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CORONA Satellite Photography

Metadata Updated: April 10, 2025

On February 24, 1995, President Clinton signed an Executive Order,
directing the declassification of intelligence imagery acquired by the
first generation of United States photo-reconnaissance satellites, including
the systems code-named CORONA, ARGON, and LANYARD. More than 860,000 images of the Earth's surface, collected between 1960 and 1972, were declassified with the issuance of this Executive Order.

Image collection was driven, in part, by the need to confirm purported developments in then-Soviet strategic missile capabilities. The images also were used to produce maps and charts for the Department of Defense and for other Federal Government mapping programs. In addition to the images, documents and reports (collateral information) are available, pertaining to frame ephemeris data, orbital ephemeris data, and mission performance. Document availability varies by mission; documentation was not produced for unsuccessful missions.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2025
Publisher DOI/USGS/EROS
Maintainer
Identifier C1220566178-USGS_LTA
Data First Published 1960-07-31
Language en-US
Data Last Modified 2025-03-31
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id a237ec98-2428-44af-ac45-20377abd1323
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov:443/search/concepts/C1220566178-USGS_LTA.html
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -180.0 -85.0 180.0 85.0
Program Code 026:001
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash f6e96492fc9f1f2209419ca426d62918848903f365d8445edf15905bdfdcfa9f
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 1960-07-31T00:00:00Z/1972-05-31T23:59:59.999Z

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