US spy-satellite agency releases details of high-altitude Cold War listening post

The National Reconnaissance Office, which manages the US government’s reconnaissance satellites, has released information about a decades-old program that intercepted Soviet military communications.

Known by the codename Jumpseat, the program’s existence had previously surfaced through leaks and contemporary press accounts. What is new is the NRO’s official account of the program’s goals and development, along with photos of the satellites themselves.

In its statement, the NRO described Jumpseat as “the United States’ first-generation, highly elliptical orbit (HEO) signals-collection satellite.”

Gathering signals

Eight Jumpseat satellites were launched between 1971 and 1987, a period when the US government treated the National Reconnaissance Office itself as a state secret. The Jumpseat program remained in operation until 2006. According to the NRO, its principal mission was “monitoring adversarial offensive and defensive weapon system development.” The agency added that “Jumpseat collected electronic emissions and signals, communications intelligence, as well as foreign instrumentation intelligence.”

The NRO said data collected by Jumpseat was routed to the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, and “other national security elements.”

Jumpseat’s primary target was the Soviet Union. The satellites were placed in highly elliptical orbits with altitudes from a few hundred miles up to about 24,000 miles (39,000 kilometers). Their flight paths were inclined so apogee—the highest point in the orbit—occurred over the far northern hemisphere. Since satellites move slowest at apogee, the Jumpseat craft spent much of their roughly 12-hour orbit lingering above the Arctic, including areas of Russia, Canada, and Greenland.

That trajectory provided sustained coverage over the Arctic and Soviet territory—an advantage the Soviet Union had already recognized. A few years before the first Jumpseat launch in 1971, the Soviets began placing communications and early-warning satellites into similar orbits. They called the path Molniya, the Russian word for lightning.

A Jumpseat satellite prior to launch.

Credit:
National Reconnaissance Office

The Jumpseat name first appeared in Seymour Hersh’s 1986 book about the Soviet shoot-down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983. Hersh reported that Jumpseat satellites could “intercept all kinds of communications,” including voice exchanges between Soviet ground personnel and pilots.