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US Works on Top-secret Massive Spy-satellite Program: Report
The US is investing billions of dollars in a top-secret massive spy-satellite program to upgrade its capabilities of intelligence collection, a report disclosed Sunday.
The supersecret project for the National Reconnaissance Office is estimated to be worth up to 25 billion US dollars over two decades, providing a major boost to the California's aerospace industry, the Los Angeles Times reported in a front page story.
A team of Southern California aerospace companies is covertly recruiting engineers across the country for a new generation of spy satellites under what analysts believe is the largest intelligence-related contract ever, it said.
Equipped with powerful telescopes and radar, the nation's newest eye in space is expected to form the backbone of US intelligence for several decades, analysts said.
The satellites will be farther out in space and harder to detect than the massive spy probes that currently orbit the Earth. They will also be able to fly over and take pictures of military compounds anywhere in the world, in darkness or through cloud cover, with far more frequency, the report said.
Company officials are restricted from talking about the highly classified contract, but Roger Roberts, general manager of the Boeing Company unit in Seal Beach overseeing the project, known as Future Imagery Architecture, gave a hint of its scope.
The endeavor will require 5,000 engineers, technicians and computer programmers over the next five years, and that will just be for the initial design and development of the satellites, he said.
Aerospace analysts say the number of satellites involved in the new program will be at least a dozen to two dozen, compared with roughly half a dozen spy satellites now in orbit. The new models are likely to be significantly smaller and cheaper than the current generation of spy satellites.
With a bigger constellation of satellites, the probes will be able to revisit and take pictures of an area more frequently than the current versions. The new system would be less detectable by those being observed, the report added.
And with improvements in optical and radar technology, US intelligence officials hope to place the satellites at a higher orbit so they can take pictures of a ground target for a longer period.
Companies that are involved in the project include Boeing Company, Raytheon Corp., Eastman Kodak Co. and Harris Corp. Analysts believe that Aerospace Corp., a government-funded research operation in El Segundo, drew up the blueprints for the new satellites.
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