The Satellite Data System and the evolution of the EOI relay satellte in 60s-70s

[LittleBird]

Prompted by a couple of recent posts  (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59134.msg2502783#msg2502783 and https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59134.msg2502982#msg2502982 ) in the Near Real Time  Spy Satellites thread, this is a thread to hold some of the interesting new declassified documents that have surfaced in the last few years about the first generation SDS/QUASAR satellite and the path that led to it from about 1968 to 1976. This was a complicated evolution, involving both the NRO and USAF, and it has taken quite a long time for the contours to emerge.

Basically I plan to add documents that might help add anything to the synthesis that Blackstar achieved in his articles in Spaceflight  ("Out of the Shadows: The Shuttle's Secret Payloads", February 1999); JBIS ("Relay in the Sky the Satellite Data System", in 2006); and the Space Review, for the latter see "Big comm, little mysteries" (2011) at https://www.thespacereview.com/article/1982/1, "Shadow dancing: the Satellite Data System" (2018)  at https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3440/1 and "Spinning out of the shadows" (2017) https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3195/1 - there may be more.

It's not an area I am currently researching, but it has interesting overlaps with Hughes' work on Intelsat IV, TACSAT, JUMPSEAT et al (see https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4096/1) and with the perenially interesting KH-11/KENNEN for which it acted as the relay satellite (see grab below, from the Kennen Story, via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN#/media/File:KENNEN_InitialConfig_1977Jan.png). More posts to follow as I get round to finding the docs again.

[Blackstar]

Well, then you need this stuff.

The Vance Mitchell article is a bit frustrating. You'll see why.

My article here is from 2006. I am 99% sure that I updated it in some way and have re-published it since then (maybe the title of my revised article was "Shadow Dancing" but I cannot find that). If I did revise it, I don't have it on hand. So use this for now.

[hoku]

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3440/1

Might also be interesting to figure out how the "precursors"(?) SDS-A (Jumpseat 1) and SDS-B (Jumpseat 3) fit into the story.

[LittleBird]

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3440/1

Thanks hoku and Blackstar, I should have added titles after the links in the OP, will do.

Might also be interesting to figure out how the "precursors"(?) SDS-A (Jumpseat 1) and SDS-B (Jumpseat 3) fit into the story.

As far as I can see they are precursors only in same  way that the Gyrostat-based TACSAT was a precursor to Intelsat IV and JUMPSEAT. It's now clear that the first SDS was launched in 1976, close to the first KH-11. This was a source of confusion, possibly deliberate, for decades, but the Vance Mitchell history makes it clear that SDS hadn't fully firmed up by the time that the first JUMPSEAT flew, well beforehand, in 1971.

The basic chronology hasn't changed as far as I know from what is the TSR piece I linked to: https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4096/1
it's just that we can now see  that an IR sensor was on the first JUMPSEAT (see my recent posts on DSP thread) and that (I think) SDS did indeed also acquire an IR sensor but not on the very first flight(s) --- this is may be discernable from the Vance Mitchell history that Blackstar just uploaded.

I'll post a summary of what the Mitchell history seems to tell us later on. [Edit: That will be a new post but grabs below are about the "third secondary payload" on SDS which I think must be the IR payload that others have asserted that it carried. Primary payload is the relay for KH-11, and one of the others is described as a SIOP comms package, stated in Mitchell to be the large spiral antenna visible in the OP (grab was from The Kennen Story). Not sure what second secondary payload is yet-as they used to say in the intro to Soap, "confused ? You will be ..." ]

[Edit 2: I may be wrong about an IR third secondary payload, insofar as Blackstar in his 2018 TSR piece thinks they were bhangmeters:

The SDS’s primary payload was always the communications relay for the KENNEN reconnaissance satellites. The two secondary payloads were just that—secondary. In August 1974 the Secretary of the Air Force approved adding a third secondary payload to the satellites, the Atomic Energy Detection System. This was introduced starting with the third satellite. Similar nuclear detection payloads—also known as “bhangmeters”—were already carried on Defense Support Program satellites. They could detect nuclear detonations in the atmosphere and space.

I am surprised by that as i) the AEDS is a much bigger entity than these specific space borne sensors, see Bill Burr's page on it here:https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB7/nsaebb7.htm#fn1  and ii) there were already or about to be such sensors on DSP and GPS https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/research-magazine/article/looking-back-2/ as part of the  U.S. Nuclear Detonation Detection System (USNDS), started by the Vela sats. I can see that SDS would add a very different orbit to the mix but am still surprised.] 

[LittleBird]

Might also be interesting to figure out how the "precursors"(?) SDS-A (Jumpseat 1) and SDS-B (Jumpseat 3) fit into the story.

As far as I can see they are precursors only in same  way that the Gyrostat-based TACSAT was a precursor to Intelsat IV and JUMPSEAT. It's now clear that the first SDS was launched in 1976, close to the first KH-11. This was a source of confusion, possibly deliberate, for decades, but the Vance Mitchell history makes it clear that SDS hadn't fully firmed up by the time that the first JUMPSEAT flew.

By the way, I would note that that although the report is  from the IDA the data in that table is essentially all sourced from NASA: see https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA264159/page/n152/mode/1up and grab below. I think the names SDS-A and B etc were hangovers from the days when one couldn't really separate SDS from JUMPSEAT. The late Jeff Richelson's pioneering article in  JBIS (37, 226 (1984)  https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1984JBIS...37..226R/abstract) is iirc also from that era.

[LittleBird]

Well, then you need this stuff.

The Vance Mitchell article is a bit frustrating. You'll see why.

My article here is from 2006. I am 99% sure that I updated it in some way and have re-published it since then (maybe the title of my revised article was "Shadow Dancing" but I cannot find that). If I did revise it, I don't have it on hand. So use this for now.

Thanks. I had forgotten i) how much your 2018 article had captured and ii) how much was actually declassified in 2012 in Mitchell, even though the latter does indeed read "through a glass darkly". At a quick read of both I don't see much to argue with in your account, apart from my general feeling that if SDS did indeed fly an IR payload as well, as some people think, it should appear somewhere in these docs as a secondary payload. So I'll confine myself for now to adding the newer useful declassified docs that we now have.

First one is the 1971 ExCom meeting ... that certainly covered the ground.

You summarised this as

One of the secondary missions initially proposed for SDS was relaying data collected by Air Force DSP missile warning satellites then in development. But in summer 1970 members of the DSP program office—then operating under the deliberately obscure designation of Project 647—began to have reservations about using SDS relays for DSP satellites. Later in the year the Project 647 office withdrew from participation in the SDS in favor of relaying DSP data directly to the ground. That decision required DSP to develop its own ground stations, including a politically sensitive ground station in Australia. It also meant that SDS again became a single payload satellite.

This change annoyed Grant Hansen, the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Research and Development. Hansen wanted dual or multiple users on SDS. In a January 1971 meeting with several reconnaissance officials he discussed the options. Hansen had justified SDS in front of Congress on the basis of it having more than one payload and did not want to go back to members of Congress and explain why that was no longer the case. In an effort to force both SAMSO and the NRO to develop other payloads for SDS, Hansen suspended funding to SDS and placed the program on temporary hold.

It's nice to seein  the minutes of this ExCom meeting  the fact that DSP was no longer a potential user of this satellite by spring 1971, though related havering over the Australian ground station was clearly a longer process that dates back to the original decisions of about 66-67.

It's also nice to now see the SDS (at that stage known as DRS) discussion more generally in these minutes-I wonder how many other such ExCom minutes exist-they are much more vivid than memos. Whole thing, attached worth reading for EOI, TSC, FRO etc etc but grabs about DRS follow.

[Blackstar]

I believe that I was told that the Vance Mitchell history article was actually a summary version of an SDS history that he wrote. I may have filed a FOIA for that history and was told by NRO that it was denied in full, although I'm not sure of that. Seems like I could try again for that history.

[LittleBird]

I believe that I was told that the Vance Mitchell history article was actually a summary version of an SDS history that he wrote. I may have filed a FOIA for that history and was told by NRO that it was denied in full, although I'm not sure of that. Seems like I could try again for that history.

I think that would really be worthwhile. Turns out the shorter article you have was in the Spring 2007 issue of "National Reconnaissance", see declassified TOC  here: https://www.governmentattic.org/6docs/NRO-Journalexc_2003-2010.pdf and grabs below tajken  from that.

As far as I can see the first two secondary payloads are i) the (deleted and then reinstated) SIOP helix antenna and associated kit, and ii) the AFSCF link.

Both are described in your 2018 TSR article. [Edit: and, impressively, I see that Jeff R had the missions already by 1984 in his JBIS article as summarised at ADS abstracts: "SDS is a system of pole-orbiting satellites that have three functions: to maintain polar communications with the Strategic Air Command (SAC) aircraft, to provide a link in the control of USAF satellites, and to act as a relay for information transmitted from the Keyhole-11 photoreconnaissance satellite to a US ground station"]

It's the third secondary (i.e. 4th overall) payload  that I'm not sure about-if you can recall why you thought it was a bhangmeter  I'd be interested.

[hoku]

I believe that I was told that the Vance Mitchell history article was actually a summary version of an SDS history that he wrote. I may have filed a FOIA for that history and was told by NRO that it was denied in full, although I'm not sure of that. Seems like I could try again for that history.

A footnote on the first page of Mitchell's article states "Dr. Mitchell extracted this article from his manuscript The History of the [REDACTED] to be published by the Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (CSNR).

It might also be worthwhile to submit a new FOIA for this article. Declassifications since 2012 should lift quite a few redactions.

[hoku]

<snip>
As far as I can see the first two secondary payloads are i) the (deleted and then reinstated) SIOP helix antenna and associated kit, and ii) the AFSCF link.

Both are described in your 2018 TSR article. [Edit: and, impressively, I see that Jeff R had the missions already by 1984 in his JBIS article as summarised at ADS abstracts: "SDS is a system of pole-orbiting satellites that have three functions: to maintain polar communications with the Strategic Air Command (SAC) aircraft, to provide a link in the control of USAF satellites, and to act as a relay for information transmitted from the Keyhole-11 photoreconnaissance satellite to a US ground station"]
<snip>

The Feb 1972 budget hearing by the House Armed Services subcommittee gives the impression that the SIOP capability (coverage at high latitudes/polar regions) was the Air Force's primary talking point for getting SDS approval in the 1973 budget.

The capability of using "communication satellites" to transmit "electronic signals" of EOI satellites is only mentioned in Michael Getler's WaPo article from Feb 8, 1972, on Air Force Project 1010 (aka ZAMAN/KENNEN), which they added to the congressional record. The discussion of the article naturally evolves around the question on why the subcommittee members have to learn about this project from reading WaPo. On the hot seat is Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Grant L. Hansen, who tries to deflect any questioning. My favourite quote is "I don't know there isn't such a thing."

[LittleBird]

<snip>
As far as I can see the first two secondary payloads are i) the (deleted and then reinstated) SIOP helix antenna and associated kit, and ii) the AFSCF link.

Both are described in your 2018 TSR article. [Edit: and, impressively, I see that Jeff R had the missions already by 1984 in his JBIS article as summarised at ADS abstracts: "SDS is a system of pole-orbiting satellites that have three functions: to maintain polar communications with the Strategic Air Command (SAC) aircraft, to provide a link in the control of USAF satellites, and to act as a relay for information transmitted from the Keyhole-11 photoreconnaissance satellite to a US ground station"]
<snip>

The Feb 1972 budget hearing by the House Armed Services subcommittee gives the impression that the SIOP capability (coverage at high latitudes/polar regions) was the Air Force's primary talking point for getting SDS approval in the 1973 budget.

Nice work. I think that's exactly right, the missions used to justify the programme were the secondary ones, of which the SIOP one was the most important, while the true primary mission was not referred to at all. So its fascinating to me that  1010/KH-11 and its comsats, though not directly linked to SDS, made it into the Congressional Record that early, via the press. In passing I note the article expected it to not arrive before 1978, possibly another reason why its debut in 1976 wasn't immediately recognised.

The capability of using "communication satellites" to transmit "electronic signals" of EOI satellites is only mentioned in Michael Getler's WaPo article from Feb 8, 1972, on Air Force Project 1010 (aka ZAMAN/KENNEN), which they added to the congressional record. The discussion of the article naturally evolves around the question on why the subcommittee members have to learn about this project from reading WaPo. On the hot seat is Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Grant L. Hansen, who tries to deflect any questioning. My favourite quote is "I don't know there isn't such a thing."

He (http://www.astronautix.com/h/hansen.html) is indeed the guy who wasn't too keen to have to go back and change his story with them the previous year, in his remarks to the ExCom meeting in 1971. Pike meanwhile was the author of the famous report I think, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2017-06-02/white-house-cia-pike-committee-1975 and https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2011/11/07/are-all-leaks-good-the-pike-committee-report-kissinger-and-the-distortion-of-events/, for example.

[hoku]

A few more details from the FY78 budget hearings:

SDS FY77 approved budget was US$59.4M, and the requests/projections were $83.2M for FY78, and $26.1M for FY79. The 4th SDS, which was purchased in FY77, was the refurbished qualification model ($30.1M). The FY78 request lists $49.1M for the 5th SDS satellite (USA-4, which was launched in 1984?).

Launch vehicle costs for FY78 include "sustained launch capability" for the Titan IIIB booster ($4.1M) and the Agena upper stage ($3.5M). The purchasing costs for the Agena were $10.4M. The purchasing costs for the booster ($29.3M) were part of the FY77 budget.

Thus total purchasing costs for the hardware for the launch of one 1st generation, new (not-refurbished) SDS satellite were about $90M in 1977 US$ (inflation adjusted US$450M in 2023).

Edit: FY72 ($17.8M), FY73 ($23.0M), FY74 ($40M), F75 ($36.5M), F76+F7T ($23M) budget estimates added.

[LittleBird]

Next relevant doc is The Kennen Story The Era Before KENNEN, https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/HISTORICALLY%20SIGNIFICANT%20DOCs/NRO%2060th%20Anniversary%20Docs/SC-2021-00002_C05097836.pdf a particularly helpful bit of which was Tony Iorillo's comment about just how hard the relay satellite was to achieve. Main doc now attached, with the vignette, via https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29545.msg2300170#msg2300170

It's hard not to conclude that the name QUASAR was a wry tribute to the difficulty of achieving this tight powerful beam. [Edit: Looking at this doc again I am struck by how much there is in it, on the KH-11, the relay sat, sensor technology etc etc. In particular I note that it mentions the two contractors whoc competed for the relay satellite. TRW lost, with a 3 axis stabilised design.]

[Jim]

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29115.msg913804#msg913804

[LittleBird]

A few more details from the FY78 budget hearings:

SDS FY77 approved budget was US$59.4M, and the requests/projections were $83.2M for FY78, and $26.1M for FY79. The 4th SDS, which was purchased in FY77, was the refurbished qualification model ($30.1M). The FY78 request lists $49.1M for the 5th SDS satellite (USA-4, which was launched in 1984?).

Launch vehicle costs for FY78 include "sustained launch capability" for the Titan IIIB booster ($4.1M) and the Agena upper stage ($3.5M). The purchasing costs for the Agena were $10.4M. The purchasing costs for the booster ($29.3M) were part of the FY77 budget.

Thus total purchasing costs for the hardware for the launch of one 1st generation, new (not-refurbished) SDS satellite were about $90M in 1977 US$ (inflation adjusted US$450M in 2023).

Edit: FY72 ($17.8M), FY73 ($23.0M), FY74 ($40M), F75 ($36.5M), F76+F7T ($23M) budget estimates added.

All v nice hoku-if you have page 415 where they discuss DSP handy please post that to the DSP thread-would be really nice to see what was being said about it in public at that point. DSP and the relay sat were two of the three Special Access Required (i.e. partly clssified but not TK/BYEMAN) programmes at that time-we don't know what #3 was afaik.

[LittleBird]

Uploading this interesting 1959 doc https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/NROStaffRecords/866.PDF here as well because it may be the first mention of use of comsats to relay spysat or cloud cover images in real time. If it isn't, I'd love to know what was.

[LittleBird]

Re Blackstar's recent post in the KH-11 thread about an image of SDS in an NRO YouTube video that I had posted (first grab below)

I should continue this over in the SDS thread (I guess I should cross-post my earlier post), but wanted to mention this image.

I almost certainly saw this before, but it did not completely register. This may in fact depict the second block of SDS satellites, which I learned were based on the Leasat series. This looks like Leasat with a deployable skirt--something that was done for other Hughes satellites, but was not done for Leasat.

I will hold a certain amount of skepticism, because usually these graphics are not based on reality but are notional. But this one is intriguing.

I am wondering if this also confirms what Aviation Week had reported in 1980 about the second generation SDS being based on Leasat, and thus "short and fat" (see grabs 2 and 3 below) ?

[Edit: Sorry, I see that we've been round this one before-before my time here-see this thread, which Jim pointed to above, https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29115.msg913804#msg913804 which brought most of the Leasat-era SDS stuff fairly definitively to light.]

[LittleBird]

Re Blackstar's recent post in the KH-11 thread about an image of SDS in an NRO YouTube video that I had posted (first grab below)

I should continue this over in the SDS thread (I guess I should cross-post my earlier post), but wanted to mention this image.

I almost certainly saw this before, but it did not completely register. This may in fact depict the second block of SDS satellites, which I learned were based on the Leasat series. This looks like Leasat with a deployable skirt--something that was done for other Hughes satellites, but was not done for Leasat.

I will hold a certain amount of skepticism, because usually these graphics are not based on reality but are notional. But this one is intriguing.

I am wondering if this also confirms what Aviation Week had reported in 1980 about the second generation SDS being based on , and thus "short and fat" (see grabs 2 and 3 below) ?

I have also revisited Blackstar's several excellent articles on SDS from JBIS, Spaceflight and the Space Review-listed in the OP of this thread. In the March 13th 2017 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3195/1 article "Spinning Out of the Shadows" (and elsewhere) there is an official NRO image of SDS, last grab below. Is this known to be a (taller and thiner?) third generation, or is it actually what the later examples of the 2nd gen looked like, such as those shown in the short TV clip from the late 90s which had a couple of NRO spacecraft being assembled ?

[Edit: This question seems to have been slightly less definitively settled if I've understood right-is it now known if the 3rd generation Atlas-launched SDS looks different from the second Shuttle/Titan IV, one-and is it yet known which the released artist's impression  referred to ?

I also see that there was a useful discussion following Blackstar's post here https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29545.msg1649853#msg1649853
]

[LittleBird]

And re question of when highly elliptical orbits for ZAMAN's relay satellite first appeared:

The Dirks blue book is dated May 68 so indeed Intelsat III is the known quantity, see first grab. Interestingly, at that time, GEO seems to be favoured over HEO, see other grabs, I haven't dug into when HEO first made an appearance in the SDS story. As you'll recall you (and others) uploaded some of the key docs in the SDS thread: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59168.0 thanks all.

It looks as if the possibility at least was around even in May 68, at the same time as the Dirks Blue blook. Another document, on the many possible tradeoffs, shows a highly elliptical but polar orbit as one option for the relay satellite-see grabs below, and attached pdf.

[Blackstar]

Crossposted:



The section of the NRO history on relay satellites. This is disappointing. Set aside the poor copy editing (several problems in that last column), most of this is about communications, and then when it gets to the actual relay satellite topic, it really misses an opportunity to say something useful.

It does say something interesting, although it is not clear if this is meaningful--it mentions TRW's Intelsat III satellites as a useful baseline. (I wrote an article for Spaceflight on the Intelsat III satellites, but cannot find the citation.) The Intelsat III satellites were flying when the relay satellite program was first discussed, so it makes sense that the NRO looked at them and thought that they could use something similar. But Hughes won the contract with a proposal based upon the Intelsat IV design. It's too bad they mention Hughes but not the Intelsat IV.

Unfortunately, this entry doesn't really state anything new about the subject, and it seems to avoid certain topics. For instance, the SDS satellites used a Molniya orbit, and I believe that the NRO has acknowledged that before, but doesn't say so here. It hints that the relay task was not as simple as expected, but doesn't say why. A big reason why was the use of a frequency that could not penetrate the atmosphere. And the traveling wave tubes apparently burned out early. Also, apparently there was a problem early in the program with lining up the satellites (as somebody put it to me, the satellites were not where they were supposed to be when the KH-11 was transmitting to them, although I don't know what that means). My assumption is that this book is only based upon previously declassified information (in other words, no information declassified specifically for the book), but they didn't even use what they could have used.

We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of the first KH-11 launch and the first SDS launch, and it's a shame that they still dance around the subject so lightly.

[hoku]

As a reminder of the 2021 ZAMAN release, please find attached a 2-page document on the RS (Relay Satellite) schedule. The plan was to select two contractors for Phase 1 and 2 studies in June 1970. After the evaluation of Phase 2, the acquisition process would be started with one of the contractors in Sep 1971. Planned launch dates for the two RS were April and June 1974.

Overall, the release has a lot of info on the contractor selection (though I don't recall TRW being explicitly named as the losing party for RS, but maybe I overlooked this):

   Segment
#   Term      Name         Contractor
1   SI   Systems integration      GE (over LMSC/Boeing)
2   I/S   Imaging satellite      LMSC (over GE/Boeing)
3   R/F   Receive facility         GE (over LMSC/Boeing)
4   O/F   Operations facility      GE (over LMSC/Boeing)
5   P/F   Processing facility      E-Systems (over General Dynamics)?
(5)   DP/F   Digital processing facility   BDM Corporation? (Texas based)
(17)   PP/F   Photoprocessing facility
6   O/S   Optics subsystem      Eastman Kodak? (ULE mirror blanks by Corning supported by egg-crate structure)
7   R/S   Relay segment         Hughes Aircraft

Additional contractors:
Term      Subsystem
ACS      Attitude control system
ADCA   Antenna directional control assembly,
      Communications antenna

      Image chain performance program

LIR      Laser image reconstructor      EK (New Jersey based)
OBC      Onboard computer
SSA      Star sensor assembly
TDPS   Transducer data processing subsystem   Fairchild Research and Development Lab?
TWT      Traveling wave tubes
TWTA   Traveling wave tubes amplifier   Hughes Aircraft (Space Group)
      Encryption/decryption system
 

[LittleBird]

As a reminder of the 2021 ZAMAN release, please find attached a 2-page document on the RS (Relay Satellite) schedule. The plan was to select two contractors for Phase 1 and 2 studies in June 1970. After the evaluation of Phase 2, the acquisition process would be started with one of the contractors in Sep 1971. Planned launch dates for the two RS were April and June 1974.

Overall, the release has a lot of info on the contractor selection (though I don't recall TRW being explicitly named as the losing party for RS, but maybe I overlooked this):
 

Many thanks, you really are helping preserve a corporate memory that NRO itself seems to be losing in some ways, if that recent volume is indicative. Not sure if I have seen an official statement about losing contractors either, but interestingly Aviation Week at the time had TRW, and had GE and TRW involved at an earlier stage (see grabs). I think TRW rather blotted its copybook with the troubles of Intelsat III, though RHYOLITE was obviously an (expensive) success, and in due course so were DSCS II and FLTSATCOM.

It's also intriguing that although a bit garbled there was speculation even from early on about the role of satcoms in relaying imagery.

The potential DSP relay application, meanwhile, was accurate but already out of date according to the histories (specifically the Vance Mitchell history that Blackstar drew on for one of his  Space Review pieces), in that it had already been ruled out.

[Blackstar]

Many thanks, you really are helping preserve a corporate memory that NRO itself seems to be losing in some ways, if that recent volume is indicative. Not sure if I have seen an official statement about losing contractors either, but interestingly Aviation Week at the time had TRW, and had GE and TRW

Yeah, thank you too. And thanks to the people who regularly post and update these threads. Although I write about this stuff a lot, I don't look at every document, and I also forget stuff that I've seen. So these threads are great reminders and helpful.

[LittleBird]

Many thanks, you really are helping preserve a corporate memory that NRO itself seems to be losing in some ways, if that recent volume is indicative. Not sure if I have seen an official statement about losing contractors either, but interestingly Aviation Week at the time had TRW, and had GE and TRW

Yeah, thank you too. And thanks to the people who regularly post and update these threads. Although I write about this stuff a lot, I don't look at every document, and I also forget stuff that I've seen. So these threads are great reminders and helpful.

And thanks again @hoku, this time for spotting and posting in the KH-11 thread that the NRO has recently declassified a slightly less redacted, and more readable version of Mitchell's history.

https://www.nro.gov/foia-home/foia-fiscal-year-2025/
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/FY25%20Q1/F-2024-00151_C05151894.pdf

[LittleBird]

A few more details from the FY78 budget hearings:

SDS FY77 approved budget was US$59.4M, and the requests/projections were $83.2M for FY78, and $26.1M for FY79. The 4th SDS, which was purchased in FY77, was the refurbished qualification model ($30.1M). The FY78 request lists $49.1M for the 5th SDS satellite (USA-4, which was launched in 1984?).

Launch vehicle costs for FY78 include "sustained launch capability" for the Titan IIIB booster ($4.1M) and the Agena upper stage ($3.5M). The purchasing costs for the Agena were $10.4M. The purchasing costs for the booster ($29.3M) were part of the FY77 budget.

Thus total purchasing costs for the hardware for the launch of one 1st generation, new (not-refurbished) SDS satellite were about $90M in 1977 US$ (inflation adjusted US$450M in 2023).

Edit: FY72 ($17.8M), FY73 ($23.0M), FY74 ($40M), F75 ($36.5M), F76+F7T ($23M) budget estimates added.

All v nice hoku-if you have page 415 where they discuss DSP handy please post that to the DSP thread-would be really nice to see what was being said about it in public at that point. DSP and the relay sat were two of the three Special Access Required (i.e. partly clssified but not TK/BYEMAN) programmes at that time-we don't know what #3 was afaik.

Hoku's post reminds me of the interesting assertion in Mitchell history that in very early 1970s there were 3 Special Access Required (SAR) payloads. One was DSP, one SDS, I'm guessing the 3rd was DMSP ?

Interesting that Mitchell says they all had NRO connections. Obvious for SDS, and true for DMSP at very least wrt its genesis. Less obviously true for DSP ?

[Blackstar]

And thanks again @hoku, this time for spotting and posting in the KH-11 thread that the NRO has recently declassified a slightly less redacted, and more readable version of Mitchell's history.

https://www.nro.gov/foia-home/foia-fiscal-year-2025/

You'll note that they released documents for Q1 of 2025, but not Q2, 3, and 4 of 2024. They seem to be a bit scattershot on that.

[Blackstar]

a slightly less redacted, and more readable version of Mitchell's history.

What is less redacted than the prior version?

Last time I went through this, I think the only thing they revealed was the name "KENNEN," which we already knew.



Note that I wrote about SDS primarily based upon Mitchell's history seven years ago. If there's new stuff in the new version, I will update that article and republish it:

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3440/1

[LittleBird]

a slightly less redacted, and more readable version of Mitchell's history.

What is less redacted than the prior version?

Last time I went through this, I think the only thing they revealed was the name "KENNEN," which we already knew.



Note that I wrote about SDS primarily based upon Mitchell's history seven years ago. If there's new stuff in the new version, I will update that article and republish it:

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3440/1

i’ll have to check. I noticed things I didn’t remember seeing before but may of course be wrong

[Blackstar]

a slightly less redacted, and more readable version of Mitchell's history.

What is less redacted than the prior version?

Last time I went through this, I think the only thing they revealed was the name "KENNEN," which we already knew.



Note that I wrote about SDS primarily based upon Mitchell's history seven years ago. If there's new stuff in the new version, I will update that article and republish it:

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3440/1

i’ll have to check. I noticed things I didn’t remember seeing before but may of course be wrong

Don't bother. I just did. I'll post. There's nothing new.

[Blackstar]

I just compared the 2012 release to the 2024 release. The only new bits are:

KENNEN
ZAMAN
ZOSTER
Hughes

But I'm pretty sure that all those were revealed in a release a few years ago, so there's nothing new in the 2024 release.

What is disappointing is that they could have released a bit more about the orbits. They've already indicated that the highly-elliptical orbit was used.

One page mentions the addition of a third secondary payload. I cannot remember what that was. Anybody have any ideas?

[LittleBird]

I just compared the 2012 release to the 2024 release. The only new bits are:

KENNEN
ZAMAN
ZOSTER
Hughes

But I'm pretty sure that all those were revealed in a release a few years ago, so there's nothing new in the 2024 release.

What is disappointing is that they could have released a bit more about the orbits. They've already indicated that the highly-elliptical orbit was used.

One page mentions the addition of a third secondary payload. I cannot remember what that was. Anybody have any ideas?

See https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59168.msg2503456#msg2503456

First and second secondary payloads are  satellite ground station relay and  SIOP comms pacakge, but you'd need to check the order.

Third  (you thought) was a bhangmeter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhangmeter, but not totally clear to me what evidence is.

If that's true though then they weren't acknowledging presence of an IR sensor which some believe SDS to have carried.

To reiterate my weak joke about the opening titles of Soap, "confused, you won't be, after this episode" ;-)

[Blackstar]

I'm going to run a slightly updated version of my earlier SDS article in The Space Review. I found it on my hard drive and I apparently edited it last fall. It has been seven years, so I might as well rerun it with a few updates.

[Kyra's kosmos]

A bit of reasoned speculation: Could STS-38 have launched 2 SDS-B's to GEO?

1. The payload margin was near its limit, also concerns about Middeck secondaries' weight (perhaps a CG consideration)
2. Need for a spare or coverage in GEO as first Block aged out.
3. Reduplication on R11 panel configuration
4. Lack of anything new on Prowler besides rumor, but indications there were two satellite launches and separation burns.

[Blackstar]

A bit of reasoned speculation: Could STS-38 have launched 2 SDS-B's to GEO?

1. The payload margin was near its limit, also concerns about Middeck secondaries' weight (perhaps a CG consideration)
2. Need for a spare or coverage in GEO as first Block aged out.
3. Reduplication on R11 panel configuration
4. Lack of anything new on Prowler besides rumor, but indications there were two satellite launches and separation burns.

Nope. It was what it was.

[LittleBird]

A bit of reasoned speculation: Could STS-38 have launched 2 SDS-B's to GEO?

1. The payload margin was near its limit, also concerns about Middeck secondaries' weight (perhaps a CG consideration)
2. Need for a spare or coverage in GEO as first Block aged out.
3. Reduplication on R11 panel configuration
4. Lack of anything new on Prowler besides rumor, but indications there were two satellite launches and separation burns.

Nope. It was what it was.

One interesting indication of this is the fact that Ted Molczan's "Evaluation of ..." document (attached) can be found in Bud Wheelon's papers at the Huntington library iirc (see the online catalogue, which another user posted in a thread here a while ago). Seems rather less likely to have interested him if it wasn't real ;-).

Last time I looked online quite a few of his papers remained awaiting security review as you might expect, but what is there looks fascinating.

[Jim]

A bit of reasoned speculation: Could STS-38 have launched 2 SDS-B's to GEO?

1. The payload margin was near its limit, also concerns about Middeck secondaries' weight (perhaps a CG consideration)
2. Need for a spare or coverage in GEO as first Block aged out.
3. Reduplication on R11 panel configuration
4. Lack of anything new on Prowler besides rumor, but indications there were two satellite launches and separation burns.

How can a satellite with integral propulsion sized for injection into a Molnyia orbit, have the ability to reach GEO?

[Blackstar]

I'm trying to find something that I saw in the 1990s (and had a copy), but cannot find. It may be a Rockwell press kit for STS-53. What I know is that it had a line drawing of the shuttle payload bay that showed a large shaded object, representing the payload, mounted inside. It is not in the NASA press kit for the STS-53 mission. STS-53 launched an SDS satellite.

Anybody remember anything like this?

I want to use that graphic for my SDS article, but need to find it first.


Update: Never mind. I found it in one of my old articles. But if somebody has the original source, that would be nice.

[Jim]

I'm trying to find something that I saw in the 1990s (and had a copy), but cannot find. It may be a Rockwell press kit for STS-53. What I know is that it had a line drawing of the shuttle payload bay that showed a large shaded object, representing the payload, mounted inside. It is not in the NASA press kit for the STS-53 mission. STS-53 launched an SDS satellite.

Anybody remember anything like this?

I want to use that graphic for my SDS article, but need to find it first.


Update: Never mind. I found it in one of my old articles. But if somebody has the original source, that would be nice.

Here is the JSC one used in documentation

[AnalogMan]

I'm trying to find something that I saw in the 1990s (and had a copy), but cannot find. It may be a Rockwell press kit for STS-53. What I know is that it had a line drawing of the shuttle payload bay that showed a large shaded object, representing the payload, mounted inside. It is not in the NASA press kit for the STS-53 mission. STS-53 launched an SDS satellite.

Anybody remember anything like this?

I want to use that graphic for my SDS article, but need to find it first.


Update: Never mind. I found it in one of my old articles. But if somebody has the original source, that would be nice.

See pdf page 14 of the attached document.

[Blackstar]

I'm trying to find something that I saw in the 1990s (and had a copy), but cannot find. It may be a Rockwell press kit for STS-53. What I know is that it had a line drawing of the shuttle payload bay that showed a large shaded object, representing the payload, mounted inside. It is not in the NASA press kit for the STS-53 mission. STS-53 launched an SDS satellite.

Anybody remember anything like this?

I want to use that graphic for my SDS article, but need to find it first.


Update: Never mind. I found it in one of my old articles. But if somebody has the original source, that would be nice.

See pdf page 14 of the attached document.

Super thanks. I'm glad to have a better version.

Looks to be about the size of Leasat, no?

[Jim]

Looks to be about the size of Leasat, no?

Just little longer

[Blackstar]

My SDS article will appear in The Space Review later today. It's just an update of my 2018 article, with some new information.

Although we have the basic program information (who built it, when, why, who managed it, etc.), we still don't have a lot of even basic details on the technology and hardware. For instance, I was told that SDS block 1 was based on the Intelsat IV bus, but the NRO has not confirmed that it was. I obtained documents many years ago about how many block 1 satellites were built, but I don't know how many were flown. This is complicated by the fact that an engineering test article was refurbished to serve as a backup satellite. Did it get launched or not? I don't know.

There are a lot of technical details we don't know, like how much power did the solar panels generate, how many antennas did the satellite have, etc.?

There are also some technical details that are probably really interesting (to certain people) that will probably not be revealed for a very long time. For instance, the KH-11 broadcast up to the SDS at one frequency, but the SDS broadcast down to the ground at a different frequency. Was this a difficult engineering task, or was it relatively straightforward?

[Blackstar]

https://thespacereview.com/article/4991/1

Spinning in the black: The Satellite Data System and real-time reconnaissance
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, May 19, 2025

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of one of the most secretive communications satellites ever built, a satellite that received images from a reconnaissance satellite transmitted at a frequency that could not be detected from the ground, and then beamed them down to a ground station located outside of Washington, DC. Although many details of the satellite system remain secret to this day, enough is known about it to indicate that it was highly unusual, both in its design and the way it was developed.

This relay satellite, given the obscure name of Satellite Data System, or SDS for short, was developed under a unique management arrangement. Although it carried a highly classified mission payload—“black” in the jargon of the intelligence community—the satellite itself was developed and procured by the unclassified—“white”—Air Force Space and Missile Systems Office, thus straddling the edge of the shadowy world of satellite reconnaissance, with one foot in the light and the other in the shadows. A declassified history by Vance O. Mitchell, “The NRO, the Air Force, and the First Reconnaissance Relay Satellite System, 1969-1983,” describes how this unusual management relationship was developed—and almost fell apart—during its early years.

[Michael Cassutt]

I just compared the 2012 release to the 2024 release. The only new bits are:

KENNEN
ZAMAN
ZOSTER
Hughes

But I'm pretty sure that all those were revealed in a release a few years ago, so there's nothing new in the 2024 release.

What is disappointing is that they could have released a bit more about the orbits. They've already indicated that the highly-elliptical orbit was used.

One page mentions the addition of a third secondary payload. I cannot remember what that was. Anybody have any ideas?

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, or someone else has, but filling in (with high confidence) two redacted names in the SDS history . . . the SAMSO SPO Director was Col. Richard Drennan, USAF. The Program B manager was, I believe, Jack Maxey (not the individual you will find most often if you Google him).

Michael Cassutt

[Blackstar]

What document is this from? It's at the beginning of this thread but comes from one of the EOI documents.

[Skyrocket]

What document is this from? It's at the beginning of this thread but comes from one of the EOI documents.

It is from this one, an historical compilation titled "Declassification of Historically Significant Documents: NRO 60th Anniversary" (document reference SC-2021-00002_C05097836)

https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/HISTORICALLY%20SIGNIFICANT%20DOCs/NRO%2060th%20Anniversary%20Docs/SC-2021-00002_C05097836.pdf

[LittleBird]

What document is this from? It's at the beginning of this thread but comes from one of the EOI documents.

It is from this one, an historical compilation titled "Declassification of Historically Significant Documents: NRO 60th Anniversary" (document reference SC-2021-00002_C05097836)

https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/HISTORICALLY%20SIGNIFICANT%20DOCs/NRO%2060th%20Anniversary%20Docs/SC-2021-00002_C05097836.pdf

I've always felt it must be part of what would essentially be "the KENNEN Story", analogous to the volumes on GAMBIT and HEXAGON. I hope to live long enough to see the rest of it, and even the 1st generation GEO sigint birds, though I'm not holding my breath.

[Blackstar]

What document is this from? It's at the beginning of this thread but comes from one of the EOI documents.

It is from this one, an historical compilation titled "Declassification of Historically Significant Documents: NRO 60th Anniversary" (document reference SC-2021-00002_C05097836)

https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/HISTORICALLY%20SIGNIFICANT%20DOCs/NRO%2060th%20Anniversary%20Docs/SC-2021-00002_C05097836.pdf

Thank you. Somebody asked me for the original source and I couldn't remember it. They are writing a history on global communications.