Here is a previously classified orb from 1960

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Heard of Project Tattletale? It's a nickname for the once highly classified GRAB satellite, the world's 1st intelligence satellite.

Manufacturer
Naval Research Laboratory

Summary
    This is the backup for the first Galactic Radiation and Background satellite (GRAB-1), the world's first successful reconnaisance satellite. Built by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), GRAB-1 was launched on June 22, 1960, as part of a highly classified program designed to obtain data on Soviet air defense radars for use by the U.S. Strategic Air Command in developing electronic countermeasures and the most effective bomber routes. The satellite also carried instruments to measure solar radiation, part of an unclassified and publicly-acknowledged project dubbed Solrad. Five GRAB satellites were launched from June 1960 to April 1962, but only the first and third reached orbit. The program was declassified by the Navy in 1998, and the NRL donated this artifact in 2002.



Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Grab 1, 2 (Dyno) / Grab (3a), 2 / Solrad 1, 2, 3, 4A, 4B

These satellites had a dual function: The Solrad payload was a scientific radiation experiment, while Grab, also known by the Naval Research Laboratory's designation Dyno, was the first ELINT/SIGINT mission conducted in space. Grab was, when the name emerged, reported to be an acronym for "Galactic radiation and background", which, in fact, it never was.


The "Galactic Radiation Background Experiment" (Grab) was a US Navy electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellite system that became operational in July 1960 and was operated until August 1962. Grab was officially declassified in June 1998 during the 75th anniversary celebration of the Naval Research Laboratory [NRL]. Grab obtained information on Soviet air defense radars that could not be observed by Air Force and Navy aircraft flying ELINT missions along accessible borders in Europe and the western Pacific. From 500 miles above earth, safe from surface-to-air missiles, the Grab satellite's simple, circular orbit passed it through the energy beams from Soviet radar whose pulses traveled straight and far beyond the horizon into space.

This ELINT satellite system was proposed by NRL in the spring of 1958. In parallel with exploratory development by NRL, the Office of Naval Intelligence obtained endorsements endorsements of Project Tattletale from elements of the executive and legislative branches of the US government. With positive recommendations from the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency, President Eisenhower approved full development on 24 August 1959. By then, the project had been placed under a tight security control system (Canes) with access limited to fewer than 200 officials in the Washington, DC area. Development and interagency coordination proceeded as the Grab (Galactic RAdiation and Background) experiment.

The NRL Naval Center for Space Technology (NCST) designed and built the Grab satellite and a network of overseas data collection facilities. The first launch was approved by President Eisenhower in May 1960, just four days after a CIA U-2 aircraft was lost on a reconnaissance mission over Soviet territory. The Grab satellite got a free ride into space in June 1960 with the Navy's third Transit navigation satellite. Grab carried two electronic payloads, the classified ELINT package and instrumentation to measure solar radiation (SolRad). The SolRad experiment was publicly disclosed in DoD press releases on this and subsequent launches. Four more launches were attempted, and one was successful on 29 June 1961.

Grab received each pulse of a radar signal in a certain bandwidth, as sensed by its tiny antennas, and transponded a corresponding signal to collection huts at ground sites within its field of view. Operators in the huts recorded Grab's transponded information on magnetic tape and couriered it to NRL for evaluation. NRL evaluated, duplicated, and forwarded to the NSA at Army Fort Meade, Maryland, and the Strategic Air Command at Offut Air Force Base Omaha, Nebraska, for analysis and processing. The National Security Agency and the Strategic Air Command exploited Grab's data to develop technical intelligence about Soviet radar and to develop effective war plans. SAC's processing was aimed at defining the characteristics and location of air defense equipment to support building the SIOP (single integrated operations plan), a responsibility of the Joint Strategic Targeting Staff at Offut AFB. In searching the tapes for new and unusual signals, NSA found that the Soviets were already operating a radar that supported a capability to destroy ballistic missiles.

Grab has been renamed Poppy in late 1961. The Director of Naval Intelligence exercised overall control. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara formally established the NRO on 14 June 1962 by a top secret directive, and the Grab technology was then transferred to the NRO.

All but Poppy-2/Solrad-4B were launched piggyback with Transit satellites or in clusters. The last satellite was never launched and was donated in 2002 to the National Air and Space Museum.

Gunter's Space Page

And from the CIA Reading Room...

In the summer of 1960, the US Navy secretly achieved what was once thought impossible – it successfully launched the first signals intelligence satellite in the world.

GRAB (which stands for Galactic Radiation and Background) was an ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) satellite system, operational from July 1960 until August 1962. It provided invaluable data on Soviet air defense radar, including information indicating the Soviets had the capability to destroy ballistic missiles.

GRAB was created because President Eisenhower in the late 1950s wanted to avoid “another Pearl Harbor” – another devastating surprise that could turn the Cold War hot. In those days, space reconnaissance resided mostly in the realm of science fiction. Courageous and innovative thinkers from intelligence, academia, military, and private industry came together under the mission of pursing a peacetime strategy of national reconnaissance. The office would later be known as the NRO.

Their sense of urgency, excitement, and commitment to the mission was so high that they could hardly wait to get to work each day, but their work was also nerve-wracking, frustrating, and occasionally heartbreaking. Often, what could go wrong, did.

In a memorable speech from former CIA Director George Tenet at the NRO 40th Anniversary Gala on September 27, 2000, he told the story of one of GRAB’s more notorious moments:

One of its more spectacular failures rained debris down on Cuba. Havana charged that a cow was killed in a deliberate US action. The Cubans soon paraded another cow through the streets with a placard reading: “Eisenhower, you murdered one of my sisters.” It was the first – and last – time that a satellite has been used in the production of ground beef. The episode has gone down in history as “the herd shot round the world.”

Still, the unheralded successes of America’s first satellite reconnaissance system vastly exceeded its momentary failures. GRAB later gave birth to CORONA, which captured more usable photography on its first operational mission than all previous U-2 flights combined.

Today, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, our satellites—starting with that first GRAB system that was once thought an impossible dream—provide America with a commanding information edge over all other nations in the world.

GRAB: First Signals Intelligence Satellite

I can only half imagine what they have above our heads today.