Events
1950-1959
- 28 February 1959 - Discoverer 1 I/CORONA is launched; mission is a failure due to problems with Agena upper stage
1960-1969
- 15 January 1960 - 6594th Test Wing (Satellite) activated at Sunnyvale, California; will later be known as Air Force Satellite Control Facility, or the Blue Cube, controlling many NRO CORONA satellite missions
- 22 June 1960 - Launch of GRAB Signals Intelligence satellite; first overhead intelligence gathering satellite[1][2]
- 11 August 1960 - Discoverer XIII capsule successfully recovered; first man-made object retrieved from orbit (American flag)[3]
- 18 August 1960 - Discoverer XIV/CORONA M9009 launched; first totally successful mission; returned images of Mys Schmidta airfield
- 17 February 1961 - First launch of KH-5 ARGON camera system (M9014A); mission was partially successful
- 6 September 1961 - National Reconnaissance Office is established[4]
- 13 December 1962 - First launch of POPPY SIGINT satellite[1]
- 21 August 1964 - Last launch of KH-5 ARGON system (M9066A); mission was successful
1970-1979
- 25 May 1972 - CORONA M1117 launched; final mission of CORONA program
- 12 October 1973 - Existence of NRO is inadvertently leaked through the Congressional Record, an official government publication[5]
- 15 August 1978 - William P. Kampiles, CIA staffer, arrested after selling KH-11 Technical Manual to the Soviets[6]
- 1 October 1978 - President Jimmy Carter publicly acknowledges the "fact of" United States' photoreconnaissance satellites[7][8]
1980-1989
- 28 January 1986 - STS-51L Challenger explodes; delays pending launches of NRO satellites
1990-1999
- 18 September 1992 - National Reconnaissance Office declassified[9]
2000-2009
- 23 August 2001 - Brian Patrick Regan, a contractor at NRO, was arrested by FBI, under suspicion of espionage[10]
- 23 April 2007 - Operating Division-4 (OD-4) inactivates at Onizuka AFS, California[11]
References
- ^ a b National Reconnaissance Office: "Raising the Periscope... Grab and Poppy, America's early ELINT Satellites"
- ^ "History of the POPPY satellite system"
- ^ "National Air and Space Museum: Looking at Earth exhibit". Archived from the original on 2010-04-08. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
- ^ National Security Archive: Roswell Gilpatric, Letter to Allen Dulles, "Management of the National Reconnaissance Program", 6 September 1961
- ^ Zianet.com: Memorandum for Director Central Intelligence, "BYEMAN security compromises", 30 Oct 1973[permanent dead link]
- ^ CI CENTRE:"William Kampiles espionage case" Archived 2009-03-29 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ National Security Archive: Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Admission of Satellite Reconnaissance", 25 Sep 1978
- ^ National Security Archive: Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Public Acknowledgement of the 'fact of' photoreconnaissance satellites", 21 Sep 1978
- ^ FAS.org:"Department of Defense, No. 264-M, MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS", September 18, 1992
- ^ CI CENTRE: "Brian Regan espionage case" Archived 2009-03-07 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Air Force Link: "'Mission accomplished' for NRO at Onizuka AFS", 23 Apr 2007 Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine