Mike McConnell, U.S. Director of National Intelligence
WASHINGTON DC, June 26, 2007 - Satnews Daily - Doubt lingers whether the unnamed multibillion-dollar program director of national intelligence Mike McConnell said he had “killed” is really the secret “Misty” Stealth Reconnaissance Imaging Spacecraft program.
McConnell did not specify the program he cancelled when he abruptly shifted to the topic while talking about diversity in the workplace before an intelligence community audience. He did, however, confirm a multibillion-dollar program had been yanked.
Speculation later pointed to the Misty stealth satellite program as McConnell’s victim. McConnell later declined to comment when asked to clarify which program he cut.
His spokesman also declined to comment but noted that McConnell had the power to make this type of decision. Other defense industry and media sources later said Misty was indeed the program McConnell terminated.
New Mexico Rep. Heather Wilson, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee's panel on technical intelligence, said the decision to end Misty was based on cost, schedule and performance.
The Misty program, however, is so secret its real name is unknown, and the word Misty is its accepted designation. No U.S. legislator has publicly acknowledged the existence of the program.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, a member of the House committee on intelligence, however, wouldn’t identify the program McConnell said he cancelled, according to media reports. Hoekstra said he doubts Misty is truly gone. He noted its congressional allies could find a way to bring it back to life through a bill. He also noted that the White House has not sent a revised version of its budget to Congress reflecting McConnell's change.
Misty has survived several attempts by both the Senate and the House to kill it. In 2004, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence twice tried to end the program, which survived because of support from the Senate and House appropriations committees and the House intelligence committee.
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) said the House-Senate conference committee working on the 2005 intelligence authorization bill voted to terminate the program for the past two years, only to be overruled by the appropriations committees.
Opponents of Misty cite the program’s huge and escalating cost as a main reason for its cancellation. The program’s cost has almost doubled: from $5 billion to nearly $9.5 billion. Its relevancy, designed as it is to spy on other countries and not terrorists, has also been questioned.
The program involves two in-orbit stealth satellites—Misty-1 and Misty-2. Misty-1 was deployed by the space shuttle Atlantis in March 1990, and Misty-2 by a Titan IV-B in May 1999. Both spacecraft have service lives of 7-1/2 years, which means both Misty-1 and Misty-2 should now be inoperative.
A third and last satellite, Misty-3, is reportedly bring built by Lockheed Martin, prime contractor for the Misty spacecraft, and will be launched between 2008 and 2010 by an EELV. The cancellation of the program, if accurate, will only affect Misty-3.
All the spacecraft, which are about the size of a city bus, have optical and radar stealth characteristics that make detection from the ground and calculating their overfly times extremely difficult. They are imaging intelligence satellites that carry high-resolution digital cameras and radar imaging devices. The spacecraft are nuclear war, laser and battle hardened.
Protection from optical and radar detection is achieved through the use of either an antiradar screen or a special cone-shaped Mylar balloon that lowers the radar and optical signature of the satellite. The black colored satellites are supposed to carry deployable decoys and radar and light reflecting cloaking devices, but none has been confirmed as being deployed on the satellites.
The Misty low observable spacecraft program was initially justified on the basis that it would help the administration of then U.S. President Ronald Reagan catch the USSR cheating on arms control.
