At the height of the Cold War, U.S. spy satellites were busy looking for those "Kodak instant moments" on a global basis.
Now decades later, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) are spring-loaded to soon make available thousands of once secret spysat snapshots.
Be it the Severodinsk Shipyard in the USSR, the cities of Hanoi and Beijing, or the Aswan Dam in Egypt - these and other localities were framed repeatedly by U.S. snooping satellites for intelligence-gathering purposes.
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%20taken%20on%20May%2027,%201967,%20and%20Hanoi,%20Vietnam%20on%20June%2011,%201967.%20CREDIT:%20USGS)
%20taken%20by%20the%20Keyhole-9%20satellite%20on%20April%206,%201979.%20On%20the%20right%20is%20a%20picture%20of%20the%20Severodinsk%20Shipyard%20in%20the%20former%20USSR,%20taken%20by%20Keyhole-7%20on%20May%2029,%201967.%20CREDIT:%20USGS)
Thousands of formerly classified satellite pictures taken around the planet are becoming available to browse at public leisure.
Need to know eyes
The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) is leading the U.S. Government effort to declassify and release to the public a variety of historical information - data long-held top secret and meant for "need to know" eyes of intelligence specialists.
Under a Historical Imagery Declassification (HID) Program, the release of the satellite imagery has been okayed for three official reasons:
- To promote the spirit of open governance;
- Demonstrate results of taxpayer investment in national security;
- To ensure that researchers, from environmentalists to historians have access to useful and unique sources of information.
What is up for release are once tightly held photos produced by the U.S. Keyhole-7 (KH-7) Surveillance Imaging System and the Keyhole-9 (KH-9) Geospatial Imaging System.
This is not the first time classified photos taken from space have been unveiled for a taxpayer look-see.
In 1996, some 866,000 frames taken by KH-1 through KH-6 spacecraft, also known as the Corona series, were made available for public viewing.
Peeping through the Keyholes
Flying from July 1963 to June 1967, the KH-7 -- carrying special Kodak-built camera gear -- became the intelligence community's first high-resolution imaging satellite. This spacecraft series was successful on 34 of 38 missions, with 30 satellites returning film.
The General Electric-built KH-7 was boosted into orbit atop rocketry produced by Lockheed. The whole program was managed by the Air Force component of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
Also being released this week are peep shots of select ground targets taken by the Keyhole-9 Geospatial Imaging System. Twelve KH-9 mapping missions obtained imagery from 1973 to 1980. The KH-9 mapping imagery has been incorporated into government maps for decades. Its declassification is probably of less use to the general public - a public that has been unknowingly using the fruits of this program.
Missing in action are some KH-7 and KH-9 satellite photos taken during the 1963-1980 time period that are still considered to be highly sensitive for national security reasons.
Imagery collection
"This is a new resource that is bound to include some surprises," suggests Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C.
"There is a researcher's rule of thumb that you can't always find what you're looking for…but you often find interesting things that you weren't looking for! That will likely be the case here," Aftergood told SPACE.com.
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Aftergood said he would like to believe that every release of spysat pictures, like those turned loose this week, makes it easier to declassify and release the next imagery collection. "But in practice, I don't think that this kind of policy 'momentum' is an important factor. Each disclosure decision tends to be a stand-alone event," he said.
Big telescope
According to Dr. Dwayne A. Day, a leading expert in Washington, D.C. on early reconnaissance programs, the imminent release of new batches of Keyhole satellite imagery is welcomed news.
"Contrary to earlier reports, NIMA is releasing virtually all of its imagery from these programs except for imagery of Israel. Even though the best imagery covers only a few years, it should be useful to environmentalists, historians and urban planners. This is a way for the intelligence community to demonstrate what it does for the American public," Day told SPACE.com.
"The real question will be what things the intelligence agencies photographed and why. Unlike previous imagery released in the mid-90s, the KH-7 focused on very specific targets, not vast areas," Day added.
Day said the KH-7 spacecraft was a big telescope, but pointed at the Earth rather than into space.
"Unfortunately, none of these agencies like the Air Force, or the people who built the equipment and shot it into space, are yet allowed to take public credit for their work," Day said.
The public will be able to order KH-7 and KH-9 frame imagery by logging onto:
