ABOVE: Researchers used images taken by the Corona satellite system decades ago to track declines in marmot populations in Kazakhstan.
ALYONA KOSHKINA
In 1960, in a milestone that would remain classified for more than three decades, the US Air Force, CIA, and private industry partners launched the world’s first photo-snapping satellite into orbit. Known as Corona, the satellite and its successors would be sent on periodic missions for the following 12 years, chiefly targeting sites of strategic interest such as military airfields and missile silos within the territories of the Soviet Union and its allies. Once the satellite had shot its strip of film, it would release the photos in a parachute-equipped capsule over the Pacific, to be retrieved by a military plane before it could hit the water.
“I think it’s [a] really great example of human ingenuity that they were able to take such astounding photos already back then,” ...
