Project HEXAGON and GAMBIT details to be released (Spy satellites)

I cant wait to hear about these spy satellite's

Project HEXAGON and GAMBIT.

Details :-

Later this week the National Reconnaissance Office is going to reveal information on two of its Cold War era satellite programs, HEXAGON and GAMBIT, and publicly unveil hardware that has been classified for decades. GAMBIT was started in 1960, with a first launch in 1963. HEXAGON started in 1966, with a first launch in 1971. Both programs operated until the mid-1980s. Both used cameras that recorded their images on film that was parachuted to Earth. Both were highly successful. And both represented the pinnacle of American Cold War intelligence collection technology, unmatched in capabilities by any other nation.

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reply to post by diddy1234


Cool! That will be fun to look at. I especially like the parachuting film part. lol I bet they were more selective about what they took photos of... since there were only so many rolls of Kodak film or Polaroid sheets to work with. You think they had to abandon a satellite when it ran out of film and send another back up?

And just think - in today's world, you can tie an iPhone to a big balloon and get your own sub-orbital photos and then use GPS to track its descent. Crazy how much technology has evolved. One of the few benefits of the military-industrial complex.

I bet the builders of the satellite had fun.

Send it up into space, set its orbital path to travel over their place of work.
Once the track was known, all of the employees go running outside, look up at the sky and then make rude gestures as it passes over taking pictures.

Once the pictures come back, have a massive laugh at the results !

Priceless !

ok so maybe that did not happen, but that is the sort of sick humour I would have had it do if I worked on it.

reply to post by diddy1234


Here is an article about the project. It says they somehow dropped film from the satellite back to earth.

DANBURY, Connecticut - For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets.

Hexigon Declassified

Awesome Thread.

S & F. Cant believe they had 60 miles of film they used to drop off and catch in midair LOL.

Now that is a world without Wifi, 4G, LTE , internet... Wow ;-P

There was a complete write-up with a ton of information that has been removed within the past 12hours (An all too common theme here of late) none-the-less it is a most interesting piece of kit with something like 60km's of film parachuted to earth and many other macguyver like ingenuities. The implications of this technology have not sunk in for over 50 years still we sit around like monkeys gushing in awe.

Originally posted by usernamehere
There was a complete write-up with a ton of information that has been removed within the past 12hours (An all too common theme here of late) none-the-less it is a most interesting piece of kit with something like 60km's of film parachuted to earth and many other macguyver like ingenuities. The implications of this technology have not sunk in for over 50 years still we sit around like monkeys gushing in awe.

Yeah.....that thread that was removed was mine. I worked my butt off to make that an informative thread on this topic. The thread had been flagged 8 times and recieved that many stars or more in the 4-5 hours that I slept. I began posting some more information this morning, and then recieved a message saying the thread had been moved to the "thrash bin forum"

How is a thread being flagged and starred that much deserving of the trash bin? It was not a duplicate thread, it was new information being released. Apparently, I must have posted too much information and not enough opinion, even though I did post my personal observation several times.

Originally posted by isyeye

Originally posted by usernamehere
There was a complete write-up with a ton of information that has been removed within the past 12hours (An all too common theme here of late) none-the-less it is a most interesting piece of kit with something like 60km's of film parachuted to earth and many other macguyver like ingenuities. The implications of this technology have not sunk in for over 50 years still we sit around like monkeys gushing in awe.

Yeah.....that thread that was removed was mine. I worked my butt off to make that an informative thread on this topic. The thread had been flagged 8 times and recieved that may stars or more in the 4-5 hours that I slept. I began posting some more information this morning, and then recieved a message saying the thread had been moved to the "thrash bin forum"

How is a thread being flagged and starred that much deserving of the trash bin? It was not a duplicate thread, it was new information being released. Apparently, I must have posted too much information and not enough opinion, even though I did post my personal observation several times.

edit on 30-12-2011 by isyeye because: (no reason given)

Second.

It clearly contained much more information and personal opinion than any of the other threads on the subject, most of which are yet to be doctored... I mean moderated.

reply to post by usernamehere


I have sent a U2U to the moderator to try to have my earlier thread reactivated. I don't care if the thread is closed or not for posting, or care about stars or flags. The information was valuable to ATS members, and it is a wonderful story to read.