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RECONNAISSANCE

Satellites

 

On 24 February 1995, President Clinton directed "the declassification of imagery obtained by the first generation of photo-reconnaissance satellites; the CORONA, ARGON and LANYARD systems. The order will cause the declassification of more than 800,000 satellite images of the earth's surface, collected by these satellites between 1960 and 1972." U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, NRO Public Affairs, "Press Release -- President Orders Declassification of Historic Satellite Imagery Citing Value of Photography to Environmental Science," 24 Feb. 1995. [http://www.nro.gov]

See the Corona Web site at http://www.nro.gov/corona/facts.html, which includes an imagery library of materials from the Corona missions (August 1960-May 1972).

The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) [now National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)] "has announced the impending declassification of ... satellite imagery from the KH-7 and KH-9 satellites.... 'The high-resolution KH-7 surveillance imaging satellite, flown from July 1963 to June 1967, monitored key targets such as IBM complexes, radar systems, and hot spots around the globe,' according to the NIMA ... fact sheet. 'The lower-resolution KH-9 mapping system was devoted exclusively to gathering information for mapmaking, and collected imagery from March 1973 to October 1980.'" Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News (from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy), vol. 2002, no. 78 (16 Aug. 2002). [http://www.fas.org]

On 20 September 2002, NIMA transferred some 4,000 rolls of film from the KH-7 and KH-9 imaging satellites to the National Archive. Historical background and information on accessing the declassified imagery is available on the NGA Website at: http://www.nga.mil.

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Richelson

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