Wraps Come Off Cold War SpySat Program

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By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
More light has been shed on a once secret Cold War spysat program.

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) has released images of the POPPY system, a series of satellites built to scout out land based radar emitters in the former Soviet Union, as well as collect radar emanations from Soviet naval vessels.

This type of surveillance from space is dubbed electronic intelligence, or ELINT for short.

Last month, on September 12, the NRO formerly announced that the POPPY satellite system had been declassified.

The newly released pictures show technicians with the spacecraft and the satellite itself, its Thor-class launcher sitting on a pad at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, as well as associated ground hardware used to operate the system.

http://www.space.com/news/051003_nro_poppy.html