December 6, 2019

Colloquium Topic: Analysis of Soviet Space and Missile Programs during the Early Cold War

This presentation describes the intercept, recording and processing of the telemetry from the Soviet Space and Missile programs during the early phases of the Cold War. It will describe how the data generated enabled the analysts to determine the Soviet systems capabilities and how the Intelligence Community transferred from analog processing to digital processing of the intercepted signals.

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Colloquium Speaker: John O'Hara

Dr. John O’Hara has a BSEE from the University of Arizona, a MSEE from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D in Electronic Engineering is from the Catholic University of America. He served in the US Air Force as both an enlisted man and a commissioned officer and is a graduate of the National War College.

During a 55 year career with the National Security Agency he held many significant positions including being a design engineer for special purpose systems, Chief of a major satellite program, Chief of all NSA worldwide ELINT (electronic intelligence) programs, Chief of NSA Advanced Research, and NSA Deputy Chief Scientist.

One of his major accomplishments was breaking out the first signals transmitted from the moon by the USSR in 1966.

He has received many awards from NSA and from technical organizations. He is a member of the AOC technology hall of fame and was the recipient of the 2007 AOC gold medal award.