spy satellites

The new NROL-38 spy satellite will fly a clandestine mission for the National Reconnaissance Office.

See photos of the U.S. Air Force's launch of NROL-38, a spy satellite for the NRO spy agency.

Take an inside look at the U.S. spy satellites of the Cold War era.

See photos of the U.S. Air Force's launch of a new spy satellite NROL-25 from California in April 2012.

The NROL-25 mission will be the first of four clandestine spy satellites launched by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office in 2012.

Mystery still surrounds the secretive mission of the U.S. Air Force's second robotic X-37B space plane.

The spy satellites were used from the 1960s to the 1980s to observe the Soviet Union.

Unlike today's spy satellites, the Pentagon's space telescope of tomorrow could take live video of anywhere on Earth.

Life's Little Mysteries consults experts about the strange structures and patterns found in the desert in China on Google Earth. Turns out they're for spy satellites.

China launched a military recon satellite and a new university-built spacecraft during the space shot.