If you are curious what this is about. The US effectively wanted a geostationary satellite parked right over the high-latitude regions of the Soviet Union to intercept their signals.

The problem is, that geostationary satellites must orbit directly above the equator. If you try to look at northern Russia from the equator, the curvature of the Earth gets in the way.

So, the NRO used a Molniya (HEO) orbit as a clever cheat.

They launched JUMPSEAT into a stretched-out ellipse. Because of orbital mechanics, a satellite moves incredibly fast when it's close to Earth (perigee) but slows down dramatically when it's far away (apogee). It spends about 10 hours of its 12-hour orbit just loitering high above the USSR, slowly drifting across the sky, essentially emulating a geostationary satellite.

Molniya, the Russian word for “lightning”, of course indicates that the equivalent Russian agency was aware of and used this orbit, also.

Thanks for filling in the missing link on why this program was special. Otherwise, it just seems like an announcement that NRO does indeed use satellites.