Background

This is the second volume in the history of the National Reconnaissance Program. The first volume related the story of CORONA-the first successful program in applying space vehicles to overflight reconnaissance operations. In its several evolutionary versions, CORONA steadily improved its photographic surveys of denied areas (with final resolutions of six to ten feet), operating in what the Intelligence Community calls “search mode.”

This volume is the story of a companion photographic satellite called GAMBIT, which was developed to perform at even better resolutions than CORONA and work against specified targets-an operation usually referred to as “surveillance mode.” GAMBIT fulfilled this surveillance function from July 1963 to April 1984.