CLASSIFIED

OPS 5712 (P/L 160)

Declassified Cold War Naval SIGINT Satellite · National Reconnaissance Office (US Navy)

OPS 5712 (P/L 160) is the real name history remembers as Poppy 5A — one of the National Reconnaissance Office's Poppy-series naval signals-intelligence satellites, launched May 31, 1967 to eavesdrop on Soviet naval radar and radio emissions from orbit. The Poppy program's existence was only acknowledged by the NRO in 2005, and its full operational history — including which cataloged objects were actually Poppy satellites — was not declassified until 2012. Nearly six decades after launch, the hardware itself is still up there.