Author Topic: The Samos F-1 ferret (signals intelligence) satellite payload  (Read 9538 times)

Online Blackstar

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http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2141/1



Darkness ascending
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, August 20, 2012

The Air Force space signals intelligence effort really started with the Samos program, which began in the mid-1950s but really ramped up operations after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Despite the declassification of tens of thousands of document pages, Samos remains poorly understood. The most common misconception is that Samos was a film-readout photo-reconnaissance satellite that beamed its images to Earth and was canceled after the successful Corona film-return reconnaissance system became operational in the early 1960s. In reality, Samos was a large program that eventually incorporated five different photo-reconnaissance systems of both film-readout and film-return types. These were designated E-1 through E-6 (E-1 and E-2 were both film-readout systems, E-3 was never built, E-4 was a film-return mapping system that was built but never launched, and E-5 and E-6 were unsuccessful film-return systems). Samos actually continued after Corona was operational, but repeated failures and the declining confidence that intelligence and Air Force officials had in its capabilities led to its eventual cancellation.

Offline Star One

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Fascinating stuff so thanks for that. Just have to hope sooner rather than later more complete information is released on the program.

Offline jnc

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Just have to hope sooner rather than later more complete information is released on the program.

Don't hold your breath too hard. There's little that's more tightly held than scam/signals intelligence. (I'm still pretty surprised that they released the Venona stuff, although of course that didn't come out until 1995, and covered messages sent in the mid-1940's.)

It'll come out some day, but there are often technical threads that lead from that work to current day stuff (as with the delta attack on Tunny), which is why they are wary of letting any of it out, no matter how old it is.

Noel
"America Needs - Space to Grow"

(old bumper sticker)

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I would not be surprised if they released more info on these spacecraft (Samos F-1, F-2, etc. and the Agena ferrets and subsatellites) in the near future. They have already released POPPY info.

However, it is a thorny issue, because some of these low altitude satellites were used for comint, and the subsatellite ferrets were launched as late as the early 1990s and it is theoretically possible that they operated into the last decade.

Offline Star One

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Just have to hope sooner rather than later more complete information is released on the program.

Don't hold your breath too hard. There's little that's more tightly held than scam/signals intelligence. (I'm still pretty surprised that they released the Venona stuff, although of course that didn't come out until 1995, and covered messages sent in the mid-1940's.)

It'll come out some day, but there are often technical threads that lead from that work to current day stuff (as with the delta attack on Tunny), which is why they are wary of letting any of it out, no matter how old it is.

Noel

But there has to be some kind of limitation on how long this kind of information is classified, plus I am sure the releases could be redacted in such a way as to mitigate this issue.


Online Blackstar

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But there has to be some kind of limitation on how long this kind of information is classified, plus I am sure the releases could be redacted in such a way as to mitigate this issue.

Intelligence sources and methods can be exempted from the regular rules.

But the general rule of thumb seems to be 25 years after the end of the program. Note that the program only ends when the last spacecraft dies. So if a ferret subsatellite operated until 2000, the program might not get declassified until 2025.

Offline Star One

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But there has to be some kind of limitation on how long this kind of information is classified, plus I am sure the releases could be redacted in such a way as to mitigate this issue.

Intelligence sources and methods can be exempted from the regular rules.

But the general rule of thumb seems to be 25 years after the end of the program. Note that the program only ends when the last spacecraft dies. So if a ferret subsatellite operated until 2000, the program might not get declassified until 2025.

Is there any kind of sliding scale on that 25 years depending on the type of program it is? Woud a photo reconnaissance project be declassified earlier say than an signals intelligence project and so on.

Online Blackstar

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Is there any kind of sliding scale on that 25 years depending on the type of program it is? Woud a photo reconnaissance project be declassified earlier say than an signals intelligence project and so on.

Not really. First of all, it's a rule of thumb, not something hard and fast. And it's frequently ignored by many government agencies for lots of reasons. The most common reason is lack of resources: they are ordered to declassify records that are older than 25 years. They then fail to devote much money to doing this, then they miss the deadline and complain that it's too expensive to do. Unless somebody in the government forces them to expend the resources, they can continue to get away with that. And although they made some progress in the past few years, the situation is getting much worse very fast because government agencies now generate many more classified records very fast (think of classified email--it's really easy to dash off a bunch of classified email messages whereas previously somebody had to type up a classified letter).

Note that I said that it probably dates from the end of the program, not when the last satellite was launched. For instance, Poppy was turned off in 1977, and the existence of the program was not declassified until 2005. You can do the math.

Offline Star One

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Is there any kind of sliding scale on that 25 years depending on the type of program it is? Woud a photo reconnaissance project be declassified earlier say than an signals intelligence project and so on.

Not really. First of all, it's a rule of thumb, not something hard and fast. And it's frequently ignored by many government agencies for lots of reasons. The most common reason is lack of resources: they are ordered to declassify records that are older than 25 years. They then fail to devote much money to doing this, then they miss the deadline and complain that it's too expensive to do. Unless somebody in the government forces them to expend the resources, they can continue to get away with that. And although they made some progress in the past few years, the situation is getting much worse very fast because government agencies now generate many more classified records very fast (think of classified email--it's really easy to dash off a bunch of classified email messages whereas previously somebody had to type up a classified letter).

Note that I said that it probably dates from the end of the program, not when the last satellite was launched. For instance, Poppy was turned off in 1977, and the existence of the program was not declassified until 2005. You can do the math.

Thanks. Are some government agencies better than others when it comes to this, from what I can see the NRO themselves don't seem too bad in this respect?

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Thanks. Are some government agencies better than others when it comes to this, from what I can see the NRO themselves don't seem too bad in this respect?

Yes, some agencies are better than others, but I don't know which ones those are. Look at Secrecy and Government Report and they may have some info.

I do know that the Naval Research Lab simply doesn't respond to FOIA requests. That's actually illegal, and I don't know how they get away with it because they should report on their FOIA activity to somebody, and that somebody should notice that they're not doing anything, but the only way to force them to comply is for somebody to sue them.

Los Angeles Air Force Base used to be pretty sloppy about replying to FOIA requests, but they may have gotten better. A big problem is that military offices are supposed to designate somebody as their FOIA officer, and frequently they give this task to somebody who has no training and doesn't want the job.

You were asking about which agencies are better at declassifying stuff when they are supposed to. I don't know the answer to that offhand.

Offline Star One

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Thanks. Are some government agencies better than others when it comes to this, from what I can see the NRO themselves don't seem too bad in this respect?

Yes, some agencies are better than others, but I don't know which ones those are. Look at Secrecy and Government Report and they may have some info.

I do know that the Naval Research Lab simply doesn't respond to FOIA requests. That's actually illegal, and I don't know how they get away with it because they should report on their FOIA activity to somebody, and that somebody should notice that they're not doing anything, but the only way to force them to comply is for somebody to sue them.

Los Angeles Air Force Base used to be pretty sloppy about replying to FOIA requests, but they may have gotten better. A big problem is that military offices are supposed to designate somebody as their FOIA officer, and frequently they give this task to somebody who has no training and doesn't want the job.

You were asking about which agencies are better at declassifying stuff when they are supposed to. I don't know the answer to that offhand.

Thanks again. Sounds like a typical bureaucracy to me. :)

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I would not be surprised if they released more info on these spacecraft (Samos F-1, F-2, etc. and the Agena ferrets and subsatellites) in the near future. They have already released POPPY info.

However, it is a thorny issue, because some of these low altitude satellites were used for comint, and the subsatellite ferrets were launched as late as the early 1990s and it is theoretically possible that they operated into the last decade.

I'm revisiting this issue and found my old post on this. Here we are, several years later, and no progress.

Offline edkyle99

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Here's a photo of Thor 332 and Agena B A2301 launching the first Agena Ferret from VAFB 75-3-5 on February 21, 1962.  A higher resolution version of this photo is in our L2 Thor launch photo thread.

This was the first time that a Thor Agena had looked this way, with a shiny (non-white) Agena and a conical payload fairing rather than the typical stepped reentry vehicle nose.  On this flight, an Agena fuel vent was open during the first burn, causing loss of pressurization that prevented a second burn.  A low 167 x 374 km x 81.94 deg orbit was achieved.  Agena and its payload fell out of orbit after 11 days.  Perhaps some R&D results were achieved, but I'm only speculating. 

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 08/07/2014 09:45 pm by edkyle99 »

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