WEATHER AND INTELLIGENCE FACTORS IN THE CORONA OPERATIONS CONCEPT.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP63-00313A000600180016-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 23, 2002
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: September 22, 1961
• Content Type: MF

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COR-1347-61
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MEMORANDUM FOR : Chief, Special Projects Branch
SUBJECT : Weather and Intelligence Factors in the
CORONA Operations Concept.
1. The possibility of postponing a CORONA Mission because
of unfavorable forecast weather over the USSR has been discussed
numerous times in the past. In these discussions the Weather
Staff has taken the position that, until such time as the areas
of interest are significantly reduced, this would not be practi-
cal. Any decision to delay a four day mission for 24 hours
would be made on the basis of forecast weather for day five
being better than that for day one; and five-day weather forecasts
of the accuracy required for such a decision are not available.
Since an area the size of the USSR is. of likely to experience
unfavorable weather all at one a decision to delay a
mission would rarely be madesifhp ly on the basis of the weather
being so bad on day one it would almost certainly be better
on day five.
2. When-Highest priority targets are reduced to a few
limited areas, the probability of obtaining photographic coverage
of those areas can be increased greatly by launching the mission
only when a favorable short range weather forecast for those
areas is received. The launch decision could be made as much as
twenty-four hours ahead of a scheduled launch; however, from the
standpoint of weather forecast accuracy the decision should be
made as late as possible.
3. Comments made during the briefings for Mission 9024
lead me to believe that it may now be possible to identify a
limited number of targets with a priority high enough to
warrant operational decisions being made primarily on the
probability of obtaining coverage of those targets. After
considering the weather forecast for the first and second day
of the planned mission, a decision to launch on schedule or
delay 24 hours would be made on the basis of forecast conditions
over the highest priority targets. After the vehicle is placed
in orbit camexeon-off decisions would still be made pass-by-
pass based upon the last minute weather forecasts and intelli-
gence requirements.
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lj.. Other oporational factors at the launch site may rule
out this whole idea. However, I strongly recommend that the
possibility of operating under the concept outlined in para-
graph 3 now be seriously considered.
25X1
Chie , Weather
Staff/
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