ATS-6: Why Fairchild (and other questions) ?

[LittleBird]

I think I was too pessimistic here. A document in the recent SIGINT declassifications was a list of Lockheed SIGINT payloads, all LEO bar the last one, the first in Program  827, i.e. CANYON 1. This is stated to have had a lifetime of 20 days, the same as the space quilified 20 foot antenna in the Lockheed document quoted by Klass.https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59075.msg2669027#msg2669027

That's a great connect-the-dots story.

[...]

As fun as this connect-the-dot stuff can be, I also find it really frustrating and rather pointless. Lots of work to piece together tiny details that tell us nothing of importance, when there is a wealth of data available on many other projects that has not been examined.

Well, to each his own, I'd say. I happen to like joining the dots, but I also like stories that link the various parts of the US space programme laterally-and feel this aspect isn't covered as much as it could be.

Less glibly I would also say that pinning down the size of CANYON's dish, and the wrap rib technology it seems to have used, is not a tiny detail, because this capability, even if buggy, was available to the US from 69ish to 75ish quite possibly without Soviet knowledge. I would need to reread what is known about Geoffrey Prime to confirm those dates but that's what I remember.

I also think that the fact that while the NRO was going to exceptional lengths to conceal CANYON, Lockheed's GEO and antenna technology was being surfaced not only in ATS-6, but also in various domestic and Intelsat comsat bids, is both fascinating and ironic. Your  mileage may of course vary. More of this in due course-I know I need to write it up.

Still pondering Blackstar's comments boldfaced above, as I only gave a rather hasty response, but have decided to split my reply.

I'll start a new thread re the "wealth of data available on many other projects that has not been examined" as I am genuinely curious as to what he thinks we should be looking at (I hope the thread would in some way help to  update the article on this topic he did with Asif Siddiqi in TSR a few years ago iirc).

As to whether nailing down that CANYON had a 20ft dish is  "pointless ... work to pin down tiny details", I unsurprisingly beg to differ, but feel that explaining why is better done in the 60s SIGINT thread. The TL;DR version though is that the antenna size of a SIGINT satellite is fairly directly analogous to the lens or mirror of an IMINT satellite. This is only half the story, of course, because photos are largely taken in reflected/diffused natural light whereas SIGINT is typically looking at man-made sources of RF, but still hopefully explains why 20ft is significantly different from 30ft-the latter has more than double the collecting area.