Cold War TELINT – STONEHOUSE (Part 6 of 6)

An adversary’s telemetry data could be collected from a variety of platforms. The U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force employed shipborne and airborne collection platforms to gather data from foreign missile tests.

NSA also sponsored a network of ground-based telemetry collection facilities that gathered information on the missile development and space activities of adversaries.

The featured photo is of the now-closed STONEHOUSE deep space TELINT facility that was located in Asmara, in Eritrea province, Ethiopia. This location had telemetry access to the Soviet command station for Soviet deep space objects and allowed reception of the command responses and telemetry from the probes. The antenna shown on the right is an 85-foot reflector, and the one on the left is a 150-foot diameter antenna. These large antennas were needed to receive the very weak telemetry signals from Soviet space probes that were as far away as the Moon, Mars, and Venus. Radiation, Inc., now part of Harris Electronic Systems Division, designed, constructed, and installed the STONEHOUSE system under contract to NSA in the early 1960s. The facility closed in 1975.

The USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg (AGM-10) and the USNS General H.H. Arnold (AGM-9) were U.S. Atlantic range instrumentation ships (ARIS) that were modified for intelligence data collection. These major mobile technical intelligence collection platforms provided radar signature data and collected telemetry data from Soviet ICBMs that impacted on the Kamchatka peninsula or in the Pacific Ocean when they were tested to their full range. The modified ARIS ships deployed on Pacific Ocean intelligence missions several times per year when Soviet ICBM tests were anticipated. The ships operated during the 1960s and 1970s. The Vandenberg was retired and now serves as an artificial reef off Key West, Florida.

Starting in 1973, DoD began development of a multi sensor collection ship to monitor Soviet strategic missile testing. It was designated the USNS Observation Island. The primary mission equipment was a sophisticated precision missile-tracking radar designated COBRA JUDY that was developed by Raytheon Corporation under a USAF contract. The ship became operational in 1982 and was retired from mission duties in 2014.