SPACE CHRONICLE A BRITISH INTERPLANETARY SOCIETY PUBLICATION Vol. 71 No.2 2018 Further declassification disclosures LIFTINGTHEVEIL,PART2: on what US intelligence knew about the Soviet space programme Also: CHEVALINEMEMOIRS Fun and games at AWRE Foulness DECLASSIFIED US INTELLIGENCE ISSUE ISBN 978-0-9567382-2-6 JUNE 201841 Submitting papers to From the editor SPACE CHRONICLE THIS IS THE SECOND publication of Space Chronicle in its new layout – I hope you all approve. It is also my sixth year as its editor. Space Chronicle first appeared Space Chronicle welcomes the submission in 1980 under the control of Andrew Wilson. It was then relaunched in 2002 with for publication of technical articles of general the overall aim of publishing survey and historical articles of worldwide interest interest, historical contributions and reviews with a more general bias than the academic papers that appear in JBIS. in space science and technology, astronautics and related fields. Looking to the future we would like to include, as well as the traditional longer submissions, some shorter papers to give each issue a wider interest content. GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS Such papers could consist of as little as 2,000 – 3,000 words plus illustrations. For example I know that there are at the National Archive at Kew in London ■ As concise as the content allows – files relating to an approach made by the British in 1935 to Eugen Sänger for typically 5,000 to 6,000 words. Shorter information on his rocket work. There are also claims made by Yves Le Prieur papers will also be considered. Longer to the British Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors concerning his work papers will only be considered in on WW1 airborne rockets. The contents of both of these files would make exceptional circumstances and, at the excellent short papers – so if there are any interested authors out there, this is an discretion of the Editor, may be split into opportunity. I am sure there are similar snippets of information in other National parts. Archive and similar sources. ■ Source references should be inserted in the text in square brackets [X] and then For future editions of Space Chronicle, papers in the pipeline include ones on listed at the end of the paper. the production and use of Hale type rockets in the USA during the second half of the 19th century, and a paper by the son of Valentin Glushko on the life of M ■ Illustration references should be cited in Tukhachevsky. numerical order in the text as ‘Fig.X’; those not cited in the text risk omission. 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Opinions expressed in signed articles are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or the Council of the British Interplanetary Society. Security clearance, where necessary, is the responsibility of the author. FRONT COVER (1) Enhanced CORONA photograph Published by the British Interplanetary Society. Registered Company No: 402498. Registered of the N1 launch site at Tyuratam, February-March Charity No: 250556. Printed by Latimer Trend, Estover Road, Plymouth, PL6 7PY, England. 1966; (2) photograph of an N1 rocket approaching © 2018 British Interplanetary Society. No part of this publication may be reproduced or the launch pad from the scrapbook of N1 engineer transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or valentin Lieberman; and (3) Project Chevaline recording by any information storage or retrieval system without prior permission from the improved front end. Publishers. 42 SPACE CHRONICLE A BRITISH INTERPLANETARY SOCIETY PUBLICATION Vol. 71 No.1 2018 Contents 45 CHEVALINEMEMOIRS Fun and games at AWRE Foulness John Harlow 50 LIFTINGTHEVEIL,PART2: Further declassification disclosures reveal what US Intelligence knew about the Soviet space program during the Space Race – part 3* Peter Pesavento OUR MISSION STATEMENT The British Interplanetary Society promotes the exploration and use of space for the benefit of humanity, connecting people to create, educate and inspire, and advance knowledge in all aspects of astronautics. 43 Contributors John Harlow MBE qualified in Chemistry, Aeronautical Engineering and Astronomy and Astronautics before pursuing a career centred on rocket propulsion. After joining Hunting Engineering, he was posted to the Rocket Propulsion Establishment at Westcott to work on Polaris Improvement (Chevaline) for 6 months. Thirteen years later(!) he joined the MoD, soon after which the R&D Establishments were privitised and eventually sold to British Aerospace. The later years at Westcott were spent in many consultative roles supporting RAE, MoD, BT (for IntelSat), the FCO and the UN/ IAEA, after which he became a Chief Inspector for UNSCOM. He received an MBE for services to the Defence Industry for this work. On leaving British Aerospace more consultations were taken up with FCO, the UN and many UK organizations (Atlantic Research Corporation UK, QinetiQ, Roxel, etc.). For the past 20 years he has been an independent consultant to Aerojet (now Aerojet Rocketdyne). He is now retired. Peter Pesavento is an independent scholar and researcher in the field of aerospace, specializing in Cold War history of the Space Race. He has had seminal papers and articles appear in all three major BIS flagship publications over the last thirty years. Such benchmark articles first appeared inJBIS (1990), SpaceFlight (1993) and more recently, Space Chronicle (2007). The topics cover a wide spectrum: Soviet manned lunar projects; Russian space shuttle and spaceplane efforts; disclosing a previously unknown US Navy program that successfully had the first aircraft-launched satellites in the late 1950s, as well as the first operational anti-satellite system; the first comprehensive reportage about the Soyuz 1 mission; as well as what Western intelligence units contemporaneously knew about Soviet space and rocketry activities from before Sputnik through the Vostok and more contemporaneous Russian crewed programs. Including correspondence, Pesavento’s work has appeared in BIS periodicals over 35 times. “Lifting the Veil Part 2” is characteristic of his path-finding publications, comprising of both newly declassified documentation and previously unpublished illustrations from both Western and Russian sources. 44 Space Chronicle, Vol. 71, pp.45-49, 2018 Chevaline Memoirs Fun and Games at AWRE Foulness JOHN HARLOW MBE With the withdrawal from service of Chevaline on 31 October 1996, an edict was issued that cancelled all classification on all ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS aspects of the associated documentation and hardware [1], [2], ABM Anti-Ballistic Missile the exception of course being items that were nuclear related. A-Frame Triangular structure atop Polaris 2nd stage. Being unclassified, many of the interesting facets of the project Attachment for the C-Body & PAC could now be discussed in open forum (BROHP conferences at Charterhouse being a particularly good example, as reported AWRE Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (A - in Prospero [3], [4]. Without this security relaxation, even anec- Aldermaston, F - Foulness) dotes such as those related below could not be published. BAJ Bristol Aerojet (Banwell, Somerset) BROHP British Rocket Oral History Project (annual 1. Preamble on Chevaline meetings at Charterhouse school) C-Body One of two REBs of the Chevaline system (the other being the P-Body) The first that many knew of a Polaris Improvement Programme CPA Critical Path Analysis (a key part of PERT) (PIP - HR169. [5]) was in early 1969 after attendance at Coul- DA Design Authority port/Faslane for what was an early version of the Polaris Acquaint FSU Former Soviet Union Course. This was a one-way delivery managed by