NRO Declassifies KH-9 Satellite 74
schwit1 writes "The Big Bird, formally known as the KH-9 Hexagon satellite, was first placed in orbit in 1971 after its development by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), making it one of the most advanced spy satellites of its time. It is believed to have produced images of the Soviet Union, China and other countries that held strategic importance for the U.S. government through the Cold War. But it was never seen outside the intelligence community. This weekend, it will be available for all in the Washington area to see, but only for one day. To celebrate its 50-year anniversary, the NRO, along with the Smithsonian Institution, is for the first time publicly displaying the newly declassified relic at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. In doing so, the intelligence agency is prompting more than just a little bit of excitement among reconnaissance experts and technical hobbyists."
Which is also part of the reason they are out now (Score:5, Interesting)
Declassification is partially just time, the government keeps things classified for a large number of years to make it more likely that the information is no longer useful. However they do look and see even for older stuff if it is still sensitive. It is not automatic after a certain period, just possible.
Well for these satellites, the answer is no. Commercial satellites can get about a half meter these days (the GeoEye-1 is the one I know of that can). As such revealing that the US has a sat that could do 6 meters isn't revealing anything sensitive. That there are commercial half-meter satellites means you know the government has imagery at least that good (as they could simply buy one if they lacked better technology of their own).
Re:The obvious question: why is there one to see? (Score:4, Interesting)
Specs? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's declassified. What's interesting is not so much an arbitrarily short public exhibition, but a public release of its specs. I'd like to know what the NRO was using under Nixon to spy on the Soviets and Chinese, during the height of the Vietnam War. Where are the specs?
Re:Which is also part of the reason they are out n (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not necessarily true.
It's true that revealing our capabilities 40 years ago doesn't provide our adversaries with any technical advantage to use against us today. "Film! How quaint!"
But it might reveal things from 40 years ago that do have impact on present-day policy. Somewhere in the KGB/FSB, someone might have made a decision about whether or we knew about $FOO in the 70s because we had a highly-detailed pictures of it from space, because we had a mole onsite working on the $FOO project, or because we just made a lucky guess.
Suppose they believed that we had half-meter resolution on Specific Date, 1971 and ascribed the leak to spy satellites. But today, they know that our 1971 satellites couldn't have compromised $FOO to the degree that they did because they just weren't good enough. Time to dig open those dusty file folders and re-evaluate who had access to $FOO, because if any of those people are working on the brand-new super-secret $BAR project, and after a 40-year career, probably have access to $BAR today than they did to $FOO in the 70s.
Also consider the answer to "Why did country X do something 35 years ago" might be very useful if you knew what we might have been sharing with country X's leaders. The people running country X might still be in power, and the answer to those sorts of questions has diplomatic repercussions today.
Those are just two of the reasons why declassification takes decades.
Anyhow, thanks, grey-haired spy nerds (and grey-haired balls-out crazy pilots!), for showing us some really cool stuff, like trying to catch a parachuting capsule in mid-air, which was something I hadn't heard of until Genesis [wikipedia.org] and Stardust [wikipedia.org] projects. Now we know where the science teams got the idea (and after the crash of Genesis, we also know which direction to install the accelerometer, and the importance of never skipping testing procedures...)