satellites that are placed in orbit for spying. Some US satellites are:
Trumpet(sat) Keyhole, Lacrosse(sat), Vortex-II, Orion-II.
Some older US satellites are:
Pioneer/Samos

The original spy satellite program in the U.S. was called 'Corona' and used satellites that dropped film canisters to parachute back to earth, where they were supposed to be snagged by cargo planes equipped with hooks. As may be imagined, it took quite a while to make this complicated sequence of events work properly. Corona imagery was only recently (<5 years) declassified.

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