1987 adumbrations of stealthy, multispectral spysats

In a purge of the bookshelves, I came across this item from the NYT of
18 years ago. Possibly of s.s.h interest.


The New York Times
November 3, 1987
Late City Final Edition
Page C1

U.S. Designs Spy Satellites To Be More Secret Than Ever
By William J. Broad

A battery of new technologies, some mature, others on the
drawing board, will help the United States overcome Soviet
efforts to deceive western spy satellites, according to former
Government officials, space experts and private scientists.

For years, largely without public knowledge, the East and west
have vied to fool each other's surveillance satellites and the
military analysts who interpret top-secret photographs made from
space.

Weapons in the war include camouflage, concealment, decoys
and misleading deployments of real weapons. Both sides use
ground-based radars and computers to track hostile satellites
and to predict when they will pass overhead, allowing military
units on the ground to hide or disguise sensitive operations.

False deployments of tanks, planes, missiles, command posts
and other military installations are seen as important for
creating a psychological edge in peacetime and for drawing away
enemy fire from real targets during war.

Nuclear arms are supposed to be exempt from such games. Both
the United States and the Soviet Union have agreed in treaties
to refrain from interfering with satellite reconnaissance to
monitor compliance with nuclear arms agreements. But critics say
neither side has completely lived up to the pledge. And, in any
case, greater confidence in the ability to see through any
potential deceit and verify compliance is crucial if these
treaties are to last.

The West has long been at a disadvantage in the war of deception
because it is so difficult to keep fake operations and false
deployments secret in an open society. But it has recently made
several advances in ways to see through Soviet deception. By the
1990's, military experts say, western spy satellites will be
nearly impossible to track and will be able to see through
clouds and outwit enemy camouflage and decoys.

Peter D. Zimmerman, a physicist and senior associate at the
Carnegie Endowment in Washington, said the new technologies
would "make it enormously more difficult for the Soviets to
conceal and deceive."

Dino A. Brugioni, a senior reconnaissance official at the
Central Intelligence Agency for 34 years before his retirement
in 1982, said: "There's no doubt that the west has the
advantage" in perfecting the new technologies, which rely
heavily on advanced materials, electronics, computers and
optics.

The KH-11 spy satellite launched last week by the United States
boasts technologies that mark a first step in that direction.

For one thing, the KH-11 has powerful, lightweight engines
that allow controllers on the ground to maneuver it in orbit.
Future spy satellites will be capable of being refueled,
dramatically extending their range and lifespan.

A second future technique is to build spy satellites out of
materials, like those in the "stealth" aircraft, that absorb or
disguise radar waves, making them invisible to enemy equipment.

Yet another technique would be to create sensors that can
record more than the waves of visible light, enabling them to
expand from simple black and white images to simultaneous
measurements of hundreds of distinct parts of the
electromagnetic spectrum. Such sensors could see through
camouflage and gather subtle clues about whether "weapons" are
made of metal or plastic, whether they are real or fake.

Confidence in Verification

Federal officials, while making no comment about spy
technologies under development, say any potential edge in the
battle is valuable. Other experts hail the advent of new
technology as a way to build Western confidence in arms
verification and to foil occasional trickery.

In the Soviet Union, such concealment and deception is called
maskirovka. The name is applied to any measure that aims at
disguising the real picture and showing a false one to an enemy.

Viktor Suvorov, a former Soviet intelligence officer who
defected to the west in 1976, says the Soviet military collects
data on hostile spy satellites, predicts their orbits and tries
to dodge or deceive them.

"No trials of tanks, aircraft, radio sets, radars, or submarines
were to be undertaken if, at a particular moment, a hostile
satellite was overhead," Mr. Suvorov wrote in his book "Inside
the Soviet Army." Moreover, he said, the increasing accuracy of
American missiles prompted the production of false targets, "a
colossal field of activity."

'All Kinds of Tricks'

Accidents of nature have occasionally helped reveal Soviet
deception. In his book on the Soviet military, "The Threat,"
Andrew Cockburn tells how American photo interpreters in the
early 1970's discovered that a new ballistic missile submarine
had joined the Soviet northern fleet at Polyarnyi on the Barents
Sea. But not long afterward, a storm swept the area and when the
skies cleared, the new "submarine" was bent in half.

Mr. Brugioni, the former C.I.A. reconnaissance official, said
such incidents suggest ways for the west to see through some
Soviet deception, even without new technologies. "The photo
interpreter has all kinds of tricks," he said. "If the Soviets
put up dummy aircraft, you never see them being serviced. If
they put up rubber dummys and decoys, you see them smashed as
the weather and seasons change."

Although the Soviet military is considered a master in the art
of satellite deception, the American military has learned a few
tricks over the years.

The most common practice is simply to stay out of view of Soviet
satellites. For instance, during the secret and unsuccessful
attempt in 1980 to rescue American hostages in Iran, about 400
soldiers and airmen involved in the effort were stationed in
Egypt, along with their weapons and aircraft. All their
activities were carefully timed, whenever a Soviet
reconnaissance satellite was to pass overhead, the soldiers took
cover in an aircraft hangar.

The Navy in particular has used such methods to hide ships at
sea, timing their speed of transit to avoid passing satellites.
In 1965, for example, an American naval force evaded Soviet
detection during its passage across the Atlantic. Its commander,
Vice Adm. Henry Mustin, later boasted: "we disappeared from the
face of the earth as far as the Soviets were concerned."

Paul B. Stares, a space expert at the Brookings Institution in
Washington, said the Navy not only knew how to avoid Soviet
satellites but practiced having its ships temporarily sail on
false courses in order to trick them.

Astronauts Refueling Satellites

The American military is increasingly looking to advanced
technologies as a way to outwit the Soviets, experts say. The
KH-11's engines, for instance, allow it to move around in orbit
and to show up in unexpected places, thwarting attempts to
conceal or mislead.

"Every time we have a satellite in a position where it's not
supposed to be, or launch a new satellite, we see things we've
never seen before and don't see again after they catch on" by
tracking and predicting the satellite's orbits, said Angelo M.
Codevilla, a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution in
California and a former staff member of the Senate Intelligence
Committee.

The next generation of American spy satellites, the KH-12, will
have its engines refueled by military astronauts working from
the space shuttles or the proposed space station.

"Access to filling pumps will allow almost constant
maneuvering," said William E. Burrows in his recent book, "Deep
Black: Space Espionage and National Security." Such movement, he
added, "will make concealment and subterfuge - maskirovka - all
the more difficult."

The ultimate way to foster unpredictability is to be invisible -
a top-secret endeavor being hotly pursued by designers of
military satellites.

On earth, "stealth" techniques are widely used in military
fighters, bombers and cruise missiles to reduce their visibility
to enemy radars. Two main methods involve replacing metals with
lightweight composite materials that absorb radar signals, and
smoothing body parts so they deflect radar signals rather than
reflect them.

Penetrating Natural Barriers

Congressional experts on weapons say the Pentagon Is hard at
work applying stealth techniques to satellites, an assertion the
Defense Department declined to discuss. It is known, however,
that in April 1984 the space agency launched a four-ton cylinder
carrying experiments to develop new space-age materials,
including secret ones for making stealth satellites.

"Camouflage in space" is essential if satellites are to outwit
Soviet tricks, Mr. Codevilla said In "Soviet Strategic
Deception," a collection of reports published by the Hoover
Institution, while it may be difficult to make satellites
completely disappear from Soviet radar scopes, he said, the
selective use of stealth techniques could easily disguise the
true mission of spy satellites.

Perhaps the most exotic and powerful technique under development
Is the effort toward satellite sensors that can simultaneously
monitor hundreds of distinct parts of the electromagnetic
spectrum, a technique scientists call "multispectral" analysis.
The goal is to gather subtle clues about the actual physical
makeup of observed objects and to penetrate natural barriers and
camouflage.

Dr. Zimmerman of the Carnegie Endowment said the process was
similar to performing "a rough chemical analysis" of earthly
objects from spy satellites several hundred miles away.

"Anything that's camouflaged or decoyed will be seen to be that
way," he said. "You'll be able to see It's physically and
chemically different from the thing it's pretending to be."

Distinctive Signals

Multispectral techniques were pioneered not by the military but
by civilians, In particular the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration. In the 1970's it created two pioneering
satellites, Seasat and Landsat, the former working in the radio-
frequency range of the electromagnetic spectrum and the latter
the visible area of the spectrum.

The current generation of Landsat satellites have sensors that
simultaneously monitor seven different parts of the spectrum.
Civilian scientists have discovered that bands can reveal subtle
clues about objects under observation on earth. For instance,
iron was found to give off characteristic signals in wavelengths
..5 to 1.0 micrometers long. Chlorophyll, the green pigment in
plants, has a distinctive signal from .68 to 1.0 micrometers. In
theory, the list is endless.

The military's aim is to vastly expand the number of channels
being monitored from space in order to increase the power and
sophistication of remote chemical analysis. Decoys made of wood
or plastic could thus no longer masquerade as metal. Camouflage
would be revealed as canvas rather than foliage.

So too, penetrating clouds and other barriers is possible when
space sensors focus on revealing signals. One day, for Instance,
James A. Coakley, Jr., a senior scientist at the National Center
for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., was looking at a 3.7
micrometer space photo of the ocean, which is in the infrared
region. Clouds were nearly invisible. But the picture was
covered with myriad streaks, which he quickly realized were
caused by gases from smokestacks of passing ships.

"What's really amazing is that you see no signals from the
smokestacks in the visible," he said. "And no amount of
enhancing will bring them out. It really impressed us." Dr.
Coakley and his colleagues published their findings in the Aug.
28 issue of the journal Science.

It has been reported often over the years that military spy
satellites have multispectral powers. Yet experts say that this
belief is wrong and that black and white imagery has been the
rule.

"At one time the Department of Defense looked with great disdain
on Landsat and multispectral imagery," said Jerry Caseman, a
analyst at the Eaton Corporation in Arlington, Va., a military
contractor. "But the civil industry has continued to charge
forward, and begun to wake a few people up." Mr. Caseman
recently helped organize a conference on multispectral Imagery
for intelligence professionals. It was sponsored by the Defense
Intelligence Agency, the Secretary of Defense and the National
Military Intelligence Association.

"The future is very interesting," Brian Gordon, a Defense
Intelligence Agency analyst, told the conference, noting that
multispectral sensors were under development that could
simultaneously monitor 224 parts of the electromagnetic
spectrum.

"The skies may be crowded in the future" with new kinds of
satellites, he said.

wrote:

In a purge of the bookshelves, I came across this item from the NYT of
18 years ago. Possibly of s.s.h interest.





Here's the stealth sattilite patent: http://cryptome.org/sat-shield.htm

Pat

" wrote:

Viktor Suvorov, a former Soviet intelligence officer who
defected to the west in 1976, says the Soviet military collects
data on hostile spy satellites, predicts their orbits and tries
to dodge or deceive them.

"No trials of tanks, aircraft, radio sets, radars, or submarines
were to be undertaken if, at a particular moment, a hostile
satellite was overhead," Mr. Suvorov wrote in his book "Inside
the Soviet Army." Moreover, he said, the increasing accuracy of
American missiles prompted the production of false targets, "a
colossal field of activity."

Viktor Suvorov said all manner of things that the folks debriefing him
in the West wanted to hear. It would be very interesting to actually
compare his writings (and those Sheymov) with what we now know to be
true.

Accidents of nature have occasionally helped reveal Soviet
deception. In his book on the Soviet military, "The Threat,"
Andrew Cockburn tells how American photo interpreters in the
early 1970's discovered that a new ballistic missile submarine
had joined the Soviet northern fleet at Polyarnyi on the Barents
Sea. But not long afterward, a storm swept the area and when the
skies cleared, the new "submarine" was bent in half.

One suspects the analysts would not have been long fooled even in the
absence of the storm. We kept an eye on their shipyards, and the eyes
in the sky were not the only way we kept count of the number of
submarines they had.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Derek Lyons wrote:


Viktor Suvorov said all manner of things that the folks debriefing him
in the West wanted to hear. It would be very interesting to actually
compare his writings (and those Sheymov) with what we now know to be
true.

Yes, that would be a worthwhile exercise. I read a couple of Suvorov's
books a long time ago and came away with the impression that he often
improved the story beyond what the facts would support. Sheymov, I
think, is probably more trustworthy overall, though there are things he
probably isn't saying.

Speaking of such things, it would also be interesting to find some
former Iraqi military types who ran sensitive installations/activities
and ask them what measures, if any, they took to avoid or deceive
reconnaissance satellites.

" wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

Viktor Suvorov said all manner of things that the folks debriefing him
in the West wanted to hear. It would be very interesting to actually
compare his writings (and those Sheymov) with what we now know to be
true.

Yes, that would be a worthwhile exercise. I read a couple of Suvorov's
books a long time ago and came away with the impression that he often
improved the story beyond what the facts would support.

My impression exactly.

Sheymov, I think, is probably more trustworthy overall, though there are
things he probably isn't saying.

I noticed some gaps and circumlocutions - and concluded he was being
reticent for the same reasons that the Allies kept Enimga quiet for
decades while openly discussing Purple. His handlers wanted to brag a
litte - but didn't want to let on to third parties just how much we
knew/know about ongoing operations.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

wrote:
Derek Lyons wrote:


Viktor Suvorov said all manner of things that the folks debriefing him
in the West wanted to hear. It would be very interesting to actually
compare his writings (and those Sheymov) with what we now know to be
true.

Yes, that would be a worthwhile exercise. I read a couple of Suvorov's
books a long time ago and came away with the impression that he often
improved the story beyond what the facts would support.

Parallels with the interrogation in Germany of the WMD informant (the
"bioweapon lab trucks" guy).

/dps