SR-71 could not overfly the Soviet Union or China. Even if maintenance was free and the aircraft returned from each sortie with an airframe stuffed with dollar bills, the SR-71 would have been facing retirement from being unable to capture the required imagery.
Are there any unclassified or declassified Pentagon and NRO documents that mention the annual cost of a US reconnaissance satellite launch in the late 1980s and early 1990s?
Quote from: Vahe231991 on 09/14/2023 02:06 am Are there any unclassified or declassified Pentagon and NRO documents that mention the annual cost of a US reconnaissance satellite launch in the late 1980s and early 1990s?no
It appears as though the SR-71 has, after all these years after retirement, been replaced by the RQ-180.https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39882/how-the-rq-180-drone-will-emerge-from-the-shadows-as-the-centerpiece-of-a-warfighting-revolution
The RQ-180 performs a different mission to the KH-11 and SR-71, just as the KH-8 and KH-9 performed different missions (with the sole attempt to use a KH-8 to sub for KH-9 being a dud). RQ-180 is a tactical reconnaissance asset, KH-11 is a strategic reconnaissance asset. The SR-71 was also intended for strategic rather than tactical reconnaissance: it could do it in a pinch - if it happened to be already ready to fly a mission, and already in the right place, and had a route in and out that could dodge RADAR coverage and SAM engagement envelopes - but was not an ideal platform to do so. Same with the KH-11, if one happens to be flying over the target at the right time then you can get a real-time image, but that's not what it's for.
I just noticed that a 1990 Congressional Budget Office document estimated the cost of a KH-11 launch at $1.25-1.75 billion and the cost of a Magnum satellite launch at $250,000-750,000. Since those estimates for a KH-11 or Magnum satellite launch in 1990 dwarfed the annual operating and maintenance cost of the SR-71 on the eve of its retirement in March 1990, Bill Sweetman felt he had good reason to believe that the US Air Force was replacing the SR-71 with a more advanced spyplane in the event of an unlucky string of satellite launch failures worth hundreds of millions of dollars. ......
While you're definitely right that the KH-9 was designed for strategic reconnaissance and so is the KH-11, the RQ-180 is a strategic reconnaissance asset because it has been designed for penetrating heavily defended airspace like the SR-71 and early-generation U-2
Quote from: Vahe231991 on 09/17/2023 02:48 amI just noticed that a 1990 Congressional Budget Office document estimated the cost of a KH-11 launch at $1.25-1.75 billion and the cost of a Magnum satellite launch at $250,000-750,000. Since those estimates for a KH-11 or Magnum satellite launch in 1990 dwarfed the annual operating and maintenance cost of the SR-71 on the eve of its retirement in March 1990, Bill Sweetman felt he had good reason to believe that the US Air Force was replacing the SR-71 with a more advanced spyplane in the event of an unlucky string of satellite launch failures worth hundreds of millions of dollars. ......nope.SR-71 or any airborne platform could never do the Magnum mission.Same goes for KH-11. SR-71 could never do even the CORONA mission
Quote from: Jim on 09/29/2023 12:50 amQuote from: Vahe231991 on 09/17/2023 02:48 amI just noticed that a 1990 Congressional Budget Office document estimated the cost of a KH-11 launch at $1.25-1.75 billion and the cost of a Magnum satellite launch at $250,000-750,000. Since those estimates for a KH-11 or Magnum satellite launch in 1990 dwarfed the annual operating and maintenance cost of the SR-71 on the eve of its retirement in March 1990, Bill Sweetman felt he had good reason to believe that the US Air Force was replacing the SR-71 with a more advanced spyplane in the event of an unlucky string of satellite launch failures worth hundreds of millions of dollars. ......nope.SR-71 or any airborne platform could never do the Magnum mission.Same goes for KH-11. SR-71 could never do even the CORONA missionI agree that the SR-71 was never designed to do the Magnum satellite's purpose of listening to military and diplomatic communications. What I should mention is the fact that when a handful of SR-71s were being prepared for reactivation in 1995, they were fitted with an electro-optical digital imaging camera like the one used by the KH-11 spy satellite.