Things that go boom in the night.docVIP

A Soyuz launch earlier this year. Another Soyuz launch nearly 30 years ago ended disastrously, out of public view but whose aftermath was noticed by the US intelligence community. (credit: NASA) Things that go boom in the night by Dwayne DayMonday, July 8, 2013 Last week a Russian Proton rocket exploded in spectacular fashion at the primary Russian launch facility at Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The rocket lifted off, wobbled, looped, and started breaking apart in fiery clumps before slamming into the ground and exploding. We know all this because there were a lot of people on site to film it in real time, or post their videos to YouTube shortly thereafter. This is, after all, the modern age. But when Russian rockets blew themselves to smithereens during the Cold War, usually there was no public acknowledgement of the failure by Soviet officials, who preferred to conceal their embarrassments. The United States intelligence community, however, was often watching. And occasionally American officials sought to advertise the failure for propaganda purposes, even if they could not show evidence of it. Such was the case with the explosion of a Soyuz rocket in September 1983 that came close to killing two cosmonauts. Newly declassified CIA documents now reveal some of what the US intelligence community knew about this event. Newly declassified CIA documents now reveal some of what the US intelligence community knew about the September 1983 Soyuz launch failure. According to a declassified document from the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC, pronounced “enpick”), which was charged with analyzing satellite reconnaissance photographs, in fall 1983 American spy satellites spotted preparations for a space launch at the sprawling Soviet missile and space launch range at what was then called “Tyuratam,” specifically what the CIA labeled “Launch Site A1.” A1 was in fact the most famous launch pad at Tyuratam, both for the Soviet Union and the rest of the world. When