Zirconic

Common card · No. 476547

Zirconic was a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) codename for a program established under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan to develop reconnaissance satellites equipped with stealth technology. Zirconic operated as a sensitive compartmented information program and included the Misty spacecraft, designed to reduce radar, visible, infrared, and laser signatures. Access to related classified material required a dedicated "Zirconic clearance", and the program's development effort was internally codenamed Nebula. Misty deployments began in 1990, when Misty 1 launched aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis and was deployed over the side rather than through a conventional payload bay ejection; amateur observers nevertheless tracked it within months. Misty 2 followed in 1999 on a Titan IV-B rocket, during which observers noted the release of a high-altitude decoy intended to obscure the true payload's orbit. By the early 2000s, Zirconic had become one of the largest single line items in the U.S. intelligence...

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