Transcription
The 1950s was a time of great uncertainty for the United States regarding the Soviet Union's budding strategic nuclear forces. While the Soviets had ambitious programs to develop and deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles and bombers, we knew little about the scope or success of their efforts. The US Intelligence Community reflected this uncertainty in wild overestimates of Soviet bomber and missile production and forecast that the US was falling dangerously behind in the nuclear arms race.
The CORONA Program began as a joint CIA-Air Force effort in the late 1950s. Cloaked in secrecy, the program’s goals were daunting: launch a large camera into earth orbit, photograph specific targets, return a capsule of exposed film to earth by parachute, retrieve the capsule in midair over the Pacific, and search the processed images for answers to the nation’s most pressing intelligence questions. Many things could go wrong—and did. The first 13 missions failed.
Finally, in August 1960, CORONA XIV revolutionized the business of intelligence by returning from space more photographic coverage of the Soviet Union in a single mission than in all previous U-2 overflights combined. The first CORONA images were grainy and of limited use, but quality—and intelligence value—improved rapidly. CIA photointerpreters found that the Soviets were, in fact, significantly behind in the development of a workable ICBM and that their strategic bomber force lacked significant resources. In just a few months, CORONA closed the missile and bomber gap that had haunted the United States for a decade.
Over the years, CORONA became the single most important source of intelligence on Soviet strategic forces, including missile launch complexes, ballistic-missile submarine deployment, air bases, and air defenses. In 1971 CORONA enabled the US to specify verifiable terms for the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. Negotiators were confident that photointerpreters could monitor changes in the size and characteristics of missile launchers, bombers, and submarines. Satellite imagery became the mainstay of the US arms-control verification process. The final CORONA capsule was recovered in May 1972.
CORONA is a milestone in US history. Developers of the nation’s first film-return photoreconnaissance satellite conquered the technological unknowns of space, lifted the curtain of secrecy that screened the Soviet Union and Communist China, and opened the way for the even more sophisticated satellite imaging systems in use today.