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Related: Did the Space Shuttle have "military uses"? (This question is discussed in comments, but not really conclusively answered.)

One of the military requirements that was added on to the design goals for the Space Shuttle (and subsequently never used) was to be able to launch, deploy or retrieve a large satellite (probably a military or CIA spy satellite), and then land within a single orbit.

Some sources have claimed that this was explicitly in order to allow the military or CIA to capture USSR or other adversaries' satellites intact and return them intact to the USA. Some other people have argued that this is not supported by evidence or terribly convincing, and have pointed to arguments that the fast retrieval requirement is just to retrieve our own/allies satellites very quickly with minimal exposure to the USSR.

Is there any actual evidence that the Space Shuttle was ever explicitly intended to do the "military satellite capture caper"?

Kat
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ikrase
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    Can you add a specific link and a quote supporting "One of the military requirements... able to launch, deploy or retrieve a large satellite...and then land within a single orbit." Especially for the within a single orbit part! I don't necessarily doubt this but to be a good Stack Exchange question it's important to support anything that could be argued to be a premise for your question that isn't already well known. It might (or might not) be in Wikipedia or elsewhere in this site. Thanks! – uhoh Mar 02 '20 at 01:58
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    the shuttle is not especially stealthy. Capturing a satellite would become obvious very quickly. Scheduling a burn right around rendezvous time on the satellite could be crippling for the shuttle too. – Antzi Mar 02 '20 at 09:29
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    This isn't a proper answer, but it is worth noting that if a nation did try to steal satellites, it would be trivial to booby trap future satellites to damage the vehicle performing the theft. Thus, it isn't a capability that would prove useful for very long. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me they'd want to spend the money for something that was going to be useful at most a handful of times. – Katie Kilian Mar 02 '20 at 19:18
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    @CharlieKilian I think that no bobby trap is needed at all. If the owner of the satellite retains some control over its attitude control systems and/or engines, they may damage the Shuttle pretty well. They may even do that unintentionally and/or in an automated manner, depending on how the satellite is supposed to regain the lost attitude. – fraxinus Mar 03 '20 at 11:04
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    True™ answer: the Shuttle was actually intended for stealing satellites, but only with the owners consent. To everybody's surprise however, no satellite owners gave consent to have their satellites stolen, so this was never done in practice... – leftaroundabout Mar 03 '20 at 12:19
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    That was "You Only Live Twice". – user_1818839 Mar 03 '20 at 17:44
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    The Boeing X-37 is sometimes referred to as 'the military space shuttle', could the claim have been about that vehicle? – Mast Mar 03 '20 at 18:26
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    @Mast with the thing being pretty small, and unmanned, that seems unlikely to me. – ikrase Mar 04 '20 at 02:47
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    @leftaroundabout - LDEF was recovered in 1990 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Duration_Exposure_Facility – Dave Gremlin Mar 04 '20 at 10:29
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    @Mast X-37 first flew in 2010 as shuttle was wrapping up. – Organic Marble Mar 04 '20 at 14:13
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    @OrganicMarble Oh, of-course, would be hard to catch active USSR satellites in 2010... – Mast Mar 04 '20 at 14:37
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    With radar tracking it is hard to believe that a country could snatch another country's satellite without that country knowing who did it. – MaxW Mar 04 '20 at 18:26
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    According to the Roskosmos documentary, voiced conspiracy version that the United States planned to steal the Salute orbital station with the help of the Space Shuttle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxhv6GOLZqE – A. Rumlin Mar 05 '20 at 07:55
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    I was excited when the Russian movie Salute 7 came out because it was about a real event. But when I saw it, I was very upset that they took the "Hollywood approach" and made up a whole lot of events that never happened. In fact the whole story challenge hinged on falsities. A major one is that the American Shuttle was sent up to steal Salute 7 and take it back to America. Too bad movie producers so often confuse the public forum by mixing lies with truth. – Johnny Robinson Mar 06 '20 at 12:29
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    Possible plot for the next Mission: Impossible movie. You'd have to hack into the satellite's control systems to prepare it for capture, but that's easy in a movie :) – pmiranda May 26 '20 at 20:56
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    @A. Rumlin: 1) Why would the US even want the Salut? 2) What use is anyone's space station if you bring it back to Earth? – jamesqf May 29 '20 at 19:25
  • @jamesqf technical espionage. Assessment of the possibilities of science and high-tech industry of the USSR on a real technical model. China, North Korea and Iran made a huge breakthrough in rocket and military technology, when in the 1990s they bought up Soviet scientific archives and prototypes of equipment in Ukraine. – A. Rumlin May 30 '20 at 08:01
  • @A. Rumlin: Technical espionage, when the USSR was well behind the west in just about every facet of technology? USSR tech might have been a considerable advance for third-world countries like North Korea and Iran, but the US was well ahead of that. – jamesqf May 31 '20 at 03:25
  • @jamesqf "Ironically, afterward it became NASA's turn to try to reverse-engineer a Soviet design, as U.S. engineers looked into an architecture similar to Energia's but using the shuttle's components. Unfortunately, the concept known as Shuttle-C never went beyond a full-scale mockup." https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a9763/did-the-soviets-actually-build-a-better-space-shuttle-16176311/ – A. Rumlin May 31 '20 at 04:08
  • @A. Rumlin: Don't know why you'd say "unfortunately". From a quick reading, it seems more like a study that found it was not really a good idea. If nothing else, why build a heavy launch vehicle when it's so much cheaper to do several smaller launches? – jamesqf Jun 01 '20 at 05:39
  • @jamesqf Some designs can not be easier or be assembled from several parts. As an example the largest cargo aircraft in operational service - An225. There is a certain amount of tasks for which this aircraft is needed. – A. Rumlin Jun 01 '20 at 17:35

4 Answers4

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I believe this can be debunked by referring to the actual requirements for Design Reference Mission 3B. (DRM 3B being the famous one-orbit-and-grab-a-satellite mission).

Mission Requirement g. for this mission is

The payload is maneuverable for prephasing

I will leave it to the reader to decide on the probability of a nation maneuvering their satellite for another nation to steal it.

Organic Marble
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    Do you know or have an educated guess as to why it would be necessary to do such a thing in one orbit? The crossrange requirement for this mission seemed to have more impact on the shuttle design than any single feature besides the payload dimensions. – Russell Borogove Mar 02 '20 at 02:33
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    Now I'm wondering if an enemy satellite could be forcibly maneuvered enough with a remote probe to carry this out. Especially if the probe had more delta-v budget than the satellite had left. – bobsburner Mar 02 '20 at 10:22
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    However, something being deemed unsafe to do, might still be technically possible if they really really wanted it and were willing to take the risks. And what if that very quote was inserted in the mission requirement to deliberately mislead? There are levels where the general public might only say "we will never be able to tell it to 100% certainty". – vsz Mar 02 '20 at 14:40
  • Or ostensibly, an enemy satellite might maneuver to evade capture, and the requirement is to be able to retrieve it intact regardless. – pygosceles Mar 02 '20 at 20:48
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    @pygosceles the 2nd paragraph on page 106 clearly rules that out "(target to be retrieved) will have been maneuvered such that a position compatible with rendezvous is attained" – Organic Marble Mar 02 '20 at 20:50
  • @RussellBorogove, because a second orbit would have taken the Shuttle over Soviet territory. The map on page 115 of the linked document isn't the world's best, but the ground track shown doesn't pass over any part of the Soviet Union or any Soviet-controlled states. – Mark Mar 03 '20 at 00:05
  • @Mark A quick survey shows multiple several-day shuttle flights to inclinations in the 50s prior to 1991; would those not have overflown the Soviet Union? – Russell Borogove Mar 03 '20 at 00:32
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    @RussellBorogove, but those weren't on secretive missions for the US military. – Mark Mar 03 '20 at 00:39
  • @Mark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-36 – Russell Borogove Mar 03 '20 at 01:16
  • Without implying anything about what the payload for this DRM was supposed to be, I'll just point out that US spy satellites overflew the USSR routinely. – Organic Marble Mar 03 '20 at 01:18
  • Did an Orbiter ever actually bring anything back home that wasn't part of its current flight? – Mazura Mar 03 '20 at 01:29
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    @Mazura absolutely. The LDEF for one. and these https://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/17/us/shuttle-returns-after-a-triumph-in-space-rescues.html The EURECA. That's what I thought of just off the top of my head, may be more. – Organic Marble Mar 03 '20 at 01:29
  • Did the Hubble Space Telescope do any maneuvering as part of its service missions? Servicing the HST in orbit comes pretty close to a sat-stealing mission. Pack-up and de-orbit instead of fix-it and release again. – Dohn Joe Mar 04 '20 at 13:24
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    @DohnJoe HST and other satellite servicing missions actually performed did not have the one-orbit-and-land constraint. – Organic Marble Mar 04 '20 at 13:56
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    @OrganicMarble: While this is the case, the Space Shuttle performed a many-orbit and service mission. While a one-orbit-and-grab mission, leaves the owner of the to-be-stolen satellite less reaction time; there is nothing IMHO to rule-out a many-orbit-and-grab mission, since the owner nation of the to-be-stolen satellite has little to no means to interfere with the stealing. Since there is no cover in space, even a one-orbit-and-grab mission would be totally in the open. If the owner nation decides to maneuver the satellite to avoid it being stolen, its a matter of fuel capacity who wins. – Dohn Joe Mar 04 '20 at 14:05
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    @DohnJoe Many-orbit-and-grab missions are not what the question is about. Check the 2nd paragraph in the question. – Organic Marble Mar 04 '20 at 14:08
  • I wonder though, if the requirement to steal USSR satellites was seriously considered during the design phase (and subsequently dropped as unfeasible). And possibly of artifacts of that requirement remained in the design. – SF. May 26 '20 at 10:43
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Supplemental to Organic Marble's answer from the requirements, some discussion on the thought process behind them is in the book 'Into the Black' which while not necessarily the most up to date source does include information from members of the military who ended up absorbed into the shuttle program.

The early spy satellites used film cameras and then deployed the film in capsules for recovery by aircraft that hooked the parachutes out of the sky. This functioned for routine work but cases where either the film was recovered too late to be useful or a capsule had to be 'wasted' by releasing early occurred along with capsules not being recovered at all. This was also expensive as once the in orbit satellite ran out of film a new one needed to be launched, even if the original was otherwise fully serviceable.

One solution for this was the process the time critical images in orbit, and was the thought behind the USAF MOL program which while not flying hardware did a lot of design and concept work and had a cadre of astronauts in training before the program was cancelled, with the cancellation being based in part that the shuttle program could fulfill the same role in supporting surveillance satellites by either servicing them or recovering them entire.

In the case intelligence was urgent this recovery would need to minimize the time between taking the image and the film being analyzed on Earth, and assuming recovery into the same country this produces the 'launch, recover whole satellite, re-entry' requirement. The mostly over ocean ground track and single pass also made it a harder ASAT target given the urgent intelligence need might be because a war had started.

In practice CCDs become more capable and even at lower image quality than film allowed near realtime images to be produced without needing a manned vehicle at all.

GremlinWranger
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If a US military satellite should be recovered in a Shuttle, the following points should be considered:

  • Does the satellite fit into the payload bay? (length, width, height and mass)
  • How can the satellite be grabbed? Is there a special adapter for the robotic arm?
  • How can the attitude control system and all thrusters of the satellite be disabled?
  • How can the transmitter of the satellite be disabled?
  • How can the satellite be prepared for transport. What should be folded and what should be dismounted?
  • How can the satellite be moved into the payload bay?
  • How can the satellite be fix within the payload bay? Are special adapters necessary?
  • How can the self-destruction charges of top-secret satellite parts be disabled?

The payload satellite should not be damaged by the g-forces during reentry and landing on the runway. Nor should the payload bay be damaged by a floating satellite. The security of the Shuttle nor the astronauts should not be endangered by the satellite.

But how can all these points be solved when stealing an unknown secret military satellite?

Vikki
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Uwe
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    Overall valid points, but it would not necessarily be unknown. As a last resort one could fly a recon mission, get a 3D scan and retrieve the satellite during a second mission, after fitting the shuttle with proper holds etc. I would also argue that at least in war or pre-war situations military missions, manned by soldiers, may have more robust safety guidelines: One would accept risks from a payload which was never tested on ground which would be unacceptable for a civilian flight. – Peter - Reinstate Monica Mar 04 '20 at 18:55
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Targeting inactive satellites and bringing down just specific parts would certainly simplify things.

E.g. You're only interested in phased array technology - just get those panels loose, stick some cardboard paintings in their place and call it a day before you enter soviet hemisphere. Or you could chop off all mount points of older satellite to measure, then perfectly capture more recent bird which uses same launch vehicle.

In addition, i'm rather skeptical that shuttle cant fly unmanned - especially because Buran could. So risking several million for load of classified soviet technology might be worth wile.

Jack
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    Or spend half a billion dollars to send an astronaut up to spray-paint the lens. – Greg May 25 '20 at 17:48
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    Shuttle definitely cannot fly unmanned now. Or manned either. The program has been shut down for almost 10 years. – Organic Marble May 25 '20 at 17:51
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    This answer seems to be your opinion of what could be done. Further, it doesn't answer the question of what it was intended for it to be able to do. –  May 25 '20 at 20:12
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    The relevant mission profile provided for less than 23 minutes between arriving at the satellite and completing stowage. This would require working on a foreign satellite in space with the coordination and practice of a racing car pit team. – Tom Goodfellow May 25 '20 at 21:30