Intel gathering

Everything We Know About America's Secret KH-11 Recon Satellites

Spy satellites have been with us since the dawn of the Space Age. In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which maintains a database of operational satellites, says that as of March, there were more than 2,000 of the devices in Earth orbit, 176 of which were operated by the U.S. military. (In total, roughly 5,000 satellites are in orbit, most no longer operational.) It’s a good bet that many of those are loaded down with cameras and other sensors used to keep tabs on adversaries.

But while we’ve known about these high-flying cameras for decades, and indeed seen them crop up with usually exaggerated capabilities in spy films, their true powers have been closely guarded secrets. At least, that is, until President Donald Trump on Friday appeared to tweet out an image of an exploded rocket launch facility in Iran taken by a U.S. spy satellite, an image that showed just how good U.S. hardware is at securing crisp, high-resolution images.