The National Reconnaissance Office, the agency overseeing the US government’s fleet of spy satellites, has declassified a decades-old program used to eavesdrop on the Soviet Union’s military communication signals. Jumpseat satellites operated until 2006. This trajectory gave the Jumpseat satellites persistent coverage over the Arctic and the Soviet Union, which first realized the utility of such an orbit. Credit: National Reconnaissance Office A Jumpseat satellite before launch. Hersh wrote that the Jumpseat satellites could “intercept all kinds of communications,” including voice messages between Soviet ground personnel and pilots.