INTELLIGENCE FOR THE SPACE RACE

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Keywords: STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE
• Collection: Lunik on Loan: A Space Age Spy Story
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 00608969
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: October 10, 2019
• Document Release Date: October 17, 2019
• Publication Date: September 1, 1961

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STUDIES IN
INTELLIGENCE
eLLIGev
0
Journal of the America Intelligence Professional
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Prospects and methodology for
supporting a symbolic Olympian
technological duel.
INTELLIGENCE FOR THE SPACE RACE
Albert D. Wheelon
and
Sidney N. Graybeal
A college football coach, spurred by a vigilant body of
alumni to maintain a winning team, is expected to devote a
great deal of energy to what in a more deadly competition
would be called intelligence activity. He must scout the oppo-
sition before game time and plan his own defense and offense
in the light of what he learns. During a game he must diag-
nose plays as they occur in order to adjust his team's tactics
and give it flexible direction in action. After the game he
should be prepared with an appropriate analysis of what hap-
pened, both in order that his team may benefit from seeing
its experience in clear focus and in order to placate or mod-
erate the Monday-morning quarterbacks. Although both
alumni and coach recognize that football has little to do with
the true purpose of a college, the coach is under relentless
pressure to win games because his team, in some intangible
sense, stands for the entire college.
It is much the same in the space race, a game which is simi-
larly characterized by lively competition on the playing field
and intense partisan interest among the spectators. In a
way which is neither rational nor desirable, our stature as a
nation, our culture, our way of life and government are tend-
ing to be gauged by our skill in playing this game. Because
we should expect to lose as well as win matches in the series,
our government must be provided by its intelligence services
with reliable foreknowledge of the possibilities for Soviet space
attempts and forecasts of probable attempts, with concurrent
evaluations of all attempts as they are made, and with de-
tailed reconstructions thereafter.
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Foreknowledge and Anticipation
The first intelligence problem is to anticipate Soviet space
launches with respect to timing, performance, and effect on
world opinion. If such forecasting is reliably done, our own
program can be so focused or rescheduled as to be most ef-
fective. Suppose, for instance, that one had anticipated the
determined Soviet drive to impact the moon which was finally
accomplished with Lunik II in September 1959 and had ac-
curately gauged the effect of this success on world opinion.
Our planners' negative attitude toward the scientific value of
such a mission might well have been softened or alloyed with
other considerations in time to make the United States the
first to accomplish, this elementary feat, which was within
our reach also in 1958 and 1959.
More broadly, a reliable foreknowledge of Soviet capabilities
and schedules should provide a basis for determining the
planned performance levels we should achieve by pushing the
development of particular booster and upper stage combina-
tions. A familiar example of frustration in this respect is the
discrepancy in performance, as measured by space payload,
between the Atlas booster and the Soviet ICBM. This dis-
crepancy is probably correctly attributed to a less advanced
Soviet nuclear technology in 1953-55, which required the de-
velopment of a larger ballistic missile to carry a heavier war-
head. But we should make quite sure that in the next gen-
eration of space boosters we have no unfavorable balance in
mission capability, and one key to settling on the appropriate
performance level for this next round is clearly good intelli-
gence.
A third assignment for intelligence in advance of Soviet
space shots is essentially a self-serving one�collection
planning. This is particularly important for the benefit of
ELINT efforts to intercept telemetry data and beacon signals
from spacecraft which arc through the sky on unannounced
and usually unknown trajectories. Because these vehicles
travel around or away from the earth at great speeds, the
collecting antennae not only must be large but must be fo-
cused precisely on the vehicle's trajectory. The trajectories
from the Soviet launch site, however, are remarkably predict-
able for a given mission, and skillfully programmed digital
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computers can readily compute the corresponding antenna
steering data or look angles with an accuracy adequate to
ensure early pickup of the signals.
Concurrent Flight Analysis
Once a Soviet space launch has occurred, intelligence must
be prepared to move quickly and confidently into a concur-
rent tracking, collection, and analysis operation. Prior tra-
jectory computations for a variety of missions and early iden-
tification of a particular shot's intended mission can make it
possible for most collection sites to pick up the signals on the
first pass. This early pickup is critical because only then is
the spacecraft sure to be close enough to the earth to be
heard by antenna-receiver combinations of standard design;
later a capability possessed only by the Jodrell Bank 250-foot
dish for long-range listening may be required. A lost oppor-
tunity on first-pass tracking can easily preclude subsequent
pickup and so nullify the whole collection operation. But
when tracking or position data is acquired during the initial
phase, it can then be used to refine the prior trajectory esti-
mates and generate more reliable antenna steering data for
the next pass, and so on. This bootstrap process is precisely
what we have to go through on our own space shots in spite
of the fact that we have far more prior knowledge about their
intended trajectories and telemetry frequencies. The dis-
parity in prior information means that intelligence, in moni-
toring Soviet shots, must be even more responsive and skillful
than the tracking and trajectory professionals in our own
programs.
There is another important aspect to current space events
intelligence. Our national leaders are expected to make cor-
rect and appropriate comments on each new Soviet space ac-
complishment. It is unsatisfactory to defer to Soviet claims
in framing such comments, and it is therefore the job of in-
telligence to provide accurate technical facts with great
promptitude. Technical information on unsuccessful Soviet
space attempts would also be required if it should be decided
to comment publicly on this aspect of the competition. If
such statements by our national leaders are as authoritative
and complete as possible, Congress and the public will be less
likely to give undue weight to the rash of scientific but often
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ill-informed opinion which bursts upon us with conflicting and
confusing effect in the wake of Soviet space achievements. A
determined leadership well supported by intelligence can as-
sure our national bearing and self-confidence during the times
of lost matches which are bound to come.
Post-Flight Study and Reconstruction
Even when the dust stirred up by a Soviet shot has settled,
intelligence services still have before them an important set
of assignments. Detailed reconstruction of each space mis-
sion is essential to a penetrating understanding of the Soviet
program, and it provides the only sure basis for technical fore-
casting. It is also hard work.
A great deal of technical data becomes available to the ana-
lyst over a period of several months after a launching from
the Tyura Tam complex, but much of it is low-grade ore
which can only be compared on a phenomenological basis with
similar material from previous shots. Another source is
telemetry data, which includes a great deal of valuable in-
telligence information. In point of fact, the telemetry con-
tains most of the information the Soviet engineers themselves
get from a shot. Our exploitation of this unique source, how-
ever, is less efficient than the Soviet because, first, we do not
know which measurement is assigned to which channel, sec-
ond, we do not have the calibration or absolute values of read-
ings on the several channels, and third, we do not intercept
transmissions covering the entire flight because of radio hori-
zon limitations. Painstaking technical analysis has gradually
solved many facets of the channel identification problem and
is making encouraging progress on calibration. The problem
of early intercepts, to which analysts attach great importance
for speeding the solution of the other two puzzles, is one for
intelligence collection components.
The technical characteristics of a given shot can be effi-
ciently extracted from telemetry by professional missile engi-
neers who have reviewed all prior shots in detail, and the gross
features of a Soviet space shot can usually be thus established
within the first few hours by an experienced technical man.
The variations and nuances of a given flight, however, which
can be equally important, may require weeks of concentrated
effort by a team of subsystem specialists working together.
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This kind of analysis can eventually give a rather clear pic-
ture of mission performance and the technical features of the
missile hardware used to achieve it. One striking achieve-
ment of such detailed post-flight analysis, the reconstruction
of Soviet payload capability, is described in an appendix to
this paper as a good illustration of the techniques used.
An important facet of the post-flight reconstruction is tra-
jectory analysis. If one can establish launch time to the near-
est minute by identifying fixed events reflected in the telem-
etry, one can tell a great deal about the mission objective and
the techniques being used for lunar and interplanetary mis-
sions. For example, the launch time of Lunik I (Mechta) on
2 January 1959 indicates that this "solar satellite" was very
probably an unsuccessful lunar hard impact attempt which
through a guidance fault went into its fail-safe orbit about
the sun. One can also tell from launch date and time whether
a minimum-energy trajectory was used in order to maximize
the payload or one favoring better guidance was selected at a
sacrifice of payload.'
It is also important to analyze data from the space pay-
loads themselves. Usually this means telemetry data, which
must be correlated with announced Soviet scientific experi-
ments and our own impressions of how particular experiments
ought to be reflected on one of the many unidentified telem-
etry channels. On the flights of Major Gagarin and Major
Titov, by exception, we had a source of data in television pic-
tures, which left little doubt about the success of their mis-
sions; but it would have been good to know also just how the
recoveries from orbit were managed.
The broadest continuing objective in post-flight analysis,
however, is to understand the Soviet space program as a
whole�past, present, and future. The program in this larger
sense is seen as a complete schedule for achievement and ac-
claim, covering the selection of objectives, the development
of techniques, and the exploitation of successes. Because a
vigorous Soviet logic almost certainly interrelates these dif-
These deductions really require knowledge of the launching azimuth
as well as the launch time, but the azimuth is almost invariably
supplied by radar returns, beacon tracking data from radio astron-
omy installations, or Soviet announcements.
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ferent aspects of the program, there is a chance of using the
logical relationship to understand and anticipate it.
The Soviet program is characterized, for example, by a
sequential attack on prominent space "firsts" in order of in-
creasing difficulty. All resources are poured into a given space
objective until it is accomplished; but, except for the biomedi-
cal development shots required before putting a man into
space, missions are not repeated. Another consistent feature
of the program is the remarkably small number of distinct
rocket vehicles employed. Every space shot to date has used
the ICBM as the basic booster, and the Lunik upper stage has
been used versatilely in a number of different roles. The ex-
tent of Soviet preplanning and design integration is further
illustrated in the adoption of very narrow limits for the firing
azimuth for all space and ICBM shots, which makes a heavy
investment in tracking and instrumentation facilities along
the single range economically possible. This consistency and
simplicity, however, gives U.S. intelligence a stable frame of
reference for analyzing the Soviet program.
The Outlook
It is well that the formidable task ahead of space intelli-
gence is tempered by a number of simplifications like that in-
troduced by the inherent logic of the Soviet program. There
are two other simplifying factors�the undeviating predict-
ability of possible launch times and dates for interplanetary
missions, and the costliness of developing a space capability.
The laws of physics and celestial mechanics, invariant in
Soviet Bloc and Western applications, impose severe con-
straints on trajectories that can be flown to the moon and
planets. These, in turn, determine the allowable launch times
from our spinning launch platform, the earth. The times
thus predicted have been found to agree very closely with
actual flight data, indicating that tables of possible launch
times can serve as useful guides in anticipating and diagnos-
ing Soviet space attempts. These tables cannot tell, of course,
on which possible date the Soviets will actually elect to fly a
given mission, but they do narrow the range tremendously.
They are prepared annually for both direct ascent and coast-
ing orbit trajectories to the moon, and they have been made
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up for Mars and Venus shots as these missions become pos-
sible every 2.0 and 1.5 years, respectively.
The current space race is a duel only, and it will remain so
for some time. The small nations may fire sounding rockets
in considerable quantity and even launch earth satellites on
a cooperative basis, but they are under a strict economic limi-
tation; the capital investment and development costs for a
reliable booster vehicle with significant space performance ca-
pability are staggering. Only the Soviet Union and United
States have thus far undertaken this burden, and they are
likely to remain the principal competitors for the next decade.
It is an evident advantage for space intelligence that all its
collection and analysis resources can be focused on a single
target.
The space intelligence problem is nevertheless not only for-
midable but, unlike most other technical intelligence ques-
tions, expanding. A new ballistic missile being developed is of
concern and commands considerable attention until its char-
acteristics and the magnitude of its operational deployment
have been determined. Once these are established with con-
fidence, succeeding R and D firings assume less significance.
Each new Soviet space mission, however, is a fresh flare in
the sky requiring a new, imaginative analytical effort. The
variety of space missions will expand rapidly as basic capa-
bility in space technology grows in both nations. This mis-
sion proliferation will probably be accelerated when the So-
viets develop new upper-stage vehicles and eventually even
larger boosters.
So far we have seen but the first game in a series which
promises to be a long and taxing competition. The pace will
quicken, and it will increase the popular and executive pres-
sure on intelligence. The prospective consumer demand for
successful intelligence efforts suggests that long-term invest-
ment of collection and analysis resources is amply warranted.
APPENDIX: DETERMINATION OF PAYLOAD CAPABILITY
The verification of claimed Soviet space mission payloads is
important not only because of the competitive nature of space
achievements but also because of the possibility of turning
payload capability to decisive military applications. We are
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now in a position, for as long as the Soviets continue to use
their basic ICBM as booster on all space attempts, to estab-
lish readily whether the payload weight claimed for a particu-
lar mission is within their capability. As a matter of fact,
one can state in advance the payload capability for a variety
of missions they might undertake. This is possible because
we now have a rather good model for the performance of the
ICBM and the upper-stage vehicles that have been flown
with it.
The reconstruction of this capability, a nearly classical so-
lution of an intelligence problem, is of interest from a method-
ological standpoint. It was characterized by the correlation
of unrelated reports from truly independent sources, data
computation and cross-checking, several lucky breaks, and re-
markable clarity once the puzzle was solved. Unlike many
familiar intelligence problems, this had a precision about it
in that the reports were generally measurements, the laws of
physics provided the correlator, and the solution of a particu-
lar case, once it had snapped into focus, was usually applicable
to other cases.
Burnout Speed and Lunik Weight
The Soviets had been firing ballistic missiles and space ve-
hicles from the Tyura Tam area for more than a year before
we obtained a single measurement that could start the solu-
tion process. Soviet payload claims for the first three Sput-
niks constituted our only sources, and these had to be rated
F-6 in the absence of either internal consistency or support-
ing evidence.
Early in 1959, however, our ELINT sites began to record
telemetry signals from both ICBM's and space shots during
powered flight. The telemetry format or code was a relatively
_simple one, and analog records of all channels were readily
produced for the portions of the flights that lay above the
radio horizon. Several of the channels recorded had evidently
conveyed missile velocity and acceleration, data of immediate
purport to the performance problem. Ordinarily, however,
these intercepts covered only the last 20 per cent of the flight
and provided no means to determine the absolute values of
the measurements. But during the summer of 1959 abnormal
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propagation conditions made possible a weak intercept which,
with extraordinary effort, yielded telemetry records running
from before launch to well after burnout. This intercept,
since the total number of digital clicks on the "speedometer,"
each representing one unit of acceleration, could be equated
with the burnout speed required for the free-flight trajectory
to the Kamchatka peninsula, established the all-important ve-
locity meter calibration. That was the first lucky break, but
it was still not enough, for one had no reliable idea of the
weight of any of the vehicles or their payloads.
An absolute measure of weight was soon obtained by a sec-
ond lucky break. Covertly, we were able to acquire detailed
data about the upper-stage rocket vehicle shown in Figure 1,
the Lunik stage which mates directly to the Soviet ICBM.
Although these data were incomplete, especially with respect
to the motor, one could make a good estimate of the vehicle's
performance capability by calculating its dry weight against
the quantity of normal propellants its tanks could hold. The
result checked rather well with the Soviet payload announce-
ments for Lunik I. The stage weighed about 2,600 pounds dry,
and it looked as though it would weigh 18,000 pounds with
the propellant tanks filled and the payload on board.
Performance Reconstructed
In September and again in October of 1959 the Soviets
launched successful lunar probes. Telemetry was received
from the powered flight phase of the upper stage, and it was
possible to identify this vehicle with the one reconstructed
from covert data. More importantly, new long-range radar
sets tracked the ICBM tanks which had been used to boost it.
These traveled some 3,800 nautical miles on both occasions and
hit the water not far from the radar itself.
Here was the missing piece to the puzzle. Had the Lunik
stage not ignited, it too would have gone 3,800 miles with the
empty ICBM. Since the Lunik weight had been fixed at some
18,000 pounds fully loaded, one could state with high con-
fidence that the ICBM had a capability of throwing 18,000
pounds a distance of 3,800 miles. From these figures we could
compute thrust and weight schedules for the basic booster.
Having previously determined the calibration of the velocity
meter, we could reliably convert this performance demonstra-
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..
FIGURE 1. INTERNAL LAYOUT OF THE LUNIK STAGE VEHICLE
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tion to other ranges and draw range-payload curves for the
ICBM, a result not without significance in another context.
Of special importance was the discovery that the ICBM thus
reconstructed could place approximately 3,000 pounds into a
low-altitude satellite orbit such as that of Sputnik III. This
calculated weight agreed with what the Soviets claimed for
Sputnik III and tended to increase our confidence in such
statements.
For purposes of solving the space payload problem the per-
formance contribution of the Lunik stage had also to be de-
termined�a relatively easy task, for a number of sources bore
on it. A velocity meter measurement identical with that
noted in the ICBM telemetry was found in telemetry from the
Lunik stage, indicating that a common instrument had been
employed on the pair of vehicles.2 Because this instrument
had previously been calibrated through our lucky complete
interdept from the ICBM, the performance of the Lunik stage
could be estimated with high confidence using the empty and
dry weights we had established. This checked exactly with
the velocity change required to reach lunar escape speed
after ICBM burnout as reconstructed from the radar data.
The performance of the Lunik stage was thus established with
confidence from a number of independent sources. More par-
ticularly, the calculation reproduced the announced payloads
of each of the three Lunik shots with good accuracy, suggest-
ing both an internal consistency and inherent veracity in So-
viet payload claims.
It was no surprise, therefore, when in 1960 the Soviets an-
nounced that they had placed an over-10,000-pound space
cabin into satellite orbit as Sputnik IV and subsequent re-
coverable satellites leading up to Major Gagarin's flight
around the earth. When telemetry confirmed that an ICBM-
Lunik combination had in fact been used to power the cabin
into orbit, one could corroborate the Soviet claim with pre-
cision: ten thousand pounds was just the payload-in-orbit ca-
pability that had been calculated for the combination.
2The same pendulous gyro integrating accelerometer is also noted
in telemetry from the 1,000-nautical-mile ballistic missile flown out
of Kapustin Yar, suggesting a remarkable standardization.
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A comparable analysis was done for Soviet attempts to
reach Mars in late 1960 and Venus in early 1961. Although
an entirely new heavy upper-stage vehicle was used in these
four shots, an analytic effort very similar to that described
above led rapidly to the technical reconstruction of this vehi-
cle and of the performance it could achieve in combination
with the ICBM. The solution was again accelerated because
we had already calibrated the basic ICBM through powered
flight telemetry. The resulting weight schedules were con-
sistent with Soviet claims for the (unsuccessful) injector
stage in orbit (14,300 pounds) on 4 February 1961 and the
payload toward Venus (1,420 pounds) on 12 February 1961.
Missions of the Future
With the results of this technical analysis one can establish
reasonable limits for the payload capability of the Soviet ICBM
in combination with Lunik upper-stage vehicles for space mis-
sions not yet performed. With the vehicle used for the Ga-
garin-Titov flights, the following missions could be accom-
plished on direct ascent trajectories with the maximum pay-
loads indicated.
500-mile Earth Satellite 9,000 pounds
Lunar Soft Landing 270 pounds
Lunar Satellite, 300-mile 520 pounds
24-hour ("stationary") Earth Satellite 2,000 pounds
A combination of the ICBM and heavy injector stage with in-
jection rockets firing from a coasting orbit, as in the Venus
probe of last February, could perform the following missions:
Mars Probe 1,800 pounds
Mars or Venus Satellite 1,000 pounds
Lunar Soft Landing 800 pounds
Lunar Satellite, 300-mile 1,600 pounds
Lunar Circumvolation and Aerodynamic Re-
entry 2,100 pounds
If the Soviets were to develop an additional upper stage of
high energy, say a specific impulse of 450 seconds, their pay-
load capability for the space missions listed above would be
about doubled. If such a vehicle were used as an orbiting in-
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jector stage in combination with the ICBM and present heavy
stage, the following missions would be possible:
Lunar Soft Landing and Return with Aero-
dynamic Reentry 500 pounds
Mercury Probe 2,000 pounds
Jupiter Probe 1,500 pounds
Neptune Probe 320 pounds
Solar System Escape 120 pounds
One should note that the communications equipment for
probes beyond Saturn would probably weigh more than the
indicated payload capability. Nonetheless, it is clear that
there is a great deal of mission capability left in the existing
Soviet ICBM as basic booster for various upper-stage combina-
tions.
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