When the Americans secretly captured and dissembled a Soviet satellite, one of the night’s many challenges was replacing a plastic seal covering some part.
The engine had been removed, “but its mounting brackets, as well as the fuel and oxidizer tanks, were still in place,” recalled Finer. That was when they hit a problem. The only way to see inside the machinery was to remove a four-way electrical outlet, but it was encased behind a plastic seal bearing a Soviet stamp. The team needed to leave the spacecraft exactly as they found it. But if the Soviets noticed a missing seal, the game would be up. Could they make a replacement in the middle of the night?
… “My technicians were working all that night,” Zambernardi recalled. “That night we developed 280 photographs. We also had 60 samples of valves. We had samples of the fluid, rocketry fluid, or what have you.”
As they put the assembly back together, the CIA car returned: inside was a perfect counterfeit Soviet seal. They could now reseal the panel and conceal their theft.