Supersecret 7500-Series Satellites for Years Soaked up Soviet Communications, While Most Assumed They Performed Missile Warning Missions

Supersecret 7500-series satellites for years soaked up Soviet communications, while most assumed they performed missile warning missions. Eavesdroppers in Disguise By Jeffrey T. Richelson

he Aug. 7, 1968, issue of identify those satellites as Program 949 Program A—was “more obscure, but the New York Times carried early warning spacecraft—an identifica- just as fierce,” according to Thomas R. an article with the intriguing tion that would stick for several decades. Johnson’s official history of the NSA. title, “A Secret Payload Is While they were correct that there was a In 1963, Wheelon proposed the CIA Orbited by the US.” John Program 949 involving the development develop and operate a geosynchronous TNoble Wilford reported that the previous of early warning spacecraft, the satellites satellite whose primary function would day, an Atlas-Agena D rocket “shot into orbited in August 1968 and April 1969 be to intercept Soviet missile telemetry, Earth orbit ... a supersecret payload that were not products of that program—or although communications intelligence may include new military surveillance missile warning satellites of any kind. would eventually become a significant sensors.” He noted the Air Force would They had a very different mission. part of its mission. The proposal would acknowledge an “experimental payload” The August 1968 and April 1969 become the basis for the Rhyolite proj- had been launched from Cape Kennedy, launches were one product of the secret ect, whose first spacecraft would arrive Fla., but nothing more. In addition, conflict between the Air Force’s Office in geosynchronous orbit in June 1970. Noble wrote that some reporters had of Special Projects (Program A of the Wheelon’s proposal helped spur NRO been discouraged from asking questions National Reconnaissance Office) and headquarters and the Air Force element by officials involved in the launch. the CIA over high-altitude space-based of the NRO to push for a different kind An Air Force index of missile launch- eavesdropping. This conflict also was of of geosynchronous eavesdropper. Com- ings noted “it was the first closed launch great interest to the National Security munications intelligence (Comint) would from the Cape since 1963” and that Agency. be its main mission. As early as 1962, a “newsmen assigned various unofficial In the early years of the NRO the national intelligence estimate noted the designations of their own to the payload.” battle was particularly intense. Between continued Soviet expansion of both land- What the newsmen and other observ- August 1963 and September 1965 the line and microwave links for air defense ers had in common was the belief the two major protagonists were Albert communications. secret payload was an infrared warning Wheelon—who headed the CIA’s Di- Unlike Soviet high-frequency commu- satellite designed to detect Soviet and rectorate of Science and Technology nications that bounced off the atmosphere other nations’ missile launches. and supervised the CIA component of and into waiting antennas at a variety of Philip J. Klass, in his 1971 book, the NRO (Program B)—and Under- US and allied ground stations around the Secret Sentries in Space, identified the secretary of the Air Force and NRO world, microwave communications leaked satellite orbited that day as an “Advanced Director Brockway McMillan. One out into space. What was needed was a Midas” early warning satellite in geo- aspect of the conflict concerned future space-based system that could gather up synchronous orbit. He also disclosed imagery programs, but the battle over the signals when they passed through the that another was launched on April 12, space signals intelligence—involving atmosphere. According to a former CIA 1969. Subsequently, other writers would the CIA, NSA, NRO headquarters, and official, NSA was “very much in favor 58 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2012 Canyon satellites sent intercepted Soviet communications to Bad Aibling, West Germany, seen here. The base had a detachment of Canyon personnel.

Photo via wikipedia of getting Soviet traffic” and had “very to be effective eavesdropping platforms. Canyon was lofted into space by an Atlas-Agena such as this one, launch- little interest in telemetry.” Less than a decade earlier, a 1959 issue ing from Pad 14 at Cape Canaveral, Fla. The Air Force had already explored of the NSA’s classified NSA Technical the use of the low Earth orbiting satel- Journal included an article titled “Comint lites for communications intelligence, Satellites—A Space Problem.” The author, with Comint piggybacked onto satellites whose identity remains classified, reported used to intercept Soviet radar signals. But on an NSA study on the feasibility of such satellites were of limited utility as intercepting communications from space. communication intercept platforms be- “There are many target communications cause they were over particular emitters signals that might be considered for col- for only brief periods of time, resulting lection from a satellite at an altitude of in only snatches of conversations be- a few hundred miles,” the author wrote. ing intercepted. It was like being on an However, when it came to satellites at escalator and trying to eavesdrop on a several thousand miles or “the popular- conversation on the escalator going in ized 24-hour satellite hovering at 22,240 the opposite direction. What was needed miles,” they operated at distances that was a satellite in geosynchronous or- were “just too great for present intercept bit, whose antennas could continuously techniques.” The author went on to explain scoop up the communications from a that only “one part out of 10 trillion ... particular source—everything from hello of the power transmitted is available for to goodbye. collection. The rest is gone forever.” Program A and its main contractor, In addition, Air Force work on develop- Lockheed, managed to develop a system ment of a missile launch detection satellite, that did just that. The program producing an officially classified but publicly known the Aug. 6, 1968, payload and its suc- effort, diverted attention from the use of cessors bore the classified code name geosynchronous orbit for the even more Canyon and the unclassified designation highly classified Canyon effort. Thus, Project 827. in October 1973, by which time four Defense Support Program (DSP) mis- Serendipitous Deception sile warning satellites had been orbited, Helping to keep Canyon’s mission the Air Force, CIA, and NRO produced secret was the presumption that geosyn- a short study focused on “NRP Security chronous satellites were too far from Earth Via ‘White’ Programs”—NRP being an NASA photo AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2012 59 abbreviation for the National Reconnais- Over those years, the composition of sance Program. The study observed that personnel at the base would also change. “there have evolved several planned or An official history of the station noted that fortuitous relationships” between NRO during the 1950s and first half of the 1960s and “white” Air Force programs, and Department of Defense civilians—NSA “all Cape Kennedy launches of DSP and personnel—“were rarely seen, except as NRO satellites have been reported by the visitors.” That “began to change in the late media as ‘warning satellite’ launches.” 1960s, [for] DOD civilians were required This meant that all the Canyon satel- to provide technical expertise and leader- lites, launched from Cape Kennedy had, ship in support of the station’s mission.” since the first DSP launch in November The late 1960s was the beginning of the 1970, been reported as early warning Canyon launch effort, and along with DSP launches. DOD civilians, the station became home Though the initial DSP launch occurred for the Lockheed employees who were after the first three Canyon launches, in responsible for manning the consoles 1966 the Air Force had established Pro- used to operate the satellites. gram 949 as the follow-on to the Midas The Canyon contingent at Bad Aibling early warning effort—which led to the had an unclassified designation—Project assumption that Canyon launches in 1968, Wildbore—although as was the case with 1969, and 1970 were products of that ef- Project 827, what Wildbore referred to was fort. But while the 949 program led to an highly classified. But first they would have early warning satellite, it did not do so to wait for a working satellite before their until the first DSP satellite was launched. highly classified activities could begin. None of the envisioned 949 test satellites Fortunately for the Wildbore contin- were ever built, much less orbited. gent not only did the next two launches It would only be decades later that the place their satellites in orbit, there were true mission of those launches would no fatal mistakes on the ground. So- become clear. viet communications traffic started to The first Canyon satellite, designated arrive in large quantities at their Bavarian 7501—7500 for the program, 01 for the ground station—courtesy of the satellite’s mission number—was poised to deliver 30-foot-diameter mesh antenna. Tapes of the communications intelligence NSA the intercepts would be taken to Munich wanted when something went very wrong. and then flown to Fort Meade. The spacecraft arrived in its proper Not that everything went smoothly. orbit, with a 20,256-mile perigee and Communication between the satellite and 24,335-mile apogee and 10.2-degree ground station would cut out on occasion, inclination. Thus, the satellite traced a or a satellite would simply stop working. figure eight while rising above the equa- The fourth launch, on Dec. 4, 1971, failed tor and then falling below it as it moved to place satellite 7504 in orbit. According between its highest and lowest altitudes. to Matthew M. Aid, author of The Secret But in maneuvering the satellite, a ground Sentry, a book on the National Security controller made a critical error that sent Agency, Canyon had “every teething the bird into an uncontrollable spin, turn- problem” a new system could experience. ing it into a highly classified, expensive The next—and last—three Canyon piece of space junk. launches on Dec. 20, 1972, June 18, The failure of 7501 left American 1975, and May 23, 1977, all placed signals intelligence personnel in at their spacecraft in the proper orbit and least four locations—at the Pentagon, experienced fewer problems than earlier in Los Angeles (headquarters for the spacecraft. Along with the intermittently Air Force Office of Special Projects), working 7502 and 7503, they delivered at Fort Meade, Md. (home of NSA), and “very high value Comint data,” according in Bad Aibling, West Germany—gravely to the former CIA official. disappointed. This data wasn’t restricted to inter- Between the arrival in 1952 of the Army cepts of Soviet air defense and other Security Agency’s 328th Communications microwave communications. The very- Reconnaissance Company and its closure high-frequency communications of Arab in 2004, Bad Aibling would host a number nations, including those to and from of different eavesdropping missions—in- surface-to-air missile sites, were sucked cluding the interception of Soviet satel- up by Canyon antennas. Thus, it is likely lite communications, the monitoring of that Canyon contributed to the intense US high-frequency communications from the intelligence effort during the Yom Kippur Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and the An explosion seconds after launch in War of 1973. receipt of data from unmanned intercept August 1998 destroyed the last of the Those antennas might have also been of sites in Cyprus and Oman. 7500-series satellites. assistance to American pilots engaged in 60 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2012 the Vietnam air war, since they intercepted British Sigint agency, the Government the ultra-high-frequency communications Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), of the North Vietnamese Army, including who learned of the eavesdropping effort, those between firing batteries and regimen- was Geoffrey Arthur Prime. tal headquarters. Those intercepts could Over the years of his government ser- Bettmann/Corbis photo have proved particularly useful during vice, Prime developed a mild fondness the December 1972 air offensive against for the Soviet regime that turned into Hanoi and Haiphong, which began on complete sympathy and led to betrayal. Dec. 18 with 129 B-52 sorties. In January 1968, while an airman in the Before it was over there were 729 B-52 RAF, Prime made contact with a Soviet sorties. They faced at least two obstacles: officer, letting Soviet intelligence know the massive barrages of SAMs fired by he wanted to hear from them. His request the NVA personnel and a work stop- was passed not to the KGB’s Foreign page, at two bases in the area, by radio Directorate but to representatives of its intercept operators whose target was Third Chief Directorate, responsible for North Vietnamese air defense activities. security in the armed forces and low-level Canyon was also useful in monitoring espionage against Western troops stationed the China-North Vietnam border during in Germany. But what mattered most was Geoffrey Prime’s role as a spy was not the Christmas offensive, given the fears that Prime became a Soviet asset, code- discovered for several years after he that attacks might serve as a catalyst for named Rowlands. At the KGB’s urging, lost his nerve and quit supplying infor- further Chinese support to North Vietnam. he obtained a position with GCHQ and mation to the Soviet Union. Canyon may also have been one of in September 1968 began working at the the sources of Comint on the extensive London Processing Group (LPG), which That first Chalet had similar orbital Chinese military exercises in the fall and translated and transcribed Russian and parameters to the Canyon satellites, but winter of 1970-1971, in which “every other foreign language intercepts. there was one significant difference. military region participated to some de- At what point Prime learned specifi- Rather than the ground station being gree” and involving “some of the most cally of the Canyon program is not clear. located at Bad Aibling, data from the extensive exercise activity ever reflected In March 1976, he arrived at GCHQ new satellites would be transmitted to the in Comint,” according to a Defense Intel- headquarters at Cheltenham to become a massive Menwith Hill ground station in ligence Agency report. linguist in the agency’s “Special Sigint” the United Kingdom. Like Bad Aibling, Division, which handled Soviet traffic. At it had a number of missions. Prime Betrayal that time he was given a Byeman clearance, By the next launch, in October 1979, It was not until 1990 that Canyon’s necessary to receive details about satellite Chalet had become Vortex, and the existence and mission were revealed in reconnaissance programs. Of course, in spacecraft had been modified to allow the media, well after the program had revealing to the Soviets what he had been it to intercept missile telemetry in ad- ended in 1983. But word of the program’s working on during his years at the LPG, dition to communications. Eventually existence and mission arrived at KGB it is possible that he allowed the Soviets a three-satellite constellation would headquarters at least eight years before to deduce the existence of an intercept permit extensive targeting of the Soviet that, in 1975. The Soviets then took program targeting the specific commu- Union, the Middle East, and Asia. The countermeasures to reduce the take from nications links monitored by Canyon. satellites would vacuum up the commu- the satellite eavesdroppers. In September 1977, overwhelmed by nications of Soviet missile and nuclear Once Canyon spacecraft began sending pressure, Prime quit GCHQ, took jobs research and development and testing back intercepts the volume of material as a taxi driver and salesman, and broke sites, Israeli and Arab communications continued to grow, involving thousands off contact with the KGB. His espionage (plus Iraqi communications during of intercepted messages each week and career was discovered in 1982, but only Operations Desert Shield and Desert far exceeding the capability of NSA to after he was arrested for molesting young Storm), and an assortment of Chinese process and exploit. It was two years before girls. That arrest ensured he could do no communications. some of the intercepts were processed. further damage to the US and British Co- In 1998, a launch explosion prevented A solution to the problem was found in mint efforts, but all sorts of great damage the last of the 7500 series satellites from the cooperation of two key Sigint allies, was already done. reaching orbit. Britain and Canada, that had not been Five years before the Canyon opera- By that time another—still classified— previously told of the program’s existence. tions ceased and Project Wildbore ended, successor program, with first launch in They both learned of the program and Canyon had already spawned a successor, 1994, had placed several eavesdropping received an offer at the same time: Assist originally code-named Chalet. In June satellites in orbit. Even these satellites with translating the Russian-language 1978, the first satellite from the successor could trace their origin to the decision messages and receive access to the prod- program reached geosynchronous orbit. to develop a geosynchronous spacecraft uct. Both allies agreed, one result being The lineage from Canyon to Chalet was whose primary mission was communica- that virtually every Russian-language so strong that the numerical designation tions intelligence—the decision to build instructor assigned to Canadian signals for the first Chalet was 7508. Canyon. n intelligence training classes was pulled out of class and sent to headquarters during Jeffrey T. Richelson is a senior fellow and consultant of the National Security 1971 and 1972. Archive in Washington, D.C., and author of nine books on intelligence and military Unfortunately, for the security of the topics. His most recent article for Air Force Magazine, “Spying on the MiGs,” ap- program, one of the members of the peared in the March 2011 issue. AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2012 61