Our Mission Revealed
by
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Back in the 1950’s, the United States was in the midst of a Cold War with the Soviet Union. It is well known that President Eisenhower and his administration were seriously concerned about the Soviet arms buildup and what steps our country should take to counteract it. Our intelligence community had no way to verify what was going on in denied areas of their country. What was desperately needed was overhead reconnaissance of denied Soviet territory, to assess their missile and aircraft inventory, among other things. This was no small task. During this period, President Eisenhower authorized development of the U-2 spy aircraft, which gave us our first look behind the Iron Curtain. This program had many of its own problems and when Francis Gary Powers was shot down, the U-2 project came to a grinding halt, at least temporally. Right on its heels, however, our country developed a top secret, supersonic aircraft now known as the SR-71. Although the Air Force SR-71 didn’t become truly operational until early 1964 (First flight in late December, 1963), its predecessor, the CIA’s A-12 was first flown in mid 1962 under the code name “Oxcart”. It was developed by the Lockheed Corporation, at their Skunk Works facility in Burbank, California, as was the U-2 and SR-71 aircraft, and was tested and operated at the extremely top-secret facility at Groom Lake, Nevada, also known as Area 51. While these aircraft provided a significant amount of intelligence to our country, Eisenhower, earlier, decided to exploit the potential of Satellite Reconnaissance. This would provide us with an overhead capability that couldn’t be challenged by antiaircraft missiles and provide us with intelligence information over denied Soviet territory, with no restrictions. This decision led to the ultimate development of the Corona film return satellite, which provided our country with more data in its first 20 Lloyd R. Spanberger successful mission, than all the previous U-2 aircraft combined. Not to say there weren’t difficulties with this system. It turns out, the first dozen missions failed, for various reasons, but then success came and we were on our way to a long and lasting program of space reconnaissance that still exists today. This story is about the Air Force Special Projects Production Facility (AFSPPF), which began its evolvement in the early 1960’s. The facility was but a small part of the overall film return reconnaissance satellite program, but it played an extremely important roll. Its mission was, to conduct research and development (R&D) to provide the best equipment and techniques to support satellite photography and to produce, evaluate and distribute classified imagery from our nation’s film return satellites and aerospace vehicles, with the highest possible quality. The information, contained herein, comes from the actual experiences of the people who did the work and served in this Air Force organization. Some information comes from documents recovered from official NRO and Air Force records, but the vast majority comes from firsthand knowledge of our alumni. Although there is some amount of technical detail included in this history, it was not the intent to bore everyone with an abundance of it. The primary intent is to tell the story of our existence and our mission by relating the experiences of our people and our facility, which had to operate in a highly classified mode throughout our lifetime. Intense technical detail, about the satellites themselves, etc., may be found on the NRO web site and from other government sources, now that these programs have been declassified. There, you will find all the detail you can handle. Here, you will learn what it was like to live and work in an ultra Top Secret environment, while serving ones country. We worked hard, we had fun and now it’s time to tell about it.
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About the Book
It was the early 1960s and our country was in the midst of the cold war with the Soviet Union. President Eisenhower had, earlier, decided to initiate development of a spy satellite system to obtain strategic intelligence data on the Soviets. A massive program was instituted to accomplish this goal and, as part of the overall program, the concept of an all-military facility to provide R&D support and duplicate imagery processing from these satellites, was ordered. This began the establishment of the AFSPPF, which operated for 15 years in that capacity. This story describes the mission of the AFSPPF and what it was like to work in an Ultra Top Secret operation, whose mission was not disclosed until now. No-one involved with our operation could talk about it to anyone, including family, friends or anyone else in the military, unless they were properly cleared and were amongst those who needed to know. All content herein was derived from the personal recollections of our remaining members and from what little official declassified documentation we could find. It is hoped the reader will enjoy learning what it was like to work in such a unique Top Secret unit of the U.S. Air Force. AFSPPF was an Air Force Headquarters unit created in 1961 to conduct the research and development (R&D) necessary to provide the best possible production equipment and techniques in support of special projects specified by the Secretary of the Air Force. There is no declassified documented record of the activity within the facility. The facility operated in a Top Secret, Black Opps mode throughout its entire 15-year lifetime. Aspects of the unit’s mission evolved over time, however the mainstay was production, evaluation and distribution of classified imagery, from spy satellites and aircraft, to our nation’s intelligence community, in a timely manner. The production and evaluation directorates, within the facility, also assisted with the many R&D projects in support of the overall national reconnaissance program. It was an exciting time for all of us. We not only provided the best photographic intelligence possible to our nation’s leaders, but also had a lot of fun doing it. It was hard work and long hours, all with no individual recognition given. There was, however a degree of self-satisfaction involved. We knew and understood the objectives and often saw details of our advisories military capabilities that were never exposed to the public eye. The satellites and aircraft involved have now all been declassified and our mission can now be revealed, so all can see what really went on in such a Top Secret operation. This true story is not only about our mission, but about the unique, exciting and sometimes humorous experiences of the people who did the work.
About the Author
Lloyd R. Spanberger is a former U.S. Air Force Captain, who served as a research physicist while stationed at Wright Patterson AFB (WPAFB), Dayton, Ohio in the Infrared Reconnaissance Division and, later, at Westover AFB (WAFB), Chicopee, Mass in the AFSPPF. While at WPAFB, he ran a successful three-year development and test project on the X-15 rocket plane to solve problems related to the development of scanning infrared reconnaissance systems in high performance aircraft, such as the SR-71. Concurrently, he spent considerable time working to help make FLIR (Forward-looking infrared) systems operational in more conventional tactical and strategic aircraft. He was, subsequently assigned to WAFB, where his problem solving responsibilities extended over to the various image processing and analysis aspects of the satellite reconnaissance mission of AFSPPF. While assigned to the R&D directorate, he was involved with virtually all Film Return Spy Satellites our country developed. He spent over two years recalling his own personal experiences and extracting recollections from the various surviving members of the AFSPPF. The result is the writing of this book. Lloyd is now retired in Maryland.