POPPY

GRAB

In the mid-1950s, the U.S. military had the problem that it couldn't locate Soviet Block radar stations deep inside denied territory. After a team led by the Naval Research Lab (NRL) had successfully placed the Vanguard 1 satellite in orbit in March 1958, the NRL began to propose a simple ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) satellite, with a 51 cm (20 inch) diameter and fitted with an S-band radar receiver, to collect information about Soviet radar systems. In August 1959, the project was approved for development under the name Tattletale. However, it was officially cancelled almost immediately, because its name had been compromised. A new program, with effectively the same scope, was started under the name GRAB. This was supposed to be an acronym for Galactic Radiation Background, disguising the ELINT mission as a scientific one. The public name of the satellites was subtly different, though - GREB (Galactic Radiation Energy Balance). The NRL's name for the satellite was Dyno. Last but not least, there was the Navy's SOLRAD program, a series of satellites/payloads to measure solar radiation, and under that name the GRAB/Dyno missions were eventually announced to the public. This proliferation of cover names is somewhat unusual, and especially the very similar GREB/GRAB reportedly resulted in some confusion even in the NRL.

Photo: NRL

GRAB

The first GRAB satellite was launched on 22 June 1960 with a Thor-Ablestar rocket, together with the larger Transit-2A navigation satellite. GRAB 1 reached an orbit of around 600 km × 1100 km, and had a useful life of 90 days. It was the first satellite with an ELINT payload, and the first succesful U.S. spy satellite at all (beating the first successful CORONA mission by almost 2 months). On the ground, specially configured control stations were used to control the satellites and receive the ELINT data. GRAB 1 successfully demonstrated, that Soviet military radar emissions could be acquired from space in useful quality and quantity. The actual analysis of the ELINT data received from GRAB (and the later follow-up programs) was done by the National Security Agency.

Of four follow-up attempts to launch GRAB satellites, only one reached orbit. GRAB 2 had a two-band radar receiver, and worked for 14 months. Because it failed to separate from another satellite on the same launch ("Injun 1", a scientific payload), its useful service time was significantly reduced, though.

GRAB Launch List

• No.: Sequential flight number for GRAB satellites
• Name: Unclassified name of the satellite
• COSPAR ID: International designation of the satellite

GRAB launches

POPPY

During the 2nd half of 1962, the management of the NRL's ELINT satellite program was transferred to the newly-formed National Reconnaissance Office. The NRO assigned the name POPPY to the program, and desginated the individual missions in the Mission 7100 series. The unclassified program number was Program 770, which also covered the much larger ELINT payloads of the SAMOS F lineage. All POPPY launches used Thor-Agena D based launch vehicles, and orbited several satellites, from two in the first mission to four in the final ones. The first POPPY satellites had the same 51 cm (20 in) diameter as GRAB, but added a 10 cm (4 in) wide equatorial band between the two half-spheres. Later satellites had the diameter increased to 61 cm (24 in), while the final iteration was a so-called "multiface" design with a diameter of 69 cm (27 in).

Photos: NRL
POPPY (24-in version, 27-in version)

The nominal orbit of POPPY was a circular one of around 920 km (500 nm) altitude and 70° inclination. But the first two missions ended up in highly elliptical orbits, because the Agena upper stage didn't work as planned. This didn't end the mission, but reduced data collection time and the overall lifetime of the satellites. The first POPPY satellites used receiver system with 4 different frequency bands, but that increased to up to 21 bands in the last missions. Almost all satellites had a useful lifetime of several years, culminating in 68 months for all four satellites of the final batch, Mission 7107.

The successor to POPPY in Mission 7100 was the PARCAE series of satellites.

POPPY Launch List

• No.: Sequential flight number for the POPPY program
• NRL PL: Naval Research Lab Payload numbers
• Type: General type of the individual satellite, given by its diameter
• Mission: Each mission had a unique NRO Mission number in the 71xx range.
• COSPAR ID: International designation of the satellite

POPPY launches

Main Sources

[1] David D. Bradburn et.al.: The SIGINT Satellite Story, NRO, 1994
[2] U.S. Navy/NRO Program C Electronic Intelligence Satellites (1958-1977), LEO Systems Program Office, September 1998
[3] A Brief History of the U.S. Low Earth Orbit Reconnaissance Programs
[4] History of the POPPY Satellite System
[5] Gunter Krebs: Gunter's Space Page (for launch lists)

Back to Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, Appendix 3

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Last Updated: 13 July 2025