Once upon a time, when the earliest spy satellites were developed, there wasn’t an easy way to send high-quality image data over the air. The satellites would capture images on film and dump out cartridges back to earth with parachutes that would be recovered by military planes.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://hackaday.com/2023/12/19/parachute-drops-are-still-a-viable-solution-for-data-recovery-from-high-altitude-missions/