KH-11 KENNEN

[LittleBird]

Or was it just P.E being more visionary than Kodak and planning their machinery in advance, just in case ?

I don't know. I was a bit surprised to learn this from Kodak people. And unfortunately, the one person I knew who could possibly shed light on it, Phil Pressel, died last year.

One wonders what would have launched it. Before late 80s i assume a ten foot mirror would have needed a shuttle or maybe a Titan IIIE ?

You meant to write "Starship," right?

You mean like the Starship fairings on slide below, right ;-)

[LittleBird]

Then there's segmented mirror designs. Among many others, LAMP from Itek back in the mid 80's, and LODE from Lockheed in the late 70's, possibly some work occurring even earlier. Officially these mirrors were for space-based lasers, but it could hardly have escaped NRO's attention that their prime contractors were also working on much larger diameter mirrors ground to very high optical quality, and with other desirable features like actively controlled thinned substrates. Publicly, the only segmented design the NRO has acknowledged having anything to do with was the Segmented Mirror Telescope …

That’s actually changed recently, in that NRO has acknowledged the relation of some of its tech to JWST in response to a media request. I have a note of the article that quotes this somewhere and will dig out.

Found the background to what I was looking for, and now am not sure that they've gone as far as I thought, but judge for yourselves. Email chain is declassified here: https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/041723/F-2022-00167_C05140549.pdf and attached. Grabs are first the reporter's question and then the background and release.

The resulting Grid News article  may be on archive.org if I can be bothered to go look, I may get round to that later-see third grab (and the back story: https://slate.com/business/2024/02/messenger-gawker-vice-media-layoffs-sites-deleted-why.html)

Not 100% sure that the article I had seen was on Grid/Messenger-but not sure if I'll ever know now ...

[LittleBird]

I found this illustration in the video very interesting - not just a typical 'fake satellite drawing', it looks like a combo of a regular imaging sat with  a crossed SAR, or the ELINT antennae from a Russian Tselina. Something real that got in by mistake, or just made up?

I think, it is made up, although more credible than most "fake satellites" illustrations we come across.
There are some things which do not look right. The mounting struts of the non-articulated solar arrays look very flimsy, while the mounts of of the X-wings and especially of the dipole-antennas look oversized. Also it seems to have no launch adaptor on the bus side we see. And the other cylindrical end seems to represent an optical imager, which would be an unusual place to fit a payload launch adaptor

Not being an expert in any of this stuff I was interested in the SAR-SIGINT hybrid in this new article  https://thespacereview.com/article/4831/1(see grab). Is a SAR-PHOTINT SIGINT-PHOTINT hybrid  possible, by similar logic, and was that what you were suggesting @jcm ? With hindsight such a hybrid was  a bit like one idea for MOL, but didn't fly (pun intended) for various good reasons.

[Blackstar]

By the late 1960s, CORONA had a target set of about 12,000 targets. HEXAGON expanded that to 24,000 targets. KENNEN increased that to 40,000 targets.

There are some interesting things to ponder about this. One is how to deal with looking at all that imagery. But another is trying to task the satellites. HEXAGON could grab a lot of targets quickly in a single pass, but KENNEN had to be pointed at most of them.

[Targeteer]

One is how to deal with looking at all that imagery.

Rumor has it this is still a problem, maybe a bigger problem.

[ExGeek]

By the late 1960s, CORONA had a target set of about 12,000 targets. HEXAGON expanded that to 24,000 targets. KENNEN increased that to 40,000 targets.

There are some interesting things to ponder about this. One is how to deal with looking at all that imagery. But another is trying to task the satellites. HEXAGON could grab a lot of targets quickly in a single pass, but KENNEN had to be pointed at most of them.

The relay also adds to the complication in tasking and coordination that didn't exist for the film-droppers.  Additionally, the ground processing systems also had to be made aware of what was coming so that its equipment could be ready to receive, process and disseminate.

[leovinus]

One is how to deal with looking at all that imagery.

Rumor has it this is still a problem, maybe a bigger problem.

Actually, I would think that the image processing is the easier part with proper AI/ML software. While I did only limited work on satellite data image processing myself, a model that flags up changes, count cars and buildings, etc is pretty straightforward these days. Such a model would be useful to prioritize the workload for analysts.

[Spiceman]

"the number of sino-soviet targets stayed at 21 000 when the total was 40 000"

And I thought only the commies were the ennemies.

*Dimona* cough

*Pierrelatte* cough, cough *Moruroa*

[Blackstar]

"the number of sino-soviet targets stayed at 21 000 when the total was 40 000"

And I thought only the commies were the ennemies.

*Dimona* cough

*Pierrelatte* cough, cough *Moruroa*

Those were already targets before the KH-11 became available. If you go through the CORONA OAK reports produced by NPIC which are in the CIA's CREST database, you can see what was deleted. Israel is missing.

But it is an interesting question what would have been added to the list. I can see a couple of things driving that. One would be geopolitical developments in the latter 1970s. New hotspots like Angola and Central America. Another being changes in access to areas. For instance, with the US kicked out of Iran, there were then targets in Iran to image.

[LittleBird]

"the number of sino-soviet targets stayed at 21 000 when the total was 40 000"

And I thought only the commies were the ennemies.

*Dimona* cough

*Pierrelatte* cough, cough *Moruroa*

Those were already targets before the KH-11 became available. If you go through the CORONA OAK reports produced by NPIC which are in the CIA's CREST database, you can see what was deleted. Israel is missing.

There is for example an interesting declassified CIA summary report on the French nuclear weapons programme from the early 60s, several such reports in fact. Not sure where i saw it but i think it may have been in one of the National Security Archive’s electronic briefing books.

[Blackstar]

There is for example an interesting declassified CIA summary report on the French nuclear weapons programme from the early 60s, several such reports in fact. Not sure where i saw it but i think it may have been in one of the National Security Archive’s electronic briefing books.

Yes. There is also a KH-7 image of a French nuclear reactor. And the well-known story about launching U-2s off of aircraft carriers to overfly the French nuclear testing area.

(Note: I do not know the quality of this video.)

[hoku]

New (July 20) observations of USA-290 (NROL-71), which might be a KH-11 type satellite, but - like USA-338 - is in an unusual i=73.6 deg orbit.

https://www.astrobin.com/mhs140/

https://twitter.com/someastrostuff/status/1822731202807185583

[Blackstar]

https://www.space.com/secret-satellites-caught-on-camera

[gosnold]

The NRO reaaally likes their umbrella design

[LittleBird]

https://www.space.com/secret-satellites-caught-on-camera

It's interesting to look back to the beginning of this thread, when some time was spent on claimed images of the KH-11 which showed a lot more detail. The general consensus was that it was too good to be true, do the new images confirm that view ?

One new (to me) assertion in the space.com article was about a change from 2.4 m to 3m. Does that confirm any speculation ?

[JetProp]

One new (to me) assertion in the space.com article was about a change from 2.4 m to 3m. Does that confirm any speculation ?

It is interesting. Article at space.com was issued at 19.09.2024. Another article at "Vestnik NPO Lavochkina" №3 2024 (page 23, 25 in pdf) came at 18.03.2024 and contains same information: USA 314, 326, 290 и 338 have a 3,14 meter mirror.

[gosnold]

https://www.space.com/secret-satellites-caught-on-camera

It's interesting to look back to the beginning of this thread, when some time was spent on claimed images of the KH-11 which showed a lot more detail. The general consensus was that it was too good to be true, do the new images confirm that view ?

One new (to me) assertion in the space.com article was about a change from 2.4 m to 3m. Does that confirm any speculation ?

At some point around 10cm atmospheric turbulence limits your resolution, using a larger mirror just makes it possible to achieve this resolution from a higher altitude, so you have more frequent revisits.

[Blackstar]

Okay, this is a somewhat vague question, but what do we think would be reasonable off-nadir capability for the early KH-11s?

In other words, how far off straight down could it look and still take good photos? 30 degrees? 60 degrees? Naturally, looking straight down is best, and 30 degrees off is less good and 60 degrees is even less good.

I need to look up the off-nadir capability of the lower-res KH-9 HEXAGON to get some understanding. I also wrote something about this concerning the GAMBIT, and need to look at that.



Update:

To try and answer my question, I looked at the reported performance for FROG and surprisingly they appear to have been considering up to 53-degree pitch angles on the satellite:

https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/MAJOR%20NRO%20PROGRAMS%20&%20PROJECTS/NRO%20EOI/SC-2016-00001_C05096524.pdf

https://thespacereview.com/article/4327/1

Now that's a little difficult to understand, because I'm not sure if pitch angle is the same as off-nadir angle--in other words, is zero-degree pitch angle looking straight down (nadir)? I think so. And I may be comparing apples to oranges here, because a film system may have different limitations than an EOI system when it comes to how far it can look off nadir and still take a good photo. But until somebody smarter than me comes in and explains what the better assumptions are, I'll consider this to be a good ballpark estimate.

[hoku]

Okay, this is a somewhat vague question, but what do we think would be reasonable off-nadir capability for the early KH-11s?

In other words, how far off straight down could it look and still take good photos? 30 degrees? 60 degrees? Naturally, looking straight down is best, and 30 degrees off is less good and 60 degrees is even less good.

I need to look up the off-nadir capability of the lower-res KH-9 HEXAGON to get some understanding. I also wrote something about this concerning the GAMBIT, and need to look at that.



Update:

To try and answer my question, I looked at the reported performance for FROG and surprisingly they appear to have been considering up to 53-degree pitch angles on the satellite:

https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/MAJOR%20NRO%20PROGRAMS%20&%20PROJECTS/NRO%20EOI/SC-2016-00001_C05096524.pdf

https://thespacereview.com/article/4327/1

Now that's a little difficult to understand, because I'm not sure if pitch angle is the same as off-nadir angle--in other words, is zero-degree pitch angle looking straight down (nadir)? I think so. And I may be comparing apples to oranges here, because a film system may have different limitations than an EOI system when it comes to how far it can look off nadir and still take a good photo. But until somebody smarter than me comes in and explains what the better assumptions are, I'll consider this to be a good ballpark estimate.

Partial answer according to Dirks' "Blue Book": an increase of the "in-track pitch angle", i.e. along the direction of motion of the ground-track of the satellite, was a design consideration. Larger in-track pitch angles - with 0 degree corresponding to staring straight down, i.e. nadir - (and higher orbital altitudes) increase the satellite's dwell time over specific targets (Figure VI on page 24).

[edzieba]

At least in terms of pointing, off-nadir capability should be arbitrary: both GAMBIT and KENNEN could conduct sat-squared missions, which have much tougher pointing requirements than any static spot on the Earth's surface.
Have reasonable approximations of the numerical aperture and focal length for KENNEN ever been published (G³ was 4500mm f/4)? At least for Gambit, the ranges are sufficiently long that depth of field even at extreme slant angles would been tens to hundreds of kilometres thick, so atmospheric distortions would likely have been the main driver of effective resolution off-nadir.