[FPSPACE] US tracking of early Soviet lunar and planetary probes, use of open sources in secret documents

[Sven Grahn]

FPSPACErs,

Here are some further reflections in connection with the just-started discourse between myself, Peter Pesavento and CharlesVic.

I have just re-read two articles in "Studies in intelligence" by James Burke (program manager for Ranger 1-5), an old friend of mine from the International Space University. The articles are called "Seven years to Luna 9" and "The Missing Link". These were published in 1966 and 1977 respectively. They were classified "secret" and declassified in the mid-to-late 1990's (I can't read the scribbling on the photocopies well enough).

Let us start with the first article "Seven years to Luna-9". Here are some pertinent quotes (my explanations within straight brackets[ ]):

- "We were not able to confirm or contradict these latter statements [about the en-route progress of Venera-1 i early 1961] because our collection systems, being primarily oriented towrad the Soviet ballistic-missile threat, included no sensors capable of following a weak spacecraft signal out into deep space". He then describes how Jodrell Bank tracked the spacerfat for several days.

- "The site selected was Asmara, Ethiopia [for the colection station for deep-space flights]....the station would have one high-precision 85-foot antenna, with appropriate receivers and data-processing equipment to be ready late in 1965. Later it was decided to add a 150-foot antenna of lower srface quality but simpler construction, which would become opeational late in 1964". So, the U.S. had no dedicated facility for collecting intelligence on the progress of Soviet lunar and interplanetary probes until the end of 1964. The use of Jodrell Bank seems to have been limited and only on part-time basis. Burke emphasizes the difficulty in finding signals. However, they were helped when the were able to monitor uplink transmissions from the Crimea from a a site, the name of which has been redacted.

- "On 4 January 1963 came the first of the long-awaited lunar missions using the heavy four-stage vehicle. The launch platform achieved earth orbit, but again ejection failed". Well, great, burke Confirms my conviction that this flight did not get out of orbit and what Russian sources say now, but he contradicts the source shown in "Lifting the Veil". Which CIA source to believe?

- "The 4 January celestial conditions were repeated on 3 February 1963, and right on schedule another lunar probe was launched. This one failed even to achieve earth orbit". Wow, Burke again confirms latter-day Russians data, but contradicts the source shown in "Lifting the Veil". 

- "In addition to the Jodrell Bank reporting [about the progress of the flight of Luna 4], NSA had improvised a collection capability that enabled us to record several hours of telemetry data while the probe was en route and during fly-by. Our station was a Naval Research Laboratory experimental site in Maryland with a 150-foot antenna of the same kind planned for Asmara..."

- "By tracking the vehicle [Zond-2] right after ejection from parking orbit [very close to earth], speeding the results to the United States, and apidly calculating the trajectory with the aid of large computers, we were beginning to be able with only a slight time lag to tell the deep-space sites whwre to look for the probe".

- The Asmara station was operational in early 1965.

- "We did not intercept any of these transmissions [from Zond-3] because we did not have a good fix on the trajectoy so as to tell our deep space antennas where to look".

So, even in 1965, when the Asmara station was up and running, space probes slipped hrough the US collection net.

The main content of "The Missing Link" is that the U.S. completely missed the  5 cm telemetry link used by Soviet deep space probes at least up until 1977 (they started looking ten years earlier). I am sure they finally found the link. It was a pulse-position modulation system used to transmit images. The bandwidth of such a signal is inversely proportional to the pulse-width. It could be several megahertz wide. PPM systems are very energy-efficient.

Anyway, this confusion in various CIA sources as to the fate on the Jan-Feb 1963 Luna launches (and other) and Jim Burke's descriptions of the inadequacies of U.S. collections systems shows that CIA estimates should be taken with a few "grains of salt". BTW, the U.S. lost Asmara in 1975 because of internal conflicts in Ethiopia.

Concerning the use of open-source data in classified reports a Swedish intelligence officer explained to me 30+ years ago why intelligence officers normally never read or listen to open-source reports and if they do, these open-sources must have a big read "secret" stamp on them.  His explanation was that an intelligence officer is scared to let his tongue slip if he tries to sort out in his head if a piece of data in his head comes from a classified or open source. better to classify everything, even the open-soure stuff. Then it is simple, just regard everything as secret and work from that. This may explain the seemingly open-source table of Soviet manned space missions shown in "Lifting the Veil".

Sven