Pentagon Access to Space Crippled by Disasters : But Loss of Shuttle, Titan Has Not Led to Intelligence Catastrophe, Experts Say

Although the combined losses of the space shuttle Challenger and a Titan rocket have “severely crippled” the Pentagon’s access to space, the disasters have not led to an intelligence catastrophe, a senior Pentagon official and other space experts believe.

The failure of the Titan 34-D rocket as it lifted off the launching pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base last Friday has focused attention on its mysterious cargo and on the murky world of high-technology intelligence gathering.

Disclosure Unsettling

Among the experts who try to monitor extremely secretive satellite spying, the disclosure that the payload aboard the doomed Titan was not a KH-11 photo reconnaissance satellite, as earlier believed, has resulted in confusion--bordering on disbelief. It also has brought the suggestion that the government has opened a “disinformation” campaign to help hide its intelligence capabilities as well as the scope of the loss.

‘Worrisome Implications’

A senior Pentagon official who is well-informed on intelligence operations refused to disclose details of the extent of the loss. But, he said in an interview, “believe me--it has worrisome implications.”

With the exception of a number of smaller rockets used to lift relatively light payloads into orbit, the Pentagon depends on the Titan 34-D and the space shuttle to deploy the satellites used for electronic eavesdropping, photo reconnaissance and early warning of Soviet missile launches.

Does the loss of the Titan’s cargo mean that “the Soviets can do something and start a nuclear war?” he asked rhetorically, answering quickly that such is not the case. But, he said, “there are certain capabilities that will have to be delayed getting into space.”

“Your access to space is severely crippled. That does not mean that the United States has been put at any greatly increased risk,” he said. “It’s not a catastrophic (loss) unless it goes too long.”

AF Delays Launches

The Air Force has said that it will not attempt to launch another Titan 34-D until it has determined the cause of Friday’s explosion. The senior Pentagon official and others have said that the investigation will delay subsequent launches for a minimum of four months and probably at least six months.

Similarly, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is delaying a shuttle launch until the causes of the Jan. 28 Challenger loss are determined and corrected.

“As a result, some of the very high priority national security payloads are not going to get up there,” the Pentagon official said.

Reviewing the results so far of the investigation of the failure, he said the loss does not appear related to a design flaw. “The countdown was flawless. Everything looked good for the few seconds” of flight, he said.

Leak in Previous Launch

Nor does the failure appear similar to one that occurred during the previous Titan 34-D launching, on Aug. 28, when a pump froze and a massive oxidizer leak occurred. However, the official said, while the results of that malfunction are known, “what we didn’t ascertain was the fundamental causes of the failure.”

The confusion over the Titan’s payload, one official said, leaves Pentagon experts satisfied that public speculation about U.S. satellites, their functions and capabilities could only make it more difficult for the Soviet Union to determine accurately the extent of the nation’s aerial intelligence gathering and the damage caused by the shuttle and Titan losses.

And that view--as well as the report that the cargo was not a KH-11 satellite--led Jeffrey Richelson, a space policy expert at American University here, to say that “this is a perfect opportunity” for “disinformation.”

“If I was running the National Reconnaissance Office and I lost a KH-11, I would certainly put out the word that I had not,” said John Pike, assistant director of the Federation of American Scientists.

Paul Stares, a research associate at the Brookings Institution who specializes in space-related defense issues, said that--although the launching site, the size of the Titan and the timing of the launch pointed to a KH-11 payload--the cargo could have been a Satellite Data System, which he described as a semisecret satellite believed to provide a communications relay for the KH-11, and possibly for other satellites.

However, Stares conceded, the cargo may have been “something we haven’t seen before.”