>>1584455>HubbleThe HST was no off the shelf satellite, let me remind you.
It was designed to make use of a spare Kennen satellite bus developed by the National Reconnaissance Office. These things provide an optical resolution of about 10 cm on the surface of the earth, if Donald's tweet of a classified image is an accurate representation of its ability.
The Kennen satellite bus was designed explicitly to fit inside a Space Shuttle, and fits very snugly inside. The idea was that once SLC-6 was completed at Vandenberg AFB, the Space Shuttle would carry out classified NRO missions to launch, service and return Kennen class satellites from Sun-Synchronous Orbit, possibly even performing 2 orbit flights in order to avoid being observed by the Soviet Union.
Of course, what happened was that the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up, and almost all DOD missions with the Space Shuttle were cancelled, including NRO missions. Vandenberg AFB would only ever see one shuttle sitting on the pad, Enterprise, and SLC-6 would be mothballed until it's conversion to being a Delta IV launch facility.
Hubble still got launched, but it was the only one of its kind to have this.
Another Kennen class satellite bus was donated to NASA, becoming the WFIRST, but it was cancelled.
