The Political Impact of Spy Satellites
The Political Impact of Spy Satellites
- during the Cold War
- today
Pat Norris
Manager Space & Defence Strategy
author of Spies in the Sky
ISU 2009
Strasbourg, 19 Feb. 2009
© Logica 2008. All rights reserved
The Other Space Race - the causes
• the atomic bomb in 1945 and then the H-bomb in 1952 plus the long
range bomber gave the USA unique ability to eliminate an enemy
anywhere in the world:
– demonstrated at Hiroshima & Nagasaki
• the Soviets surprised the US by developing
the A-bomb in 1949 and the H-bomb in 1953
– the US maintained a lead in numbers of nuclear
weapons for a few more years
• the Soviets decided not to match the US in
long range bombers
– instead leap-frog to the long range ballistic missile
Hiroshima – hastened the end of WW-II
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 2
1
Monitoring the Soviets
• the US had great difficulty discovering what was happening inside the
Soviet Union
– most of the enormous country was out of bounds to foreigners
• information came from defectors and from surveillance aircraft near
Soviet borders
• rumour and speculation influenced policy
– one famous 1955 case led to a build-up in
US bombers
• the U-2 was developed to fly above Soviet
air defences and bring back strategic imagery
1954: Senator Joseph McCarthy
whips up anti-communist feelings
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 3
Origins of the spy satellite
• U-2 flights were risky and provocative
– authorised rarely and when lack of intelligence became critical
• a U-2 flight imaged only a small part of the Soviet Union
• in 1954 (~3 years before Sputnik) the USAF began to develop a
surveillance satellite
– development of long range missiles suggested that a rocket capable of
launching a satellite into orbit would soon be available
– Polaroid inventor Edwin Land and MIT President James Killian led the panel
that recommended the project
• to establish the rights of satellites to over-fly all countries, the USA also
began development of:
– a scientific satellite
– a rocket not derived from a missile
– to be launched before the spy satellite
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No. 4
2
Sputnik!
• the Soviet launch of the first
artificial satellite, Sputnik-1, on
October 4th 1957 made these
developments more urgent
• the Soviet rocket that launched
Sputnik was adapted from their
first Inter-Continental Ballistic
Missile (ICBM)
– so the Soviets could now reach the
US with a nuclear warhead
Sputnik: 83 kg publicity stunt
• US politicians of all Parties and the
media decried an apparent Soviet
weapons lead:
– a missile gap, which was a political issue
for the 1960 Presidential election
Sergei Korolev:
Soviet space leader
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 5
The birth of CORONA
• the US surveillance satellite was late and over-budget
• designed to develop the film inside the satellite, scan the resulting image
and radio it to ground
– this concept was soon applied to deep space missions but couldn’t cope with the
enormous volume of surveillance imagery
• as a stop gap, a less ambitious concept was developed called CORONA
– the undeveloped film was
returned to earth in a capsule
– caught by a plane as it drifted
down on its parachute
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 6
3
14th time lucky
• in January 1959 (15 months after Sputnik) the first CORONA launch
blew up on the pad
– the rocket failed again in February
• the 3rd launch in April got into orbit but the capsule came down near
Spitzbergen and the Soviets may have recovered it
• by the end of 1959, nine attempts had failed
– a mix of rocket, satellite and camera problems
• May 1st 1960: U-2 shot down by the Soviets; pilot Gary Powers captured
• finally in August 1960 the 14th attempt was successful (an instrumented
probe) followed on 18 August by the launch of the first successful
imaging mission
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 7
CORONA - continued
• fourteenth launch
10 August 1960
• next launch 18 August 1960
produced first images
Mys Schmidta
airfield
Soviet Union
One of 64 previously
unknown airfields
detected
President Eisenhower receives the US flag returned
in the recovery capsule
A C-119 caught the capsule on its third pass
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 8
4
The real missile gap
• in mid-1961 the last pre-CORONA intelligence estimates forecast the
no. of Soviet ICBMs in 1963:
– USAF said 700
– US Navy and Army said 150
– CIA said 400
• 3 successful CORONA flights in June, July & August 1961 changed this
estimate to:
– <25 at that time
– <100 by 1963
• by 1962 the estimate had come down to <10 Soviet
ICBMs, of which 6 were operational
• there was a missile gap - in America’s favour
– undercutting the US “hawks” who were arguing for a pre-emptive attack on
the Soviet Union
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No. 9
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No. 10
The Soviet Zenit 2
• Soviet knowledge of the USA was much
more complete:
– you could buy maps of the USA, walk around
the perimeter of USAF bases, buy local
magazines containing interviews with base
personnel, read political debates, etc.
• in 1960 when the US Tiros weather satellite
beamed down pictures of the Soviet Union
for all to see, the Kremlin woke up to the
power of surveillance satellites
• they used the Vostok satellite with its
recovery capsule (2 dogs in Aug. 1960)
• first failed launch attempt Nov 1961
• first successful images recovered Aug 1962
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
5
Production line
• CORONA wide-area surveillance
satellite launched every ~4 weeks
– 145 launches – last one in 1972
(>120 successful)
– 866,000 images taken
Zenit launched every 2-3 weeks
stayed in orbit 8-12 days
• 81 Zenit 2 launched over 7 years
(58 full success)
• 74 Zenit 4 launched
• from July 1963 a GAMBIT high resolution satellite launched ~5 weeks
• initially each satellite stayed in orbit for 3-4 days
– duration gradually increased with the addition of extra re-entry capsules
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No. 11
Super-power stand-off
• after the 1962 Cuban crisis the Soviets begin a massive missile build-up
• by the late 1960s there is rough nuclear parity
• some US hawks throughout the late 1950s and 1960s advocated a preemptive strike against the Soviets before that became impossible
– nearly happened during the Cuban crisis
• surveillance satellites had a dual use capability:
– monitor the build-up of the adversary’s strategic weapons
◦ stabilising
– provide targeting information for your own strategic weapons
◦ provocative
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 12
6
The power of satellite imagery
Credit US Geological Survey
Credit NRO
US image of Soviet submarine
pens near Murmansk, June 1966
• June 1961 image
shows empty field
• June 1962 image
shows typical SS-7
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No. 13
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT)
• CORONA, Zenit-2 and their successors provided the information allowing
the US and the Soviets to agree to stop the arms race
• SALT-I in 1972 gave the Soviets a numerical missile superiority, but the US
a warhead superiority:
– 1,600 versus 1,050 missiles
– 2,000 versus 4,000 warheads
• escalation continued – slowly in terms of missiles, rapidly in warheads
• when SALT-II halted the escalation in 1979:
– USA had ~9,000 strategic warheads
– Soviets had ~3,000
• both SALT agreements were designed
to be verifiable by satellite, e.g.:
– missile silos instead of warheads
– bombers not bombs
– submarines instead of their missiles
– tested systems not theoretical ones
President Carter & Premier Brezhnev sign SALT-II
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 14
7
“A stabilizing factor”
• The first public acknowledgement of American military surveillance (i.e.:
spy) satellites was on 1 October 1978 at the Kennedy Space Center
when President Jimmy Carter stated:
• “Photographic reconnaissance satellites have become an important
stabilizing factor in world affairs in the monitoring of arms control
agreements. They make an immense contribution to the security of
all nations.”
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 15
Today’s nuclear threat
• nuclear weapons have proved irrelevant in the many wars fought since
1945
– the consequences of using a nuclear weapon are so severe as to make them
an irrational choice
• blackmail by an unscrupulous nuclear-equipped country is seen as a
threat
• use by suicide bombers and fanatical terrorists is also a concern
• the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(1968) is the world’s answer to
these threats
– the nuclear powers agree to phase out
their nuclear weapons and help other
countries develop nuclear energy
– other countries agree to forego nuclear
weapons
IAEA Vienna monitors NPT compliance
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 16
8
Strategic roles for spy satellites today
• monitor strategic weaponry of potential enemies:
– ensure decisions about nuclear weapons are based on reliable information
◦ as former UN Weapons Inspector chief Hans Blix put it: “defectors didn’t want inspection, they wanted
invasion”
– not all nuclear powers have reliable access to surveillance satellites
• monitor conformance to the non-proliferation treaty:
– the IAEA uses satellites to complement its inspection powers
– countries considering developing nuclear weapons might be reassured if they had
reliable access to surveillance satellite imagery
• in both of these roles, there is a case for guaranteed access to imagery to
all countries:
– imagery of UN-approved forces could be excluded from coverage
– such a scheme could be piloted by a regional entity such as the EU
◦ confirm the demand for such imagery
◦ fine-tune the requirements
◦ work out the operational concepts and constraints
– would reduce tensions
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
www.pat-norris.com
No. 17
Regional systems
• The EU Satellite Centre (EUSC, Torrejon) has
demonstrated the benefits of coordination at
European level
• other regions might also benefit from this concept
– an African regional centre could support UN and
African Union (AU) peace-keeping forces throughout
Africa
– requirements span a very wide area: from Congo to Sudan, hence satellites
are only viable option
– credibility of the service depends on the AU having shutter control
– could help the AU become more effective
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
www.pat-norris.com
No. 18
9
West & central Asia
• Activities of the EU and its member states in Afghanistan (and Iraq) are
expected to move towards nation building
• military and EUSC resources can perhaps be made available, but a
regional system could have advantages:
– could gradually be handed over to the local government
– could provide an independent source of information in contested situations
– could engage with Russian, Islamic and other resources
– “multi-flagging of spy satellites is a stabilising factor”
(US DoD, London 17 Sept. 2008)
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
www.pat-norris.com
No. 19
Surveillance satellites
•
•
•
•
Many topics not covered, e.g.:
US and Russia today
the designs of the satellites
UK, France, China & India:
– their roles during the Cold War
– their plans and options today
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
ballistic missile defence
Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs)
tactical use of surveillance satellites
the legacy of the German V2
negotiating SALT-I and –II
commercial & low cost surveillance satellites
what was the most important use of satellites
in the first 50 years of the space age?
• the Hollywood view of surveillance satellites
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 20
10
• QUESTIONS?
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 21
Car number plate, headline, face, golf ball
1 cm resolution
10 cm resolution
1 mm resolution
Pat Norris - Political Impact of Spy Satellites - ISU 2009
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No. 22
11