The National Reconnaissance Office, the agency overseeing the US government’s fleet of spy satellites, has declassified a decades-old program used to eavesdrop on the Soviet Union’s military communication signals.
The program was codenamed Jumpseat, and its existence was already public knowledge through leaks and contemporary media reports. What’s new is the NRO’s description of the program’s purpose, development, and pictures of the satellites themselves.
In a statement, the NRO called Jumpseat “the United States’ first-generation, highly elliptical orbit (HEO) signals-collection satellite.”
Scooping up signals
Eight Jumpseat satellites launched from 1971 through 1987, when the US government considered the very existence of the National Reconnaissance Office a state secret. Jumpseat
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