One of the major issues that I didn't discuss in my early coverage of military spaceflight was operations by nations outside of the United States, most notably the Soviet Union. The Soviets were somewhat slower to adopt satellite reconnaissance than the United States, as they were able to take advantage of the openness of American society to gather information on their enemy. Instead, they spent the late 50s protesting the "illegal" American satellites, although development began on recon satellites shortly after Sputnik went up.

A Zenit capsule
The Soviets faced several challenges. They were shorter on technical skills than the Americans, limiting the number of programs they could run at one time, and because, unlike the US, they had not spent the last decade and more building up their strategic reconnaissance capabilities, they were also short on the sophisticated cameras that would be needed by a reconnaissance satellite. Fortunately, they could kill two birds with one stone, by using the same Vostok capsule that carried Yuri Gagarin into orbit, but with a bunch of cameras instead of an astronaut. This was very useful, as it meant the cameras and film were kept in a pressurized environment, and the cameras could be reused, although it required a significantly larger booster than the American system.1 This program, codenamed Zenit, lasted until 1994, although with significant evolution over its lifespan. The early versions had no ability to alter their orbits, and relied on batteries, limiting them to only a few days in orbit, while later versions could stay up for two weeks thanks to solar panels and could remain over a specific area for most of their operational life. Read more...
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