Editing Imagery intelligence (section)

===Early use of satellites===
[[File:Iraq-030205-powell-un-slide-15.jpg|thumb|right|Serum and Vaccine Institute in [[Al-A'amiriya]], Iraq, as imaged by a US reconnaissance satellite in November 2002.]]
Early photographic reconnaissance satellites used photographic film, which was exposed on-orbit and returned to earth for developing.  These satellites remained in orbit for days, weeks, or months before ejecting their film-return vehicles, called "buckets". Between 1959 and 1984 the U.S. launched around 200 such satellites under the codenames [[Corona (satellite)|CORONA]] and [[KH-7 Gambit|GAMBIT]], with ultimate photographic resolution (ground-resolution distance) better than {{convert|4|in|m}}.<ref name="NRO_GAMBITStory">{{cite web|url=http://www.nro.gov/history/csnr/gambhex/index.html|title=The GAMBIT Story, Appendix A, page 154, initial Sept. 2011 release|publisher=National Reconnaissance Office|date=June 1991|access-date=2013-07-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120915093330/http://www.nro.gov/history/csnr/gambhex/index.html|archive-date=2012-09-15|url-status=dead}}</ref> The first successful mission concluded on 1960-08-19 with the [[mid-air recovery]] by a [[C-119]] of film from the Corona mission code-named [[Discoverer 14]]. This was the first successful recovery of film from an orbiting satellite and the first aerial recovery of an object returning from Earth orbit.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1960-010A |title=Discoverer 14 - NSSDC ID: 1960-010A |publisher=NASA}}</ref> Because of a tradeoff between area covered and ground resolution, not all reconnaissance satellites have been designed for high resolution; the [[KH-5]]-ARGON program had a ground resolution of 140 meters and was intended for [[cartography|mapmaking]].

Between 1961 and 1994 the USSR launched perhaps 500 [[Zenit spy satellite|Zenit]] film-return satellites, which returned both the film and the camera to earth in a pressurized capsule.

The U.S. [[KH-11]] series of satellites, first launched in 1976, was made by  [[Lockheed Corporation|Lockheed]], the same contractor who built the [[Hubble Space Telescope]].  HST has a 2.4 metre telescope mirror and is believed to have had a similar appearance to the KH-11 satellites. These satellites used [[charge-coupled devices]], predecessors to modern digital cameras, rather than film. Russian reconnaissance satellites with comparable capabilities are named [[Resurs DK]] and [[Persona (satellite)|Persona]].