CORONA Mission

Wednesday, 19 November, 2008

For those not familiar with the CORONA Mission, it was the original US spy satellite programme that operated from 1958-1972 (and was declassified in 1995). Of many “firsts” in satellite remote sensing, it was notably the first mission to provide photos taken from space through the launch of the camera in to a pre-selected orbit and, after image capture, the return to Earth of a capsule containing the film for retrieval by aircraft or boat. Whilst the first successful image was not acquired until 1960, it went on to capture over 800,000 images at a range of spatial resolutions.

US spy satellites are designated with a KH (for KeyHole) acronym, with CORONA ranging from KH1 to KH4. Spatial resolutions are good ranging from 7.5 m, with many at 2.75 m and some at 1.8 m. Stereo imagery was also collected for some missions. Not only does this remain “competitive” with contemporary commercial systems, but it also provides an excellent historical archive (although note that its panchromatic photography, not multi-spectral imagery). Given that Landsat-1 didn’t launch until 1972, this provides a valuable archive for a variety of applications. All the imagery are available for purchase from the USGS at $30 per frame.

And of course it wouldn’t be appropriate to conclude this blog without a brief comment on the continuing US spy satellite program. Again, Wikipedia has a nice summary of current known programmes. The successors to CORONA were initially film and then, with KH11, digital. Resolutions were commonly 15 cm (using what would appear to be a Hubble space telescope pointing at the Earth), with the expectation that the current KH13 is probably sub 5 cm.References

Wikipedia
Project CORONA - Keith Clarke, UC Santa BarbaraUSGS

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