[libertyhouse]

I probably shouldn't have said it's "easier" to declassify. It's more of simply being a matter of deciding that the NIIRS (basically resolution) rating of the imagery from the OBC is low enough relative to other sensors and collection platforms that it won't provide much of an advantage to an adversary.

The embedded Linux system that was added to the OBC also provided a continuously variable Velocity over Height (V/H) control that allowed the OBC to collect imagery at lower altitudes than what it was originally designed for. This improves the quality of the imagery but at a lower area coverage rate as a tradeoff.

Film from the OBC is digitzed, ortho-rectified, and exploited as soft-copy. Back in the day it was done on mechanical light tables.

A good video that shows some of the film and other details is located here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uemrNDEWgzA