U.S. EASILY INTERCEPTS LUNA PHOTOS, BUT OFFICIALS WON'T ADMIT DOING IT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400460044-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 16, 1999
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: February 5, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

By 'Martin Weil precise. nature and capa f y
wpshmalon Post Staff Wrlter
of the` U.S. space intelligence
intclli-?
U.S. Government
price agencies are intercept- system.
irg and receiving Luna P's To a sophisticated electronic
photographs from the moon detection system, snatching
as part of a routine monitor- Luna's transmissions out of
ing o Soviet space activities, space, and reconstructing Lu-
informed sources hinted here .na's moon photographs should
-yesterday. be relative child's play.
'-For security reasons, L- 'But if the sender is eager
cannot say that we are' to keep his messages from
receiving the pictures, but any space private, he can make
e life difficult for an uninvited
arrf
dies of energy which carry
the messages from the moon.
The basic step in the feat is
converting the light and shad.
ow of the. lunar landscape into
pulses of electrical energy.
Solution of similar problems
is what makes television pos-
sible. Lenses form an image
-in this case, of the moon-
on a light sensitive screen
This screen reacts electricalli
to what it sees, and transforms
bright light into high voltage,
dimness into low voltage.
country as interested in spa e
as the United States would be receiver. .Transmission ire.
derelict, in its duty if it were quenies can be hidden.Intrl.-
not," was one Government cate codes can he used to so
'.official's comment. distort the signals from space
It is generally known that that - if they can be detected
the L.S. tracks and even i at all - they resemble noth
"eavesdrops" on all Sovict] log but static._
space activities, including all: The extent of the U.S.
Soviet satellites passing over capability to find the hidden
America. static, and to make it yield
/RMR G I Its secrets, is something which
t work the Government will not dis-
The Defense Department close:
m;iintains a complicated elec- Experts suggest that infor.
tt oni+? tracking network Eqr . mation returned by Soviet
this purpose. Information col- spacecraft is not always
coded. They speculate that oc.
kcte:l by this network on sev casionallY the Soviets may Re-
cal occasions enabled U.S. tually want the world to know
d i;iialnats to tell the world ? what is being sent.
about some of the failures of. Sir Bernard Lovell, the Brit
tho Soviet space program. ish radio astronomer, noted
Bnt except for such straic? yesterday that the Russians
gically selected situations, data "appear to have made it pos-
. about Soviet, space activities
n.+t ic, IWHOr.l clivIfli:rd Irv
Here, Luna's television sys-
tem differs from that of the
U.S. Mariner Mars probe, and
is similar to that of the Ranger
moon probes.
Mariner sent back discreet
"bits" of informataion. These
"bits" answered yes or no to
the question - does this part
of the picture have this par-
ticular shade of gray?
But the intensities of Luna's
signals, like those of Ranger's
are direct measures of the
shading of the landscape.
Voltages Scanned
Then the voltages are read
off the screen by a moving
beam of electrons, which cre-
ates . a continuous electrical
signal-strong where the volt-
age is high and weak where
the voltage is low.
Next the signals are sent
back to earth on a beam of
clecl.riai energy.
Beaming back the signals
takes little power: For -ex-
ample, most electric light
bulbs consume. more power
than did the transmitter of
the Ranger, the U.S. space
craft which sent back pic-
tures of the moon.
Although the signals are
generally aimed in the direc-
tion of the earth, it is vir-
tually impossible to confine
their landing point to the
borders of any one country.
The beam spreads too much
st,andm?d scanning lines. He
I; lincthis policy is the ra- reasoned that they wanted the
tion:clc of not, revealing the,. British, with their more sensi-
the
co
t
py
o
tive telescope,
transmission.
Experts in telemetry say
the' basic problem of taking a
picture on the moon and send-
ing It back to earth is no more
complex than creating a do-
Space No Barrier
Only modest extensions of
..the same ,technique that put
Washington. Post 5 February 1966
- ~ I MkILS AY liters
Soo, a T M7,
nonncinlz the frequency ann
tr:uuanIt I.ing encoded tind on
TV 'performers into our liv-
ing rooms are necessary to
vut the lunar landscape into
void at 188,000 miles per see-
observers there can see the
Luna landing site on the
antenna-
a "dish" can gather them
together. A dish about 30 feet
across should be able to' 1
gather enough energy to get
a clear signal, that stands
out from the-stray noise of
space.
d
Once this signal is receive
by the antenna, the next step
is to convert it back into a
pattern of light and shadow.
Again, a chemically treated
screen is used. It responds to,
electrical energy by giving off
a glow of light. The. stronger
the signal, the more the ener.
gy, the brighter the glow.
When all of the signals have
hit the screen and have been
converted into minute patches
of black, white, or gray, the
result, viewed as a, whole, is
a reproduction of the original
lunar landscape.