Speculations on POPPY - Jonathan McDowell
Despite the declassification of POPPY, it's still not clear which
satellites were POPPY satellites. Here I put down my own guesses,
but mainly I point out that things are confused. Comments welcome.
The POPPY fact sheet says that "A total of seven POPPY satellites
launched into space from 1962 to 1971".
For the time being I am assuming that this is false and that it should
read "There were a total of seven launches in the POPPY program from
1962 to 1971". The followon program starting in 1976 involved multiple
satellites, and the final POPPY launch in 1971 consisted of four
apparently identical satellites.
The alternate possibility is that one of the four 1971-110 payloads
was a POPPY and the other three were something different.
That's not impossible, but I'd be surprised.
On the assumption, then, that each launch might have multiple POPPY
satellites, let's try and identify them. For each launch I list
at the bottom of this
all objects noted in the US Space Command SATCAT as payloads, and
their SATCAT names. I also list the satellites listed for that
launch date in a summary of NRL-launched spacecraft from the
Naval Center for Space Technology; there's no
mapping given between those names and the international designations
(e.g. NRL 130 is one of the 1963-021 objects but we don't know
which one). There are also blatant inconsistencies between
the two sources - for instance, on 1963-021 "Dosimeter" and "PL 112"
are separate satellites in the NCST list, in contrast to 1963-021D
"RADOSE 112" which suggests the two are the same radiation
dosimeter satellite.
Nevertheless, we can make some guesses. Look at the NCST listings,
and accept my guess that the last POPPY launch is the quartet
of payloads 171-174, listed by NCST as gravity gradient experiments.
Then notice that the 1969-082 launch has similar payloads 161-164;
and that 1967-053 has payloads 151 and 153 listed interspersed with
GGSE 4 and 5:
PL 151 Grav Grad expt.
GGSE IV Grav Grad expt.
PL 153 Grav Grad expt.
GGSE V Grav Grad expt.
I'm guessing the GGSEs here are PL152 and PL154, completing the
quartet. Published papers show they had different boom configurations.
Now I'm guessing that the GGSE (Gravity Gradient Stabilization
Experiment) series was linked to POPPY; that POPPY flights
were gravity-stabilized and GGSE was used to improve them. GGSE satellites
may be modified POPPY satellites with no ELINT payload, or may
be fully functional POPPY with the GGSE test as an add-on experiment.
So working further back, in the previous launch (launch 4) there's no quartet,
but we can look at the following candidates; Solrad satellites
are included because they were used in the GRAB program.
Launch 1:
PL 120 Classified
PL 121 Classified
Launch 2:
SR VI Solar X-rays
PL 112 Classified
Launch 3:
SR VIIA Solar X-rays
GGSE 1 Grav grad exp.
PL 135 Classified
Launch 4:
SR VIIB Solar X-rays
PL 142 Classified
GGSE II Grav. grad exp.
GGSE III Grav. grad exp.
I'll advance the following hypotheses:
- Hypothesis 1. All the above satellites were POPPY or, in the
case of GGSE, POPPY-related.
- Hypothesis 2: The POPPY satellites were SR VI, SR VIIA, SR VIIB,
continuing the GRAB/SOLRAD cover story. The Dec 1962
launch was one of PL120 and PL121, with the other one being
a thermal control experiment ("BLACK SPHERE" in the SATCAT;
the "SURCAL 1" in the SATCAT is assumed to be an error, since
SURCAL 1 was lost in a Jan 1962 launch failure).
- Hypothesis 3: After the GRAB program ended, the SOLRAD series
became fully scientific because POPPY needed a whole satellite to
itself and couldn't share. The GGSE satellites weren't related
to POPPY. The POPPY satellites were
PL120 or PL121; PL112; PL135; and PL142. I still think
that PL 151/153, PL 161-164, PL171-174 were POPPY group flights.
APPENDIX: NRL SATELLITES ON POPPY LAUNCHES
==========================
POPPY LAUNCH 1: 1962 BETA TAU
==========================
SATCAT
B TAU 1: BLACK SPHERE
B TAU 3: SURCAL 1
B TAU 4: SURCAL 1A
B TAU 5: CALSPHERE 1A
NCST:
PL 120 Classified
PL 121 Classified
SURCAL II SPASUR Calib
CALSPHERE I Object identification
==========================
POPPY LAUNCH 2: 1963-021
==========================
SATCAT:
63-021B LOFTI 2A
63-021C SOLRAD 6
63-021D RADOSE 112
63-021E FTV 1292
63-021F SURCAL 1B
NCST:
SR VI Solar X-rays
LOFTI IIB Low freq radio
PL 112 Classified
Dosimeter Radiation counter
SURCAL III SPASUR calib
==========================
POPPY LAUNCH 3: 1964-001
==========================
SATCAT:
64-001B GGSE 1 (GGRS)
64-001D SOLRAD 7A
64-001E GREB
NCST:
SR VIIA Solar X-rays
GGSE 1 Grav grad exp.
PL 135 Classified
==========================
POPPY LAUNCH 4: 1965-016
==========================
65-016A OPS 4988 (GREB 6)
65-016B GGSE 2
65-016C GGSE 3
65-016D SOLRAD 7B
65-016G SURCAL 2
65-016H PORCUPINE 1
NCST:
SR VIIB Solar X-rays
PL 142 Classified
GGSE II Grav. grad exp.
GGSE III Grav. grad exp.
SURCAL IV SPASUR calib.
DODECAPOLE I Object identification
==========================
POPPY LAUNCH 5: 1967-053
==========================
SATCAT:
67-053A OPS 5712 (P/L 160)
67-053C GGSE 4
67-053D GGSE 5
67-053E TIMATION 1
67-053F SURCAL 159
67-053G OPS 5712 (P/L 152)
67-053H OPS 5712 (P/L 153)
67-053J SURCAL 150B
NCST:
PL 151 Grav Grad expt.
GGSE IV Grav Grad expt.
PL 153 Grav Grad expt.
GGSE V Grav Grad expt.
TIMATION I Navigation
CALSPHERE III Object identification
CALSPHERE IV Object identification
==========================
POPPY LAUNCH 6: 1969-082
==========================
SATCAT
(69-082A OPS 1807 USAF/NRO Program A aft rack payload?)
69-082B OPS 7613 (P/L 1)
69-082C TIMATION 2
69-082D OPS 7613 (P/L 3)
69-082E OPS 7613 (P/L 4)
69-082F OPS 7613 (P/L 5)
69-082G OPS 7613 (P/L 6)
69-082H TEMPSAT
69-082J SOICAL (CYLINDER)
69-082K SOICAL (CONE)
NCST:
PL 161 Grav grad expt.
PL 162 Grav grad expt.
PL 163 Grav grad expt.
PL 164 Grav grad expt.
TIMATION II Navigation
PL 176 Classified
TEMPSAT II Thermal design expt.
==========================
POPPY LAUNCH 7: 1971-110
==========================
71-110A OPS 7898 (P/L 1)
71-110C OPS 7898 (P/L 2)
71-110D OPS 7898 (P/L 3)
71-110E OPS 7898 (P/L 4)
NCST: PL 171 Grav grad expt.
PL 172 Grav grad expt.
PL 173 Grav grad expt.
PL 174 Grav grad expt.
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