Declassified Documents Trace U.S. Policy Shifts on Use of Commercial Satellite Imagery from 1970s to Today. Washington, DC, November 27, 2012 – In the forty years since the first launch of a commercial imagery satellite – LANDSAT – in 1972, U.S. official policy has shifted dramatically from imposing significant limits on their capabilities to permitting U.S. firms to orbit high-resolution satellites with significant intelligence-gathering capacities.
According to declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive, internal debates within the government have focused both on the risks of adversaries exploiting such commercial platforms and on the potential benefits for the U.S. of having access to unclassified imagery. The risks in recent years include the use of Google Earth by terrorist groups to identify targets for attack; the benefits range from being able to observe foreign nuclear sites to monitoring human rights violations. The 39 documents posted today were obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests, archival research and a variety of websites.
Top 10 Space Weapons. US Military's Mysterious X-37B Space Plane's Next Secret Mission Delayed. The U.S.
Air Force's launch of the next secret mission by its unmanned X-37B space plane has been officially delayed to mid-November. The upcoming X -37B space plane mystery mission, also known as Orbital Test Vehicle-3 (OTV-3), was slated to blast off atop an Atlas 5 rocket on Oct. 25 from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The liftoff is now scheduled for Nov. 13, according to ULA. The delay was announced Saturday (Oct. 20) in an update by the mission's launch provider, United Launch Alliance (ULA). ULA officials said an engine glitch during an Oct. 5 launch of a Delta 4 rocket that successfully orbited a Global Positioning System 2F-3 satellite.