CAPE CANAVERAL -- Nearly a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Reconnaissance Office and National Security Agency lack two $1-billion secret eavesdropping spacecraft that should have been operational by now to provide critical intelligence to help track terrorist operations and plan for a possible war with Iraq.

Although significantly delayed, one of the spacecraft may be undergoing modification to enhance its capabilities to better siphon communications related to Iraqi and Al Qaeda intelligence objectives.

Launch of the next eavesdropping spacecraft aboard a Titan rocket from Cape Canaveral has been delayed over a year. Photo: Lockheed Martin

NRO/NSA eavesdropping operations are among the most classified of all U.S. intelligence capabilities. Of the satellites involved, one was lost in a launch failure and the other grounded by the need for upgrades, either to enhance its abilities or to correct flaws. The two spacecraft equate to 100% of the large eavesdropping spacecraft NRO was supposed to launch for NSA during the last four years.

Even as the eavesdropping issues have arisen, a top defense industry CEO and former NRO engineer is publicly spotlighting NRO technical and management problems -- a controversial move, but one that may be sparking some changes in the intelligence-system organization.

The NRO has several other older operational signal-intercept spacecraft positioned around the globe to eavesdrop on foreign communications for the NSA. NRO manages the development and launch of the spacecraft, while NSA guides their eavesdropping targets and processes the intelligence. The largest and most capable of these spacecraft are launched from Cape Canaveral.

The two most recent of these satellites were sent aloft here on Lockheed Martin Titan IVs in late 1997 and early 1998.

To a great extent, the existing spacecraft can pick up the load over the missing satellites. But the absence of the two important platforms -- with antennas likely spanning more than 100 ft. -- means significant intelligence data are being lost.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said recently that better intelligence data constitute the single greatest need in the hunt for terrorists and assessments on Iraq.

Eavesdropping spacecraft are no panacea to the intelligence problem and provide only part of the overall intel picture. But the two spacecraft involved could have been providing millions of bits of information that are possibly not being collected by other satellites. And one of the two could have theoretically aided intel-gathering prior to Sept. 11.

The most recent issue involves a 6-ton NRO eavesdropping satellite that was supposed to have been providing data to the NSA starting last April.

According to the Air Force and the NRO, "issues with the satellite" have forced its launch to be slipped until about May 2003 -- a full year's delay. That would be a significant setback in any major program -- but especially so given the importance of the payload to current U.S. intelligence operations.

The need for changes became apparent during the final checkout of the spacecraft, which has been under construction since the late 1990s. The contractors that build specific NRO spacecraft are kept secret, but TRW and the Harris Corp. have been involved in past eavesdropping missions. It was the NRO that ordered more work on the payload.

The $430-million U.S. Air Force Titan IVB/Centaur booster that had been set to launch the spacecraft has been sitting on its Cape Canaveral launch pad for an unusually long time -- six months -- waiting for the NRO payload. The launcher is designated B-35.

The B-35 vehicle -- minus the satellite -- was rolled to Launch Complex 40 last Feb. 11. Liftoff of the NRO spacecraft was first scheduled for Apr. 28. That date was slipped to June 3, then to Aug. 6; then, most recently, to December. But the changes needed on the payload have now forced a full year's delay to next spring.

In the meantime, the Air Force has decided to use the booster instead for the launch of an $800-million Milstar military communications spacecraft by about January. The NRO satellite, when it's finally ready to fly, will use the Titan IVB originally planned for the Milstar.

The Titan rocket explodes on August 12, 1998, destroying its classified satellite cargo. Photo: Air Force

The other satellite of the two that were to have been launched since mid-1998 is a 4-5-ton secret Mercury signals intelligence spacecraft. It was lost in August 1998 when its Titan IVA/Centaur exploded after a wiring flaw in the booster disrupted the vehicle's guidance computer (AW&ST Aug. 17, 1998, p. 28).

That spacecraft was to have been parked in geosynchronous orbit over Africa, where it would have monitored communications in the Middle East, Iran, India, Pakistan--and possibly also Afghanistan when Al Qaeda was moving into the region.

THE SPACECRAFT that has been delayed until next year is a far newer, more capable model than the Mercury, which was to be the last of that series. But being new does not mean it can effectively monitor Iraq or Al Qaeda.

"NRO exhibits an astounding lack of revolutionary innovation to get Al Qaeda," said David Thompson, president and CEO of Spectrum Astro, a company that has contracts with NRO and other military programs. "Over the past decade, the NRO has posted a sorry decline into mediocrity and aristocracy." Before moving to the private sector, Thompson was an engineer at NRO.

He said NRO has not "done anything to make innovative new satellites to fight Al Qaeda."

His remarks, little noticed at the time, were made four months ago at a Space Foundation dinner in Colorado Springs. If the changes delaying the payload will help it better monitor Al Qaeda or Iraq, it might help blunt some of Thompson's criticism.

"The NRO has suffered a shocking decline in the technical performance of its satellites over the past several years," he said. "They haven't told you about that because it has been kept behind closed doors.

"Many NRO satellites never even got launched as they meandered their way through years of technical and program 'management mismanagement,' yet no one was held accountable. NRO is actually moving backward, getting less capability and fielding less capable technology for the future," he noted.

Thompson cited several examples of NRO spacecraft problems on previous missions:

• "NRO satellites where the primary mission payload failed a few days after launch.
  
  
• "Satellites where components got so hot that they actually melted, causing mission failure due to thermal analysis [flaws introduced in design].
  
  
• "Satellites which, after billions of dollars in development, cannot perform basic housekeeping functions.
  
  
• "Satellites on which the primary payload does not meet its basic performance specifications."
  
  
• And, he asserted, "the costs overrunning large programs are sucking every possible dollar out of the future cutting-edge projects. . . .
  
  
• "The industrial base management policy of the NRO could best be described as lurching back and forth from overconcentration at one contractor to overconcentration at another, frittering away key investments and payload technology."

The NRO was stung by Thompson's remarks, but partly in response, the organization has broadened its outreach to medium and smaller companies that can foster ideas, sometimes better than larger contractors. Earlier this year, the NRO hosted senior executives from about 15 larger companies to discuss NRO technology directions and programs.

Partly as a result of Thompson's remarks, the organization then held a second session this summer where executives from nearly 10 small and medium companies were also asked to come in and brainstorm with the top NRO management.