re-use the test set-up developed for KH-10/11.

The track record of the PE+LMSC collaboration, i.e. their 1970 study for the Large Telescope Experiment Program (LTEP) and on KH-9, might also have played a role in selecting PE (and LMSC) in July 1977.

edit: dates of contract awards corrected

I looked at Smith's Hubble book and he doesn't have anything about the link to reconnaissance satellites. He has some mention of reconnaissance satellites, but got the details wrong.

One of the guys I talked to explained the issue with the mirror polishing, but I need to look at my notes. I think (again, going from memory) that Kodak wanted to use a traditional polishing approach that would have polished a small part at a time and therefore took longer. P-E had a new untried technique that polished a larger mirror portion at a time and went faster. However, in the end, Kodak was able to polish their mirror as fast (or faster?) than the P-E mirror. I'm not sure how that happened.

One thing my discussion with the Kodak guys cleared up was that P-E could actually make bigger mirrors than Kodak. My hazy, erroneous memory was that it was the other way around. However, P-E had not made any of the larger space-qualified mirrors.

Kodak had a method for supporting the mirrors using an airbag that effectively simulated microgravity. I don't know what P-E did.

My interest is not really about Hubble, but about how Kodak's and P-E's experience with reconnaissance satellites fed into their bidding on the Hubble contract. The irony is that Kodak had more large space optics experience than P-E did, but it may have worked against them winning the Hubble contract. (Caveat: P-E had flown more HEXAGONS in space by the time of the Hubble bid. But the HEXAGON mirrors were not as big as the KH-11 KENNEN mirrors. Only one KENNEN had flown by 1977.)



Update: adding a bit more:

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/28/us/losing-bid-offered-2-tests-on-hubble.html

"The unsuccesful bid, submitted to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by the Eastman Kodak Company, called for the company to make one primary mirror within its plant and for Itek Optical Systems to make an identical primary mirror at another plant.

In its proposal, Kodak said the two mirrors and the different testing systems of the two companies could be used to verify accuracy. One of the two primary mirrors would then be used in the Hubble Space Telescope.

But NASA awarded the contract to Perkin-Elmer. The Danbury, Conn., company did its own mirror grinding and polishing and used its own personnel and equipment to check the mirrors.

Bids Varied by Millions
Perkin-Elmer's winning bid was $64.28 million; Kodak's proposal was $99.79 million. The cost of the Perkin-Elmer contract eventually climbed to $451 million. The company, now known as Hughes Danbury Optical Systems, is a subsidiary of the Hughes Aircraft Company, whose parent is the General Motors Corporation."


And:

"NASA officials have said that the Perkin-Elmer optical assembly was not tested after it was put together because it would have required a test that may have cost more than $100 million.

Mr. Wollensak said the Perkin-Elmer design did not allow for the primary mirror to be tested after it was placed into the assembled telescope. He said that the instrument was designed to work in zero gravity and that the gravity of Earth caused the glass to sag slightly, which would have changed the focus.

But Kodak and Itek, Mr. Wollensak said, had developed a way to prevent the sag and thus test the mirrors as an assembled unit."

[hoku]

One of the guys I talked to explained the issue with the mirror polishing, but I need to look at my notes. I think (again, going from memory) that Kodak wanted to use a traditional polishing approach that would have polished a small part at a time and therefore took longer. P-E had a new untried technique that polished a larger mirror portion at a time and went faster. However, in the end, Kodak was able to polish their mirror as fast (or faster?) than the P-E mirror. I'm not sure how that happened.

In the end, the computerised polishing procedure devised by PE worked perfectly fine. What bit them was
i)  PE's lack of configuration control (the reflective null corrector was modified from its original design during assembly by technicians working w/o any oversight), and
ii) the insistence of key PE personnel to rely on a single verification method (even in face of pronounced spherical aberration being revealed using other methods on at least on two occasions.)

Kodak had a method for supporting the mirrors using an airbag that effectively simulated microgravity. I don't know what P-E did.

PE used a "metrology mount" consisting of a bed of 134 titanium nails to simulate a zero-g environment:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4165153
https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of-spie/0571/0000/Test-And-Evaluation-Of-The-Hubble-Space-Telescope-24-meter/10.1117/12.950408.short

[LittleBird]

Interesting oral history at AIP by Daniel Ford with Robert J Kohler: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/40912-16

I'll respect the AIP request not to excerpt it but there's lots to enjoy, especially about Richard Garwin's role (interview is one of a series about Garwin) and in particular the info that Westinghouse in Baltimore made the CCDs for KH-11 when these replaced the original EOI sensor. I think the existing docs list Westinghouse as one of the contractors for the original sensor but story stops before onset of CCDs.

Good story about how Garwin debugged problems with CCD production by suggesting they check the humidifier in the Baltimore plant ... as one other interviewee says Garwin is the kind of physicist you want as a neighbour, having a degree of skill at fixing things not usually associated with theorists ;-)

[Blackstar]

Interesting oral history at AIP by Daniel Ford with Robert J Kohler: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/40912-16

I'll respect the AIP request not to excerpt it but there's lots to enjoy, especially about Richard Garwin's role (interview is one of a series about Garwin) and in particular the info that Westinghouse in Baltimore made the CCDs for KH-11 when these replaced the original EOI sensor. I think the existing docs list Westinghouse as one of the contractors for the original sensor but story stops before onset of CCDs.

Good story about how Garwin debugged problems with CCD production by suggesting they check the humidifier in the Baltimore plant ... as one other interviewee says Garwin is the kind of physicist you want as a neighbour, having a degree of skill at fixing things not usually associated with theorists ;-)

Many years ago I got a call from Garwin's biographer asking if I had anything on him. I only had a couple of anecdotes and no documents. Garwin was supposedly someone who led a report on MOL that raised the issue of the astronauts degrading the imagery. We don't have that report.

[LittleBird]

Interesting oral history at AIP by Daniel Ford with Robert J Kohler: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/40912-16

I'll respect the AIP request not to excerpt it but there's lots to enjoy, especially about Richard Garwin's role (interview is one of a series about Garwin) and in particular the info that Westinghouse in Baltimore made the CCDs for KH-11 when these replaced the original EOI sensor. I think the existing docs list Westinghouse as one of the contractors for the original sensor but story stops before onset of CCDs.

Good story about how Garwin debugged problems with CCD production by suggesting they check the humidifier in the Baltimore plant ... as one other interviewee says Garwin is the kind of physicist you want as a neighbour, having a degree of skill at fixing things not usually associated with theorists ;-)

Many years ago I got a call from Garwin's biographer asking if I had anything on him. I only had a couple of anecdotes and no documents. Garwin was supposedly someone who led a report on MOL that raised the issue of the astronauts degrading the imagery. We don't have that report.

True, but we do have more of the PSAC's views than I realised, I've posted a couple more to the MOL thread.

[edzieba]

Interesting oral history at AIP by Daniel Ford with Robert J Kohler: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/40912-16

I'll respect the AIP request not to excerpt it but there's lots to enjoy, especially about Richard Garwin's role (interview is one of a series about Garwin) and in particular the info that Westinghouse in Baltimore made the CCDs for KH-11 when these replaced the original EOI sensor. I think the existing docs list Westinghouse as one of the contractors for the original sensor but story stops before onset of CCDs.

Good story about how Garwin debugged problems with CCD production by suggesting they check the humidifier in the Baltimore plant ... as one other interviewee says Garwin is the kind of physicist you want as a neighbour, having a degree of skill at fixing things not usually associated with theorists ;-)

Good to get solid confirmation of the transition from photodiode line arrays to CCDs. Not sure if anywhere has mentioned (of hinted at) if that also marked the transition from line-array to focal-plane-array at the same time, or if they moved from photodiode line-array to CCD line-array, and then moved from CCD line-array to focal-plane-array at a later date.

[LittleBird]

Interesting oral history at AIP by Daniel Ford with Robert J Kohler: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/40912-16

I'll respect the AIP request not to excerpt it but there's lots to enjoy, especially about Richard Garwin's role (interview is one of a series about Garwin) and in particular the info that Westinghouse in Baltimore made the CCDs for KH-11 when these replaced the original EOI sensor. I think the existing docs list Westinghouse as one of the contractors for the original sensor but story stops before onset of CCDs.

Good story about how Garwin debugged problems with CCD production by suggesting they check the humidifier in the Baltimore plant ... as one other interviewee says Garwin is the kind of physicist you want as a neighbour, having a degree of skill at fixing things not usually associated with theorists ;-)

Good to get solid confirmation of the transition from photodiode line arrays to CCDs. Not sure if anywhere has mentioned (of hinted at) if that also marked the transition from line-array to focal-plane-array at the same time, or if they moved from photodiode line-array to CCD line-array, and then moved from CCD line-array to focal-plane-array at a later date.

Only thing I've seen that may bear on your question is p 101 of what I think of as The Kennen Story, though I'm sure it has a correct name, attached and grab. It sounds like they went first to a CCD line array that mimicked a focal plane ? Is that how it reads to you @edzieba, i.e. is that what "making a scanning array act like a framing array" means ?

It also means I was in error in thinking thay hadn't mentioned CCDs yet in declassified docs.

[edzieba]

Interesting oral history at AIP by Daniel Ford with Robert J Kohler: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/40912-16

I'll respect the AIP request not to excerpt it but there's lots to enjoy, especially about Richard Garwin's role (interview is one of a series about Garwin) and in particular the info that Westinghouse in Baltimore made the CCDs for KH-11 when these replaced the original EOI sensor. I think the existing docs list Westinghouse as one of the contractors for the original sensor but story stops before onset of CCDs.

Good story about how Garwin debugged problems with CCD production by suggesting they check the humidifier in the Baltimore plant ... as one other interviewee says Garwin is the kind of physicist you want as a neighbour, having a degree of skill at fixing things not usually associated with theorists ;-)

Good to get solid confirmation of the transition from photodiode line arrays to CCDs. Not sure if anywhere has mentioned (of hinted at) if that also marked the transition from line-array to focal-plane-array at the same time, or if they moved from photodiode line-array to CCD line-array, and then moved from CCD line-array to focal-plane-array at a later date.

Only thing I've seen that may bear on your question is p 101 of what I think of as The Kennen Story, though I'm sure it has a correct name, attached and grab. It sounds like they went first to a CCD line array that mimicked a focal plane ? Is that how it reads to you ?

It also means I was in error in thinking thay hadn't mentioned CCDs yet in declassified docs.

It sounds from that article like they were building multiple-line arrays, but still operating the system as a pushbroom imager. By having multiple sequential lines, and with the CCDs capability to shunt charges across an array, you could 'virtually' slide the array along the focal plane as the image moves across the focal plane, giving more exposure time per pixel in the array. ShadowCam on the Danuri lunar orbiter uses the same technique. This could have been a holdover to allow the previous operational mode (pushbroom) unchanged whilst updating the sensor, whereas a 'staring' focal plane array would require active repointing during exposure to prevent smear (and other optical or electronic tricks to account for changes in observation angle) so vehicle design - or at the very least vehicle operation - changes.

[Star One]

I’m guessing the images in this report could originally been from a KH-11 but downgraded, but these days could just as easily be commercial images:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/uk-sends-un-experts-photographs-north-korean-shipments-russia

[edzieba]

I’m guessing the images in this report could originally been from a KH-11 but downgraded, but these days could just as easily be commercial images:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/uk-sends-un-experts-photographs-north-korean-shipments-russia

The "2023 Planet Labs Inc." in the corner is rather a giveaway.

[LittleBird]

I’m guessing the images in this report could originally been from a KH-11 but downgraded, but these days could just as easily be commercial images:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/uk-sends-un-experts-photographs-north-korean-shipments-russia

The "2023 Planet Labs Inc." in the corner is rather a giveaway.

200 satellites, 50 cm resolution ... I still find today's world hard to get used to sometimes ;-)  https://www.planet.com/products/

[Star One]

I’m guessing the images in this report could originally been from a KH-11 but downgraded, but these days could just as easily be commercial images:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/uk-sends-un-experts-photographs-north-korean-shipments-russia

The "2023 Planet Labs Inc." in the corner is rather a giveaway.

Couldn’t see that on my phone screen.

[Star One]

I’m guessing the images in this report could originally been from a KH-11 but downgraded, but these days could just as easily be commercial images:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/uk-sends-un-experts-photographs-north-korean-shipments-russia

The "2023 Planet Labs Inc." in the corner is rather a giveaway.

200 satellites, 50 cm resolution ... I still find today's world hard to get used to sometimes ;-)  https://www.planet.com/products/

Aren’t there meant to be calls by the commercial sector to be allowed to go a lot better than 50 cm now for non-government customers?