Corona ITEK Collection
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In early 1958, a few months after the Soviets launched the first Sputnik, President Eisenhower authorized a top-priority reconnaissance satellite project jointly managed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US Air Force. It was to launch into orbit a camera-carrying spacecraft that would take photographs of the Soviet Union and return the film to Earth. The secret spy satellite was dubbed Corona by the CIA. To disguise its true purpose, it was given the cover name Discoverer and described as a scientific research program. From 1960 to 1972, more than 100 Corona missions took over 800,000 photographs. As cameras and imaging techniques improved, Corona and other high-resolution reconnaissance satellites provided increasingly detailed information to US intelligence analysts. Dozens of companies and many thousands of people labored in secret to develop and operate the technologies for Corona. One of the companies was ITEK, whose spaceborne panoramic camera design revolutionized photo reconnaissance, allowing the Corona program to be successful.