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Aquacade (satellite)
Aquacade, previously designated Rhyolite, was a class of SIGINT spy satellites operated by the National Reconnaissance Office for the United States Central Intelligence Agency. The National Security Agency (NSA) was also reportedly involved. The program, also known by SIGAD AFP-720 and SIGAD AFP-472, respectively, is still classified. During the same period, the Canyon SIGINT satellites were in use with an apparently somewhat different set of capabilities. History The name of the program, originally "Rhyolite", was changed to "Aquacade" in 1975 following the disclosure of the codeword "Rhyolite" in the trial of Christopher Boyce and Andrew Lee. The Rhyolite/Aquacade satellites, made by TRW, are rumored to have an umbrella-like reflecting dish 20 meters in diameter. They were succeeded by the Magnum/Orion and Mentor series of satellites. Satellites It is believed that at least four Rhyolite/Aquacade satellites were launched from Cape Canaveral between June 1970 and April 1978 ...
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SIGINT
Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication (electronic intelligence—abbreviated to ELINT). Signals intelligence is a subset of intelligence collection management. As classified and sensitive information is usually encrypted, signals intelligence in turn involves the use of cryptanalysis to decipher the messages. Traffic analysis—the study of who is signaling whom and in what quantity—is also used to integrate information again. History Origins Electronic interceptions appeared as early as 1900, during the Boer War of 1899–1902. The British Royal Navy had installed wireless sets produced by Marconi on board their ships in the late 1890s, and the British Army used some limited wireless signalling. The Boers captured some wireless sets and used them to make vital transmissi ...
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Pine Gap
Pine Gap is a satellite surveillance base and Australian Earth station approximately south-west of the town of Alice Springs, Northern Territory in the center of Australia. It is jointly operated by Australia and the United States, and since 1988 it has been officially called the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG); previously, it was known as Joint Defence Space Research Facility. The station is partly run by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), US National Security Agency (NSA), and US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and is a key contributor to the NSA's global interception/surveillance effort, which included the ECHELON program. The classified NRO name of the Pine Gap base is Australian Mission Ground Station (AMGS), while the unclassified cover term for the NSA function of the facility is RAINFALL.Peter CronauThe Base: Pine Gap's Role in US Warfighting, ''Background Briefing'', ABC Radio National, 20 August 2017; Ryan Gallagher and Peter CronauThe U.S. Spy ...
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Signals Intelligence Satellites
In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' includes audio signal, audio, video, speech, image, sonar, and radar as examples of signal. A signal may also be defined as observable change in a quantity over space or time (a time series), even if it does not carry information. In nature, signals can be actions done by an organism to alert other organisms, ranging from the release of plant chemicals to warn nearby plants of a predator, to sounds or motions made by animals to alert other animals of food. Signaling occurs in all organisms even at cellular levels, with cell signaling. Signaling theory, in evolutionary biology, proposes that a substantial driver for evolution is the ability of animals to communicate with each other by developing ways of signaling. In human engineering, si ...
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National Reconnaissance Office Satellites
National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, census-designated place * National, Nevada, ghost town * National, Utah, ghost town * National, West Virginia, unincorporated community Commerce * National (brand), a brand name of electronic goods from Panasonic * National Benzole (or simply known as National), former petrol station chain in the UK, merged with BP * National Car Rental, an American rental car company * National Energy Systems, a former name of Eco Marine Power * National Entertainment Commission, a former name of the Media Rating Council * National Motor Vehicle Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA 1900-1924 * National Supermarkets, a defunct American grocery store chain * National String Instrument Corporation, a guitar company formed to manufacture the first resonato ...
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1973 In Spaceflight
1973 saw the launch of the first American Space station known as Skylab Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Major operations in ... on a Saturn rocket. Launches , colspan=8, January , - , colspan=8, February , - , colspan=8, March , - , colspan=8, April , - , colspan=8, May , - , colspan=8, June , - , colspan=8, July , - , colspan=8, August , - , colspan=8, September , - , colspan=8, October , - , colspan=8, November , - , colspan=8, December , - Deep Space Rendezvous EVAs References Footnotes {{Orbital launches in 1973 Spaceflight by year ...
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Federation Of American Scientists
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs. The Federation of American Scientists aims to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons that are in use, and prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism. They hope to present high standards for nuclear energy's safety and security, illuminate government secrecy practices, as well as track and eliminate the global illicit trade of conventional, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. With 100 sponsors, the Federation of American Scientists says that it promotes a safer and more secure world by developing and advancing solutions to important science and technology security policy problems by educating the public and policy makers, and promoting transparency through research and ana ...
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The Shadow Factory
''The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America'' is a book on the National Security Agency by author James Bamford. Fort Gordon, Georgia Bamford's book contains a description of a processing center at NSA's Fort Gordon, Georgia facility, and Operation Highlander, with which it was associated. The staff there analyzed satellite telephone signals (like Inmarsat) from all over the Middle East. They performed various operations such as matching up phone numbers with names of organizations or individuals, recording messages, finding the locations of cellphones, call chaining analysis, language identification and translation, and assigning 'importance' numbers to the "cuts" (recordings). Bamford's book contains the statements of people who worked there, including Adrienne J. Kinne and John Berry. Berry says that the operation never violated Americans' rights and contributed a good deal to the war effort. Kinne says that they were listening to ...
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James Bamford
James Bamford (born September 15, 1946) is an American author, journalist and documentary producer noted for his writing about United States intelligence agency, intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA). ''The New York Times'' has called him "the nation's premier journalist on the subject of the National Security Agency" and ''The New Yorker'' named him "the NSA's chief chronicler." Bamford has taught at the University of California, Berkeley as a distinguished visiting professor and has written for ''The New York Times Magazine'', ''The Atlantic'', ''Harper's Magazine, Harper's'', and many other publications. In 2006, he won the National Magazine Award, National Magazine Award for Reporting for his writing on the war in Iraq published in ''Rolling Stone''. He is also an Emmy Award, Emmy nominated documentary producer for PBS and spent a decade as the Washington investigative producer for ABC's ''ABC World News Tonight, World News Tonight''. In 201 ...
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United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control. The United States Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The Air Force through the Department of the Air Force is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force ...
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Geosynchronous
A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital period means that, for an observer on Earth's surface, an object in geosynchronous orbit returns to exactly the same position in the sky after a period of one sidereal day. Over the course of a day, the object's position in the sky may remain still or trace out a path, typically in a figure-8 form, whose precise characteristics depend on the orbit's inclination and eccentricity. A circular geosynchronous orbit has a constant altitude of . A special case of geosynchronous orbit is the geostationary orbit, which is a circular geosynchronous orbit in Earth's equatorial plane with both inclination and eccentricity equal to 0. A satellite in a geostationary orbit remains in the same position in the sky to observers on the surface. Communi ...
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Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 13
Launch Complex 13 (LC-13) was a launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the third-most southerly of the original launch complexes known as Missile Row, lying between LC-12 and LC-14. In 2015, the LC-13 site was leased by SpaceX and was renovated for use as Landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2, the company's East Coast landing location for returning Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicle booster stages. LC-13 was originally used for test launches of the SM-65 Atlas and subsequently for operational Atlas launches from 1958 to 1978. It was the most-used and longest-serving of the original four Atlas pads.The original four Atlas pads were LC-11, 12, 13 and 14. It was inactive between 1980 and 2015. On 16 April 1984, it was added to the US National Register of Historic Places; however it was not maintained and gradually deteriorated. On 6 August 2005 the mobile service tower was demolished as a safety precaution due to structural damage by corrosion.The structure ...
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Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the station is the primary launch site for the Space Force's Eastern RangeCAST 1999, p. 1-12. with three launch pads currently active (Space Launch Complexes 37B, 40, and 41). The facility is south-southeast of NASA's Kennedy Space Center on adjacent Merritt Island, with the two linked by bridges and causeways. The Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Skid Strip provides a runway close to the launch complexes for military airlift aircraft delivering heavy and outsized payloads to the Cape. A number of American space exploration pioneers were launched from CCSFS, including the first U.S. Earth satellite (1958), first U.S. astronaut (1961), first U.S. astronaut in orbit (1962), first two-man U.S. spacecraft (1965), first U.S. unmanned lunar lan ...
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