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Samos-F
SAMOS-F or Air Force Program 102 refers to a series of SIGINT reconnaissance satellites launched and operated by the United States Air Force and National Reconnaissance Office during the 1960s. Initial priorities (in decreasing order) were to monitor radio waves in the frequency bands 2.5-3.2 GHz (S band), 9.0-10 GHz (X band), and 59-650 MHz. The intercepted data and their location were stored on magnetic tape, and subsequently transmitted to tracking and acquisition ground stations. Tracking stations were located in the NE (New Boston, New Hampshire), Central (Ottumwa, Iowa), and NW (Fort Stevens (Oregon)) of the continental United States, with additional test sites at Vandenberg AFB, California, and at Ka'ena Point, Oahu, Hawai. The satellites are also called Agena ferrets and heavy ferrets. Approximately sixteen heavy ferrets were launched into low Earth orbits from Vandenberg Air Force Base between February 1962 and July 1971 aboard Thor-Agena and Thorad-Agena Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Reconnaissance Office
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is a member of the United States Intelligence Community and an agency of the United States Department of Defense which designs, builds, launches, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the U.S. federal government, and provides satellite intelligence to several government agencies, particularly signals intelligence (SIGINT) to the NSA, imagery intelligence (IMINT) to the NGA, and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) to the DIA. NRO is considered, along with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), to be one of the "big five" U.S. intelligence agencies. The NRO is headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia, south of the Washington Dulles International Airport. The Director of the NRO reports to both the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense. The NRO's federal workforce is a hybrid o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signals Intelligence
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 transmis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thor-Agena
Thor-Agena was a series of orbital launch vehicles. The launch vehicles used the Douglas-built Thor first stage and the Lockheed-built Agena second stages. They are thus cousins of the more-famous Thor-Deltas, which founded the Delta rocket family. The first attempted launch of a Thor-Agena was in January 1959. The first successful launch was on 28 February 1959, launching ''Discoverer 1''. It was the first two-stage launch vehicle to place a satellite into orbit. Missions Among other uses, the clandestine CORONA program used Thor-Agena from June 1959 until January 1968 to launch United States military reconnaissance satellites operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). During this program, Thor-Agena launch vehicles were used in 145 launch attempts, now known to have been part of satellite surveillance programs. Also, ''Alouette 1,'' Canada's first satellite, was launched on a Thor-Agena B. 1963 Mystery Cloud On 28 February 1963, a Thor-Agena launch vehicle car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reconnaissance Satellites Of The United States
In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmishers, long-range reconnaissance patrol, U.S. Army Rangers, cavalry scouts, or military intelligence specialists), ships or submarines, crewed or uncrewed reconnaissance aircraft, satellites, or by setting up observation posts. Espionage is usually considered to be different from reconnaissance, as it is performed by non-uniformed personnel operating behind enemy lines. Often called recce (British, Canadian and Australian English) or recon (American English), the word for this activity has at its root the associated verb ''reconnoitre'' or ''reconnoiter''. Etymology The word from the Middle French ''reconoissance''. Overview Reconnaissance conducted by ground forces includes special reconnaissance, armored reconnaissance, amphibious rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apogee
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any elliptic orbit. The name for each apsis is created from the prefixes ''ap-'', ''apo-'' (), or ''peri-'' (), each referring to the farthest and closest point to the primary body the affixing necessary suffix that describes the primary body in the orbit. In this case, the suffix for Earth is ''-gee'', so the apsides' names are ''apogee'' and ''perigee''. For the Sun, its suffix is ''-helion'', so the names are ''aphelion'' and ''perihelion''. According to Newton's laws of motion, all periodic orbits are ellipses. The barycenter of the two bodies may lie well within the bigger body—e.g., the Earth–Moon barycenter is about 75% of the way from Earth's center to its surface. If, compared to the larger mass, the smaller mass is negligible (e.g., f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perigee
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any elliptic orbit. The name for each apsis is created from the prefixes ''ap-'', ''apo-'' (), or ''peri-'' (), each referring to the farthest and closest point to the primary body the affixing necessary suffix that describes the primary body in the orbit. In this case, the suffix for Earth is ''-gee'', so the apsides' names are ''apogee'' and ''perigee''. For the Sun, its suffix is ''-helion'', so the names are ''aphelion'' and ''perihelion''. According to Newton's laws of motion, all periodic orbits are ellipses. The barycenter of the two bodies may lie well within the bigger body—e.g., the Earth–Moon barycenter is about 75% of the way from Earth's center to its surface. If, compared to the larger mass, the smaller mass is negligible (e.g., f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orbital Decay
Orbital decay is a gradual decrease of the distance between two orbiting bodies at their closest approach (the periapsis) over many orbital periods. These orbiting bodies can be a planet and its satellite, a star and any object orbiting it, or components of any binary system. If left unchecked, the decay eventually results in termination of the orbit when the smaller object strikes the surface of the primary; or for objects where the primary has an atmosphere, the smaller object burns, explodes, or otherwise breaks up in the larger object's atmosphere; or for objects where the primary is a star, ends with incineration by the star's radiation (such as for comets). Collisions of stellar-mass objects are usually accompanied by effects such as gamma-ray bursts and detectable gravitational waves. Orbital decay is caused by one or more mechanisms which absorb energy from the orbital motion, such as fluid friction, gravitational anomalies, or electromagnetic effects. For bodies i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classified Information In The United States
The United States government classification system is established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic beginning in 1951. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the regulations codified to 32 C.F.R. 2001. It lays out the system of classification, declassification, and handling of national security information generated by the U.S. government and its employees and contractors, as well as information received from other governments. The desired degree of secrecy about such information is known as its sensitivity. Sensitivity is based upon a calculation of the damage to national security that the release of the information would cause. The United States has three levels of classification: Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret. Each level of classification indicates an increasing degree of sensitivity. Thus, if one holds a Top Secret security cle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thorad-Agena
The Thorad-Agena was an American expendable launch system, derived from the Thor and Delta rockets. The first stage of the rocket was a stretched Thor variant named "Long Tank Thrust Augmented Thor". The Long Tank Thor first stage was later adopted by NASA's Delta program for its "Thrust Augmented Improved Delta", which first flew in 1968. The second stage was the Agena-D, which had already been used in conjunction with the standard configuration Thor, as the Thor-Agena. Three Castor rockets would be used as boosters. Most launches carried Corona (KeyHole) reconnaissance satellites, particularly spacecraft of the KH-4 series, however some scientific and technology development satellites were also flown, mostly towards the end of the program. 43 launches took place from 1966-72 with two complete failures and one partial. The launch of a KH-4A photoreconnaissance satellite on May 9, 1967, malfunctioned when the Thor's first stage failed to cut off on schedule and continued burni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oahu
Oahu () (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering place#Island of Oʻahu as The Gathering Place, Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O’ahu and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands constitute the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, City and County of Honolulu. The state capital, Honolulu, is on Oʻahu's southeast coast. Oʻahu had a population of 1,016,508 according to the 2020 U.S. Census, up from 953,207 people in 2010 (approximately 70% of the total 1,455,271 population of the State of Hawaii, with approximately 81% of those living in or near the Honolulu urban area). Name The Island of O{{okinaahu in Hawaii is often nicknamed (or translated as) ''"The Gathering Place"''. It appears that O{{okinaahu grew into this nickname; it is currently the most populated Hawaiian islands, Hawaiian Island, how ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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