Author Topic: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite  (Read 14128 times)

Offline Blackstar

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http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1631/1

Flight of a feather: the QUILL radar satellite
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, May 24, 2010

In December 1964 the US Air Force launched a top secret National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California atop a Thor Agena rocket. For decades the identity of the payload remained classified, although a few independent satellite observers—the space field’s equivalent of trainspotters—recognized that this was an unusual bird that did not operate in the same kind of orbit as other, much more common reconnaissance satellites. In 1995, retired Air Force Major General David Bradburn, who had run the program as a mid-ranking officer, revealed during a public talk that it was a unique payload that had only flown once.

Several years ago the identity of this satellite was finally leaked: a radar satellite named QUILL. The program has not been officially declassified, but several years ago the National Reconnaissance Office finally acknowledged that it operated radar satellites. Now, a new book by a former intelligence official has released some further details on QUILL.

Offline Art LeBrun

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #1 on: 05/29/2010 07:58 pm »
As always - a good read with revealing information !
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Offline Blackstar

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #2 on: 07/06/2012 08:56 pm »
Monday.

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #3 on: 07/07/2012 05:31 pm »
Monday.

I'm sorry it is Saturday ;)

So should I check TheSpaceReview on Tuesday? Looking forward to the read.
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Offline plutogno

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #4 on: 07/09/2012 07:20 pm »
Monday.

there's nothing about QUILL on the space review

Offline gwiz

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Offline Skyrocket

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #6 on: 07/09/2012 11:10 pm »
Great! Another mystery satellite program declassified. Looks like i have much to read during the next days.

Offline truth is life

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #7 on: 07/10/2012 12:02 am »
Interesting, it seems to be the first SAR satellite launched, decidedly beating JPL's Seasat. I wonder to what extent this experiment flowed into that project and other radar satellites and missions (especially the various Shuttle radar missions)?

Offline TrueBlueWitt

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #8 on: 07/10/2012 01:48 am »
Interesting, it seems to be the first SAR satellite launched, decidedly beating JPL's Seasat. I wonder to what extent this experiment flowed into that project and other radar satellites and missions (especially the various Shuttle radar missions)?

To follow-up Here's an interesting quote from page 19 of the document below http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/QUILL/31.%20QUILL%20Lecture%20Pamphlet.pdf

Quote
When the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration launched Seasat in 1978, that "first spaceborne
synthetic aperture radar" failed to surpass Quill's azimuth resolution
and showed little qualitative difference in its imagery.

Offline sdsds

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #9 on: 07/10/2012 07:30 am »
Sorry to pollute this thread with slightly off-topic and possibly inaccurate material, but I'm pretty sure this satellite was built at the "helicopter plant" in what is now Menlo Park, California (East Palo Alto at the time). I've attached the California Regional Water Quality Control Board report detailing how much trichloroethylene (and various other pollutants) got discharged into the groundwater, and what Fairchild (who along with Allied Signal were named as dischargers) did about it. The water control board, even in 1995, seemed completely unaware of the true nature of this helicopter manufacturing business.

Or heck, what do I know? Maybe Fairchild really was making helicopters there!
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Offline SpatialProf

Does anyone know if QUILL used Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) or a regular "real" aperture radar?

Offline AnalogMan

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #11 on: 01/02/2019 05:16 pm »
Does anyone know if QUILL used Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) or a regular "real" aperture radar?

It used SAR - see this link:

http://www.nro.gov/Freedom-of-Information-Act-FOIA/Declassified-Records/Special-Collections/QUILL/

Offline hoku

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #12 on: 11/12/2021 07:23 pm »
The cover of DMA's Photo Interpretation Student Handbook (1996) shows the drawing of a downward looking satellite (as well as a U-2). The satellite bus at the back (top) looks like a standard Agena D with solar panels. The front includes a deployed large linear SAR(?) antenna plus some smaller communication antennas.

Could this be a QUILL follow-up concept study, using only direct data transmission, and no film return, and with a larger deployable antenna instead of QUILL's side-mounted antenna?

The two large deployable structures (solar panels and SAR antenna) increase atmospheric drag, thus this satellite seems to be designed for a higher orbit (400 to 500 km altitude?).

Does anyone know more about this satellite design/study? Would its primary mission have been global mapping, or maybe fast response reconnaissance?

https://sites.miis.edu/geospatialtools2012/files/2012/07/Photo-Interpretation-Student-Handbook.-Photo-Interpretation-Principles.pdf

EDIT: seems to be SEASAT (doh!)
« Last Edit: 11/12/2021 07:36 pm by hoku »

Offline Jim

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #13 on: 11/12/2021 08:39 pm »
Seasat

Offline SpatialProf

The illustration on the cover is definitely Seasat (i.e. a civilian remote sensing satellite)

Andy

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #15 on: 11/13/2021 12:35 am »
One valid question is what kind of collaboration was there between NRO and NASA concerning satellite radar during the 1970s. NRO was trying to develop a radar satellite around 1976 or so, but it did not launch until the later 1980s. During that time, NASA operated Seasat as well as some shuttle radar missions. So NASA was getting operational on-orbit data.

Now it is likely that the NRO technology was different and certainly more capable. But did they benefit from learning from NASA's experience?

Offline libra

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #16 on: 11/13/2021 04:30 am »
NASA and NRO (somewhat logically) borrowed SAR technology from the same lab, some years apart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Research_Institute_of_Michigan

That laboratory developed
- QUILL APQ-102 (which was taken from the RF-4C Phantom)
- Apollo ALSE: lunar sounder experiment, flown on Apollo 17

ALSE was linked to Seasat in many ways...



Offline Blackstar

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #17 on: 11/25/2021 01:19 pm »
I was not aware of this book:

https://books.google.com/books/about/Trailblazer_1964.html?id=5VyUDAEACAAJ

It is a compendium of all the documents that the NRO put on its website for QUILL. The surprising thing is that the print/image quality is much better in the scan of this book than in the documents that NRO put online.

Does anybody know:

-if it is possible to get a pdf of this book (the above link is a google scan)?

-how I can get hold of a physical copy?

I have an article on QUILL in press. I need to grab some good images to go with it.



Offline Jim

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #18 on: 11/25/2021 01:27 pm »
I was not aware of this book:

https://books.google.com/books/about/Trailblazer_1964.html?id=5VyUDAEACAAJ

It is a compendium of all the documents that the NRO put on its website for QUILL. The surprising thing is that the print/image quality is much better in the scan of this book than in the documents that NRO put online.

Does anybody know:

-if it is possible to get a pdf of this book (the above link is a google scan)?

-how I can get hold of a physical copy?

I have an article on QUILL in press. I need to grab some good images to go with it.


here is a scan
« Last Edit: 11/25/2021 02:34 pm by Jim »

Offline LittleBird

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Re: Some new information about the 1964 QUILL radar satellite
« Reply #19 on: 11/26/2021 03:28 pm »
The surprising thing is that the print/image quality is much better in the scan of this book than in the documents that NRO put online.

 

I am guessing one reason is that it was scanned by Google from a hardcopy of the book and  not by the NRO, but why that would make such a difference I don't know. 

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