SvenSvensonov
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*Alright, this one isn't a work of mine and I contributed nothing to the article save for formatting and posting it here (and a few pictures), but it ties into the theme I'm trying to project (Electronic warfare). Also, I omitted the pictures as I couldn't get them to save onto my computer, but I did leave the footnotes which can be followed throughout the article.
Enjoy
SvenSvensonov
Foreword: Declassification of the Grab and Poppy Systems
With public acknowledgement of the “fact of” signals intelligence (SIGINT) from space in the 1990s, it became imperative to examine historical electronic intelligence (ELINT) reconnaissance satellite programs for potential declassification.
In 1997 the Director, National Security Agency (DIRNSA), and the Director, National Reconnaissance Office (DNRO), established a team of experts from the NRO, the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Department of the Navy with co-leads from NRO and NSA to accomplish this goal. I had the privilege to serve as the NRO lead of that integrated process team (IPT).
The IPT limited its assessment to two of the earliest ELINT satellite systems that the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) developed and fielded: Grab and Poppy. In order not to jeopardize national security but to tell the history of the Grab and Poppy programs, the IPT rigorously examined the security risk of each element to be declassified. Only then did the IPT prepare its declassification recommendations for the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).
As a result of the IPT’s recommendations, the DCI authorized declassification of limited information about Grab in 1998—in time for the 75th anniversary of the NRL. Grab, “Galactic Radiation and Background,” operated from 1960 to 1962.
The second program, Poppy, operated from 1962 to 1977. In 2004 the DCI authorized the DNRO to declassify the “fact of” the Poppy program along with limited information about it. The objectives of this declassification were to let the public know about these programs and their major accomplishments and, especially, to recognize those key contributors and intelligence community participants who performed the Grab- and Poppy-related research, development, and operations. We recognized Grab alumni during NRL’s 75th anniversary celebration. Now we can recognize the Poppy alumni for their significant contributions to the national security during the Cold War.
Despite the many security obstacles to declassification of these early satellite ELINT programs, we were successful and now have an opportunity to both recognize the people and share artifacts of the programs with the public. The National Air and Space Museum and the National Cryptologic Museum both have public displays of the Grab satellite. We plan similar displays of Poppy artifacts at the National Cryptologic Museum and the NRO.
For the Grab and Poppy declassification efforts, the Intelligence Community cooperated to lift the veil of secrecy that necessarily surrounds the nation’s satellite reconnaissance programs. This history pamphlet from the Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (CSNR) is the first step in sharing the Grab and Poppy stories veiled for so long. In this way we are able to recognize in a more public way two important historical Intelligence Community activities.
Preface
We offer in this publication a brief history of Grab and Poppy—two of the earliest U.S. satellite-based electronic intelligence (ELINT) programs. Our brief history represents the scope of programmatic details that former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet authorized the Director of National Reconnaissance to declassify.[1] Our goal was to produce a consolidated summary of these programs on the occasion of DNRO Donald Kerr’s recognition of key contributors to the Poppy program.[2] Although security constraints limit how much we can say about these programs, we present an overview and summary of Poppy’s early contributions to national security. Such information can provide current NRO program managers with an unclassified historical context for programmatic and policy decisions.
Grab and Poppy were pioneering space reconnaissance activities during the 1960s. The intelligence these programs collected played a vital role in U.S. national security at the
height of the Cold War. The programs succeeded only because of the creativity and perseverance of key contributors and others who participated in Grab and Poppy development and operation. It is most appropriate that the Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (CSNR) publish this brief story of the
Grab and Poppy programs on the occasion of DNRO Donald Kerr announcing declassification of the Poppy program and recognizing the role of Poppy alumni who contributed to its success.
We prepared this history based in large part on early draft manuscripts researched by former NSA historian Dr. Tom Johnson, NRL history consultant Dr. Ron Potts, former NRO historian R. Cargill Hall, former NSA historian Dr. David Hatch, and the late NRL historian Dr. David van Keuren. We are grateful to them for their work. We supplemented the work of these earlier researchers with additional information from the reference collection at the Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance. We also received research support from the NRO curator, James Rosolanka. Frances Lawson was our production editor.
We especially are indebted to Dr. Ron Potts, whose personal knowledge and extensive historical research of the Grab and Poppy programs have proved invaluable in documenting the programs. He also reviewed our draft manuscript and offered suggestions to improve its accuracy.
Poppy—America’s Early ELINT Satellites
The United States was the first nation in space with a reconnaissance satellite—and that satellite, designed to intercept Soviet radar signals, was a 20-inch-diameter metal ball packed with electronic equipment. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) developed this electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellite in early1958 under the code name Tattletale. Tattletale is better known as Grab, for Galactic Radiation and Background Satellite (Tattletale’s cover mission).3 In 1962, NRL launched Grab’s successor, Poppy—also designed to collect Soviet radar signals.
Both Grab and Poppy served as valuable national reconnaissance ELINT collectors and made significant contributions
3 Multiple nomenclatures are associated with Grab and its follow-on Poppy. The project name Grab in this pamphlet refers to the then-classified ELINT project, initially called Tattletale in classified channels and later known as Canes. (Canes also refers to the project’s security control system.) The Navy used the name Dyno for a proposed Grab upgrade (superseded by Poppy). At the same time, Grab’s cover mission initially was referred to as
Galactic Energy Balance-Experiment (Greb-E) and later became known as SolRad (for solar radiation). The Greb/SolRad cover mission was a real scientific experiment whose purpose was to measure solar radiation (Lyman-alpha and X-ray).That mission focused on the effect of solar radiation on high frequency (HF) communication propagated via ionospheric reflection. Navy scientists discovered that solar flares produced ionospheric disturbances, such as sudden short wave fading and cosmic noise absorption. In addition to its value for pure research into the sun’s nature, data would be used to predict propagation conditions for HF communications. The NRL eventually built Navy and NASA satellites dedicated to solar radiation measurement and related experiments, and they applied the nickname SolRad retroactively to the progenitor, Greb.
to America’s national security. The NRL had completed its development of the Grab satellite system by the time the Soviet Union shot down Francis Gary Powers’ high-altitude U-2 reconnaissance aircraft on 1 May 1960. After the U-2 shootdown, President Eisenhower cancelled all further U-2 overflights of the Soviet Union. Now, in order to access the heartland of the Soviet Union, the U.S. had to turn to space. Grab and Poppy, along with their imagery cousin, Corona, were available to fulfill this need in the 1960s and 1970s.[3]
Why National Reconnaissance?
When World War II ended in 1945, the United States held a position of military dominance derived in large part from its possession of the atomic bomb. However, by 1949, the Soviet Union had its own A-bomb. As the Soviet threat appeared to be growing, it had become more difficult to gain access to Soviet territory. Winston Churchill foresaw this as early as 5 March 1946, when he observed:
“From the Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. . . . The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to preeminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control.”
As the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies became denied areas, classical espionage became more difficult. Increasingly our U.S. Intelligence Community needed to explore technical means of collection.
Emerging Technical Means— Origins of National Reconnaissance
In 1946 RAND Corporation[4] published a research study that called for a multistage “experimental world-circling spaceship.” During the same period, the U.S. Navy proposed construction of a single-stage earth satellite vehicle; it continued to fund a modest satellite research effort until 1948. The War Department did not have funds to design and launch satellites and in any case showed scant interest in the concept. However, it had proposed using satellites as observation platforms and weather reconnaissance vehicles, though this never proceeded beyond the concept stage, because rocket development/production lagged.
The Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik, the world’s first orbiting artificial satellite, impelled President Eisenhower’s Administration to look more closely at the concept of space-based reconnaissance. After the 1960 U-2 shootdown, satellite reconnaissance became more compelling.
Navy Builds First Reconnaissance Satellite—Grab
President Eisenhower approved full development of Grab on 24 August 1959; four days after the U-2 shootdown, he approved the first Grab launch. On 22 June 1960, a Thor AbleStar rocket roared off the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying Grab 1 into orbit. The U.S. now had a space reconnaissance program.
The Grab concept originated in 1958 with an NRL research engineer, Reid D. Mayo, who investigated the problem of intercepting and analyzing radar signals from Soviet air defenses. While stranded in a Pennsylvania restaurant during a March blizzard, he pondered the application to space reconnaissance of crystal video technologies he had developed for submarines. Specifically, he wondered if the submarine periscope system could be modified so that a solid-state version of this intercept system could be mounted in a 20-inch solar-powered Vanguard satellite. He penciled range calculations on a paper placemat and determined that such a system could in fact intercept Soviet radar signals up to an altitude of 600 miles.
When Mayo returned to Washington, he presented his idea for ELINT collection to Howard Lorenzen, chief of NRL’s countermeasures branch and in the front rank of the nation’s electronic warfare program. Lorenzen agreed it could work and championed the idea within the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. The NRL continued research and development in coordination with elements of the U.S. space and ELINT programs. The NRL attempted five Grab missions between 1960 and 1962; two were successful.
The U.S. Air Force launched Grab 1 from Cape Canaveral, Florida using a Thor-Able-Star booster.[5], Thor Able Star.) It launched in “piggyback” fashion with a second
satellite, Transit 1B.9This first Grab satellite operated for three months. Its initial collection of data on 5 July 1960 far exceeded Mayo’s expectations. Grab’s yield provided intelligence analysts at the National Security Agency (NSA) with ELINT data that kept them busy until the next mission.
On 29 June 1961, a little over one year after the first successful Grab mission, the NRL launched the second successful Grab satellite. It began collecting signals on 15 July and operated for 14 months. Like Grab 1, it produced a large volume of radar intercept data. By October 1961, NSA had developed an automatic system to improve the time-consuming processing of ELINT data it received from the Grab satellites.
Grab satellites featured ELINT antennas that provided reception of radar signals. A larger and separate turnstile antenna received commands, transmitted telemetry, and transmitted ELINT data.
When terrestrial radar emitted its pulsed-radar signals above the horizon, Grab satellites collected each pulse of a radar signal in a specified bandwidth and transponded a corresponding signal to NRL radio receiving and control huts at ground sites within Grab’s field of view. The huts’ antenna masts contained two upper bays of 10-element yagi antennas that received telemetry (108 MHz) and four lower bays of 10element yagi antennas that transmitted commands and received ELINT (139 MHz).
Personnel at Grab receiving and control huts recorded data from the satellites and then dispatched tapes with these data, initially to NRL, and then to the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC). The NSA and SAC exploited the data to develop technical intelligence about Soviet radar. The success of the two Grab missions was encouraging, and the NRL made two unsuccessful attempts at a third Grab mission.
Poppy—Successor To Grab
In 1962, shortly after NRL’s second unsuccessful attempt at a third Grab mission, the newly formed National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) assimilated NRL’s ELINT satellite activities and associated multi-agency infrastructure into what became NRO’s Program C.[6], [7] Program C continued NRL’s satellite ELINT collection by developing Poppy, Grab’s successor.
Following the conclusion of Grab 2’s useful lifespan in August 1962, the Air Force used a Thor Agena-D launch vehicle on 13 December 1962 to carry Poppy 1 into orbit from
Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), California.
The initial Poppy mission succeeded, as did all six additional missions. The Air Force used three versions of the Thor Agena booster for Poppy: Thor Agena-D for Poppy 1, 2, 4, and 5; a Thrust-Augmented-Thor (TAT) Agena-D for Poppy 3; and the Thorad (also know as Long-Tank Thrust-Augmented Thor) Agena-D for Poppy 6 and 7.
The first Poppy missions featured a stretched spherical satellite design, initially 20 x 24 inches (at 55 pounds), which ultimately became 24 x 32 inches (at 129 pounds). Poppy also featured a 12-sided multiface design, initially 27 x 32 inches (at 162 pounds), which ultimately became 27 x 34 inches (at 282 pounds).
During 1965-67, Program C phased out the earlier receiving and control huts used for Grab; the program also upgraded data quality by installing equipment in buildings provided by host installations. This upgrade also augmented manual analysis in the field. By the 1970s, the Poppy program used prefabricated buildings in the field for its Siss Zulu operations.[8]
At the field sites, a pair of receiving consoles collected
ELINT data downlinked from Poppy satellites. One operator tracked the pass in azimuth/elevation and selected polarization for recording. A second operator logged signals of interest. An analog analysis operator performed post-pass measurements for signals that the collection operators detected, incorporating signals of interest into daily logs.The analysts reported information on signals of interest to NSA and others, using the nation’s critical communications channels.
One-operator transmitter consoles used over the life of the program included three receiver groups for telemetry readout and two transmitter groups for payload commands. The operator would tune the receiver groups to radio frequencies for scheduled satellites, and the groups would operate as the satellites rose above the field site’s radio horizon
The Naval Security Group (NSG), Air Force Security Service (AFSS), and Army Security Agency (ASA) staffed the Poppy field sites. Their cryptologic technicians operated and maintained Poppy equipment. A Poppy Technical Operations Group, composed of representatives from participating organizations, held monthly meetings. The NSG coordinated all field operations for the Poppy program. The field sites collected radar data and forwarded intercepted signals to the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA analyzed the signals and produced reports for the Intelligence Community.
Grab and Poppy Contributions
Early NRO ELINT satellite reconnaissance programs constituted a critical component of our U.S. technical reconnaissance operations during the 1960s and into the 1970s. Before development of these satellite systems, technical intelligence about Soviet air defense radars was limited to that which could be collected by airborne and ground-based collection platforms, often limiting collection to radar sites less than 200 miles inside the Soviet Union. Grab and Poppy dramatically increased the capability of U.S. intelligence to acquire ELINT data deep within the Soviet Union.
Intelligence derived from data that Grab and Poppy collected went to support a wide range of intelligence applications. It provided cues to the location and capabilities of radar sites within the Soviet Union; it provided SAC with characteristics and locations of air defense equipment to support building the U.S. Single Integrated Operations Plan (SIOP)[9]; it provided ocean surveillance information to Navy operational commanders; and, with data from the Corona imaging reconnaissance satellite, it provided a more complete picture of the Soviet military threat. We can credit these systems with helping the U.S. win the Cold War. At the same time they extended their impact into the future as they laid the foundation for future national reconnaissance capabilities. The NRO’s 21stcentury SIGINT reconnaissance capabilities grew out of Grab and Poppy innovations in the 1960s and 1970s.
[1] On 11 May 2004, DCI Tenet approved an Intelligence Community recommendation to declassify the “fact of” the Poppy ELINT satellite program along with limited information about the program. This Poppy information now supplements earlier Grab ELINT satellite program information that the DCI authorized for release in conjunction with the Naval Research Laboratory’s 75th anniversary celebrations in June of 1998.
[2] On 12 September 2005, DNRO Kerr hosted a closed Intelligence Community recognition event at NRO headquarters for the key contributors to the Poppy program as well as other distinguished alumni who participated in Poppy development and operation. The key contributors are those whose names are so documented in classified NRL and NRO historical records. Whereas hundreds of individuals were involved with the Poppy system over the life of the program, the September 2005 event highlighted the work of those whom the CSNR was able to identify and locate nearly 30 years after the program ended.
[3] Corona, a joint CIA and USAF project with its first successful mission on 18 August 1960, was the world’s first imagery satellite reconnaissance system.
[4] RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization with historical ties to the Air Force. RAND’s founders initially set it up as Project RAND under special contract to the Douglas Aircraft Company with Project RAND reporting to the Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Research and Development. RAND’s 1946 report, Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship, analyzed the potential to design and engineer an earth-orbiting satellite vehicle. (In 1948 the Air Force Chief of Staff approved evolution of RAND into a nonprofit corporation.)
[5] The Thor-Able-Star booster, an early US launch vehicle, was succeeded in the early 1960s by the Thor Agena series of launch vehicles.
[6] Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara formally established the NRO under its current name on 6 September 1961. Its mission was to manage the newly created National Reconnaissance Program (NRP). The NRP would consist of all satellite and overflight reconnaissance projects; thus, Navy ELINT satellite projects at NRL, and the Air Force and CIA Corona imagery program, became part of the NRP budget under NRO control.
[7] DNRO Joseph V. Charyk organized NRO functions into four alpha-designated programs areas in July 1962: Program A for Air Force; Program B for CIA; and Program C for Navy. Under Program C, the Navy was responsible for the design, development, and operation of its reconnaissance satellites, and the Air Force was responsible for launching those satellites. Program C included the U.S. Navy element of the NRP in association with the Technical Operation Group, which was made up of representatives from the Office of Naval Intelligence, National Security Agency, NRO, Naval Security Group, Army Security Agency, and Air Force Security Service.
[8] By this time, the Navy referred to the Poppy program with the unclassified term “Siss Zulu.”
[9] The SIOP was the U.S. war plan that governed targeting of U.S. strategic weapons employed by the Air Force, Army, and Navy, including the triad of SAC’s strategic bombers, land-based ballistic missiles, and Polaris submarines.
@Slav Defence - this wasn't the article I wanted to post, that one kept getting stuck in moderation and has been deleted (I'll try again after a few tweaks), but I thought this one was very interesting and a great insight into early US ELINT efforts.
This is Grab
SOLRAD-GRAB intelligence satellite - Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
And this is Poppy
Enjoy
SvenSvensonov
Foreword: Declassification of the Grab and Poppy Systems
With public acknowledgement of the “fact of” signals intelligence (SIGINT) from space in the 1990s, it became imperative to examine historical electronic intelligence (ELINT) reconnaissance satellite programs for potential declassification.
In 1997 the Director, National Security Agency (DIRNSA), and the Director, National Reconnaissance Office (DNRO), established a team of experts from the NRO, the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Department of the Navy with co-leads from NRO and NSA to accomplish this goal. I had the privilege to serve as the NRO lead of that integrated process team (IPT).
The IPT limited its assessment to two of the earliest ELINT satellite systems that the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) developed and fielded: Grab and Poppy. In order not to jeopardize national security but to tell the history of the Grab and Poppy programs, the IPT rigorously examined the security risk of each element to be declassified. Only then did the IPT prepare its declassification recommendations for the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).
As a result of the IPT’s recommendations, the DCI authorized declassification of limited information about Grab in 1998—in time for the 75th anniversary of the NRL. Grab, “Galactic Radiation and Background,” operated from 1960 to 1962.
The second program, Poppy, operated from 1962 to 1977. In 2004 the DCI authorized the DNRO to declassify the “fact of” the Poppy program along with limited information about it. The objectives of this declassification were to let the public know about these programs and their major accomplishments and, especially, to recognize those key contributors and intelligence community participants who performed the Grab- and Poppy-related research, development, and operations. We recognized Grab alumni during NRL’s 75th anniversary celebration. Now we can recognize the Poppy alumni for their significant contributions to the national security during the Cold War.
Despite the many security obstacles to declassification of these early satellite ELINT programs, we were successful and now have an opportunity to both recognize the people and share artifacts of the programs with the public. The National Air and Space Museum and the National Cryptologic Museum both have public displays of the Grab satellite. We plan similar displays of Poppy artifacts at the National Cryptologic Museum and the NRO.
For the Grab and Poppy declassification efforts, the Intelligence Community cooperated to lift the veil of secrecy that necessarily surrounds the nation’s satellite reconnaissance programs. This history pamphlet from the Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (CSNR) is the first step in sharing the Grab and Poppy stories veiled for so long. In this way we are able to recognize in a more public way two important historical Intelligence Community activities.
Preface
We offer in this publication a brief history of Grab and Poppy—two of the earliest U.S. satellite-based electronic intelligence (ELINT) programs. Our brief history represents the scope of programmatic details that former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet authorized the Director of National Reconnaissance to declassify.[1] Our goal was to produce a consolidated summary of these programs on the occasion of DNRO Donald Kerr’s recognition of key contributors to the Poppy program.[2] Although security constraints limit how much we can say about these programs, we present an overview and summary of Poppy’s early contributions to national security. Such information can provide current NRO program managers with an unclassified historical context for programmatic and policy decisions.
Grab and Poppy were pioneering space reconnaissance activities during the 1960s. The intelligence these programs collected played a vital role in U.S. national security at the
height of the Cold War. The programs succeeded only because of the creativity and perseverance of key contributors and others who participated in Grab and Poppy development and operation. It is most appropriate that the Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (CSNR) publish this brief story of the
Grab and Poppy programs on the occasion of DNRO Donald Kerr announcing declassification of the Poppy program and recognizing the role of Poppy alumni who contributed to its success.
We prepared this history based in large part on early draft manuscripts researched by former NSA historian Dr. Tom Johnson, NRL history consultant Dr. Ron Potts, former NRO historian R. Cargill Hall, former NSA historian Dr. David Hatch, and the late NRL historian Dr. David van Keuren. We are grateful to them for their work. We supplemented the work of these earlier researchers with additional information from the reference collection at the Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance. We also received research support from the NRO curator, James Rosolanka. Frances Lawson was our production editor.
We especially are indebted to Dr. Ron Potts, whose personal knowledge and extensive historical research of the Grab and Poppy programs have proved invaluable in documenting the programs. He also reviewed our draft manuscript and offered suggestions to improve its accuracy.
Poppy—America’s Early ELINT Satellites
The United States was the first nation in space with a reconnaissance satellite—and that satellite, designed to intercept Soviet radar signals, was a 20-inch-diameter metal ball packed with electronic equipment. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) developed this electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellite in early1958 under the code name Tattletale. Tattletale is better known as Grab, for Galactic Radiation and Background Satellite (Tattletale’s cover mission).3 In 1962, NRL launched Grab’s successor, Poppy—also designed to collect Soviet radar signals.
Both Grab and Poppy served as valuable national reconnaissance ELINT collectors and made significant contributions
3 Multiple nomenclatures are associated with Grab and its follow-on Poppy. The project name Grab in this pamphlet refers to the then-classified ELINT project, initially called Tattletale in classified channels and later known as Canes. (Canes also refers to the project’s security control system.) The Navy used the name Dyno for a proposed Grab upgrade (superseded by Poppy). At the same time, Grab’s cover mission initially was referred to as
Galactic Energy Balance-Experiment (Greb-E) and later became known as SolRad (for solar radiation). The Greb/SolRad cover mission was a real scientific experiment whose purpose was to measure solar radiation (Lyman-alpha and X-ray).That mission focused on the effect of solar radiation on high frequency (HF) communication propagated via ionospheric reflection. Navy scientists discovered that solar flares produced ionospheric disturbances, such as sudden short wave fading and cosmic noise absorption. In addition to its value for pure research into the sun’s nature, data would be used to predict propagation conditions for HF communications. The NRL eventually built Navy and NASA satellites dedicated to solar radiation measurement and related experiments, and they applied the nickname SolRad retroactively to the progenitor, Greb.
to America’s national security. The NRL had completed its development of the Grab satellite system by the time the Soviet Union shot down Francis Gary Powers’ high-altitude U-2 reconnaissance aircraft on 1 May 1960. After the U-2 shootdown, President Eisenhower cancelled all further U-2 overflights of the Soviet Union. Now, in order to access the heartland of the Soviet Union, the U.S. had to turn to space. Grab and Poppy, along with their imagery cousin, Corona, were available to fulfill this need in the 1960s and 1970s.[3]
Why National Reconnaissance?
When World War II ended in 1945, the United States held a position of military dominance derived in large part from its possession of the atomic bomb. However, by 1949, the Soviet Union had its own A-bomb. As the Soviet threat appeared to be growing, it had become more difficult to gain access to Soviet territory. Winston Churchill foresaw this as early as 5 March 1946, when he observed:
“From the Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. . . . The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to preeminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control.”
As the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies became denied areas, classical espionage became more difficult. Increasingly our U.S. Intelligence Community needed to explore technical means of collection.
Emerging Technical Means— Origins of National Reconnaissance
In 1946 RAND Corporation[4] published a research study that called for a multistage “experimental world-circling spaceship.” During the same period, the U.S. Navy proposed construction of a single-stage earth satellite vehicle; it continued to fund a modest satellite research effort until 1948. The War Department did not have funds to design and launch satellites and in any case showed scant interest in the concept. However, it had proposed using satellites as observation platforms and weather reconnaissance vehicles, though this never proceeded beyond the concept stage, because rocket development/production lagged.
The Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik, the world’s first orbiting artificial satellite, impelled President Eisenhower’s Administration to look more closely at the concept of space-based reconnaissance. After the 1960 U-2 shootdown, satellite reconnaissance became more compelling.
Navy Builds First Reconnaissance Satellite—Grab
President Eisenhower approved full development of Grab on 24 August 1959; four days after the U-2 shootdown, he approved the first Grab launch. On 22 June 1960, a Thor AbleStar rocket roared off the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying Grab 1 into orbit. The U.S. now had a space reconnaissance program.
The Grab concept originated in 1958 with an NRL research engineer, Reid D. Mayo, who investigated the problem of intercepting and analyzing radar signals from Soviet air defenses. While stranded in a Pennsylvania restaurant during a March blizzard, he pondered the application to space reconnaissance of crystal video technologies he had developed for submarines. Specifically, he wondered if the submarine periscope system could be modified so that a solid-state version of this intercept system could be mounted in a 20-inch solar-powered Vanguard satellite. He penciled range calculations on a paper placemat and determined that such a system could in fact intercept Soviet radar signals up to an altitude of 600 miles.
When Mayo returned to Washington, he presented his idea for ELINT collection to Howard Lorenzen, chief of NRL’s countermeasures branch and in the front rank of the nation’s electronic warfare program. Lorenzen agreed it could work and championed the idea within the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. The NRL continued research and development in coordination with elements of the U.S. space and ELINT programs. The NRL attempted five Grab missions between 1960 and 1962; two were successful.
The U.S. Air Force launched Grab 1 from Cape Canaveral, Florida using a Thor-Able-Star booster.[5], Thor Able Star.) It launched in “piggyback” fashion with a second
satellite, Transit 1B.9This first Grab satellite operated for three months. Its initial collection of data on 5 July 1960 far exceeded Mayo’s expectations. Grab’s yield provided intelligence analysts at the National Security Agency (NSA) with ELINT data that kept them busy until the next mission.
On 29 June 1961, a little over one year after the first successful Grab mission, the NRL launched the second successful Grab satellite. It began collecting signals on 15 July and operated for 14 months. Like Grab 1, it produced a large volume of radar intercept data. By October 1961, NSA had developed an automatic system to improve the time-consuming processing of ELINT data it received from the Grab satellites.
Grab satellites featured ELINT antennas that provided reception of radar signals. A larger and separate turnstile antenna received commands, transmitted telemetry, and transmitted ELINT data.
When terrestrial radar emitted its pulsed-radar signals above the horizon, Grab satellites collected each pulse of a radar signal in a specified bandwidth and transponded a corresponding signal to NRL radio receiving and control huts at ground sites within Grab’s field of view. The huts’ antenna masts contained two upper bays of 10-element yagi antennas that received telemetry (108 MHz) and four lower bays of 10element yagi antennas that transmitted commands and received ELINT (139 MHz).
Personnel at Grab receiving and control huts recorded data from the satellites and then dispatched tapes with these data, initially to NRL, and then to the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC). The NSA and SAC exploited the data to develop technical intelligence about Soviet radar. The success of the two Grab missions was encouraging, and the NRL made two unsuccessful attempts at a third Grab mission.
Poppy—Successor To Grab
In 1962, shortly after NRL’s second unsuccessful attempt at a third Grab mission, the newly formed National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) assimilated NRL’s ELINT satellite activities and associated multi-agency infrastructure into what became NRO’s Program C.[6], [7] Program C continued NRL’s satellite ELINT collection by developing Poppy, Grab’s successor.
Following the conclusion of Grab 2’s useful lifespan in August 1962, the Air Force used a Thor Agena-D launch vehicle on 13 December 1962 to carry Poppy 1 into orbit from
Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), California.
The initial Poppy mission succeeded, as did all six additional missions. The Air Force used three versions of the Thor Agena booster for Poppy: Thor Agena-D for Poppy 1, 2, 4, and 5; a Thrust-Augmented-Thor (TAT) Agena-D for Poppy 3; and the Thorad (also know as Long-Tank Thrust-Augmented Thor) Agena-D for Poppy 6 and 7.
The first Poppy missions featured a stretched spherical satellite design, initially 20 x 24 inches (at 55 pounds), which ultimately became 24 x 32 inches (at 129 pounds). Poppy also featured a 12-sided multiface design, initially 27 x 32 inches (at 162 pounds), which ultimately became 27 x 34 inches (at 282 pounds).
During 1965-67, Program C phased out the earlier receiving and control huts used for Grab; the program also upgraded data quality by installing equipment in buildings provided by host installations. This upgrade also augmented manual analysis in the field. By the 1970s, the Poppy program used prefabricated buildings in the field for its Siss Zulu operations.[8]
At the field sites, a pair of receiving consoles collected
ELINT data downlinked from Poppy satellites. One operator tracked the pass in azimuth/elevation and selected polarization for recording. A second operator logged signals of interest. An analog analysis operator performed post-pass measurements for signals that the collection operators detected, incorporating signals of interest into daily logs.The analysts reported information on signals of interest to NSA and others, using the nation’s critical communications channels.
One-operator transmitter consoles used over the life of the program included three receiver groups for telemetry readout and two transmitter groups for payload commands. The operator would tune the receiver groups to radio frequencies for scheduled satellites, and the groups would operate as the satellites rose above the field site’s radio horizon
The Naval Security Group (NSG), Air Force Security Service (AFSS), and Army Security Agency (ASA) staffed the Poppy field sites. Their cryptologic technicians operated and maintained Poppy equipment. A Poppy Technical Operations Group, composed of representatives from participating organizations, held monthly meetings. The NSG coordinated all field operations for the Poppy program. The field sites collected radar data and forwarded intercepted signals to the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA analyzed the signals and produced reports for the Intelligence Community.
Grab and Poppy Contributions
Early NRO ELINT satellite reconnaissance programs constituted a critical component of our U.S. technical reconnaissance operations during the 1960s and into the 1970s. Before development of these satellite systems, technical intelligence about Soviet air defense radars was limited to that which could be collected by airborne and ground-based collection platforms, often limiting collection to radar sites less than 200 miles inside the Soviet Union. Grab and Poppy dramatically increased the capability of U.S. intelligence to acquire ELINT data deep within the Soviet Union.
Intelligence derived from data that Grab and Poppy collected went to support a wide range of intelligence applications. It provided cues to the location and capabilities of radar sites within the Soviet Union; it provided SAC with characteristics and locations of air defense equipment to support building the U.S. Single Integrated Operations Plan (SIOP)[9]; it provided ocean surveillance information to Navy operational commanders; and, with data from the Corona imaging reconnaissance satellite, it provided a more complete picture of the Soviet military threat. We can credit these systems with helping the U.S. win the Cold War. At the same time they extended their impact into the future as they laid the foundation for future national reconnaissance capabilities. The NRO’s 21stcentury SIGINT reconnaissance capabilities grew out of Grab and Poppy innovations in the 1960s and 1970s.
[1] On 11 May 2004, DCI Tenet approved an Intelligence Community recommendation to declassify the “fact of” the Poppy ELINT satellite program along with limited information about the program. This Poppy information now supplements earlier Grab ELINT satellite program information that the DCI authorized for release in conjunction with the Naval Research Laboratory’s 75th anniversary celebrations in June of 1998.
[2] On 12 September 2005, DNRO Kerr hosted a closed Intelligence Community recognition event at NRO headquarters for the key contributors to the Poppy program as well as other distinguished alumni who participated in Poppy development and operation. The key contributors are those whose names are so documented in classified NRL and NRO historical records. Whereas hundreds of individuals were involved with the Poppy system over the life of the program, the September 2005 event highlighted the work of those whom the CSNR was able to identify and locate nearly 30 years after the program ended.
[3] Corona, a joint CIA and USAF project with its first successful mission on 18 August 1960, was the world’s first imagery satellite reconnaissance system.
[4] RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization with historical ties to the Air Force. RAND’s founders initially set it up as Project RAND under special contract to the Douglas Aircraft Company with Project RAND reporting to the Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Research and Development. RAND’s 1946 report, Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship, analyzed the potential to design and engineer an earth-orbiting satellite vehicle. (In 1948 the Air Force Chief of Staff approved evolution of RAND into a nonprofit corporation.)
[5] The Thor-Able-Star booster, an early US launch vehicle, was succeeded in the early 1960s by the Thor Agena series of launch vehicles.
[6] Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara formally established the NRO under its current name on 6 September 1961. Its mission was to manage the newly created National Reconnaissance Program (NRP). The NRP would consist of all satellite and overflight reconnaissance projects; thus, Navy ELINT satellite projects at NRL, and the Air Force and CIA Corona imagery program, became part of the NRP budget under NRO control.
[7] DNRO Joseph V. Charyk organized NRO functions into four alpha-designated programs areas in July 1962: Program A for Air Force; Program B for CIA; and Program C for Navy. Under Program C, the Navy was responsible for the design, development, and operation of its reconnaissance satellites, and the Air Force was responsible for launching those satellites. Program C included the U.S. Navy element of the NRP in association with the Technical Operation Group, which was made up of representatives from the Office of Naval Intelligence, National Security Agency, NRO, Naval Security Group, Army Security Agency, and Air Force Security Service.
[8] By this time, the Navy referred to the Poppy program with the unclassified term “Siss Zulu.”
[9] The SIOP was the U.S. war plan that governed targeting of U.S. strategic weapons employed by the Air Force, Army, and Navy, including the triad of SAC’s strategic bombers, land-based ballistic missiles, and Polaris submarines.
@Slav Defence - this wasn't the article I wanted to post, that one kept getting stuck in moderation and has been deleted (I'll try again after a few tweaks), but I thought this one was very interesting and a great insight into early US ELINT efforts.
This is Grab
SOLRAD-GRAB intelligence satellite - Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
And this is Poppy
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