Misty (classified project)

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Misty (classified project)

Misty is reportedly the name of a classified project by the United States National Reconnaissance Office

National Reconnaissance Office

The National Reconnaissance Office , located in Chantilly, Virginia, is one of the U.S. intelligence community in the U.S. It designs, builds and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the United States government....
to operate stealthy reconnaissance satellites. The satellites are conjectured to be photo reconnaissance satellites and the program has been the subject of atypically public debates about its worthiness in the defense budget since December 2004.

The first satellite launched for the program was deployed on March 1, 1990 by the Space Shuttle AtlantisSpace Shuttle Atlantis

Space Shuttle Atlantis is one of the three currently operational Space Shuttle orbiter in the Space Shuttle fleet of NASA, the space agency of the United States....
as part of Mission STS-36
STS-36

STS-36 was a space shuttle mission by NASA using the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It was the 34th mission, and carried a payload for the U.S. Department of Defense ....
.

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Misty is reportedly the name of a classified project by the United States National Reconnaissance Office
National Reconnaissance Office

The National Reconnaissance Office , located in Chantilly, Virginia, is one of the U.S. intelligence community in the U.S. It designs, builds and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the United States government....
to operate stealthy reconnaissance satellites. The satellites are conjectured to be photo reconnaissance satellites and the program has been the subject of atypically public debates about its worthiness in the defense budget since December 2004.

The first satellite launched for the program was deployed on March 1, 1990 by the Space Shuttle AtlantisSpace Shuttle Atlantis

Space Shuttle Atlantis is one of the three currently operational Space Shuttle orbiter in the Space Shuttle fleet of NASA, the space agency of the United States....
as part of Mission STS-36
STS-36

STS-36 was a space shuttle mission by NASA using the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It was the 34th mission, and carried a payload for the U.S. Department of Defense ....
. Objects associated with the satellite decayed on March 31, 1990, but the satellite itself was seen and tracked later that year and in the mid-1990s by amateur observers. Misty is reported to have optical and radar stealth
Stealth technology

Stealth technology also known as LO technology is a sub-discipline of military electronic countermeasures which covers a range of techniques used with stealth aircraft, stealth ship, submarines, and missiles, in order to make them less visible to radar, infrared, sonar and other detection methods....
characteristics, making it difficult for adversaries to detect (and thus predict the times it would fly overhead).

Almost everything about the program is classified information
Classified information

Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular classes of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data....
--but one clue about satellite camouflage has been found in the patent literature. U.S. Patent #5,345,238 describes an inflatable balloon that can be made rigid on exposure to ultraviolet radiation that can serve to lower the radar and optical signature of the satellite. Once deployed, the cone-shaped balloon could be steered to deflect incoming laser and microwave radar energy by sending it off into outer space. Whether or not these stealthy ideas are actually used in the MISTY satellite series is not publicly known.

Porter Goss
Porter J. Goss

Porter Johnston Goss is an Politics of the United States, who was a Director of Central Intelligence and the first Director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the Central Intelligence Agency following the passage of the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which abolished the DCI position....
, a former Congressman and former CIA director, and George Tenet, former CIA director, have both vigorously supported successors to Misty, despite several attempts by Senators Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein

Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the Seniority in the United States Senate United States Senate from California and a member of the Democratic Party ....
and John D. Rockefeller IV to terminate the program. The primary contractor is Lockheed Martin Space Systems
Lockheed Martin Space Systems

Lockheed Martin Space Systems is one of the 4 major business divisions of Lockheed Martin. It is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.From a rich history of major companies Lockheed Martin has brought them together to offer design, integration, and production of:...
.

On June 21, 2007, the Associated Press
Associated Press

The Associated Press is an Media of the United States news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, Radio station and Television station stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staffers....
reported that Director of National Intelligence John Michael McConnell has canceled the multibillion-dollar spy satellite program that engineers hoped would someday pass undetected through the space above other nations.

See also

KH-12
KH-12

"KH-12" is an unofficial designation of the successor to the KH-11 spy satellite. A system with the official designation KH-12 does not exist because the National Reconnaissance Office decided to refer to satellites by a random numbering scheme after repeated public references to KH-8, KH-9, and KH-11 satellites....
"Advanced Keyhole"
KH-13
KH-13

The KH-13 is a name used by observers of U.S. military space programs to refer to a class of imaging spy satellite operated by the United States....
Future Imagery Architecture
Future Imagery Architecture

Future Imagery Architecture was a program to design a new generation of United States reconnaissance satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office ....

Launches
The program may have involved as many as two satellites:
The first deployed 1 March 1990 by STS-36
STS-36

STS-36 was a space shuttle mission by NASA using the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It was the 34th mission, and carried a payload for the U.S. Department of Defense ....
as USA-53 or (19600 kg)
The second launched 22 May 1999 as USA-144 or

Reference and External links

Allen Thomson. (from Federation of American Scientists
Federation of American Scientists

The Federation of American Scientists is a non-profit organization formed in 1945 by scientists from the Manhattan Project who felt that scientists, engineers and other innovators had an ethical obligation to bring their knowledge and experience to bear on critical national decisions....
)

(Excerpt from The Wizards of Langley on MISTY)
Article from WIRED magazine about amateur satellite-watchers tracking an unusual, possibly stealthy, satellite.