
Close encounters of the classified kind - quakeguy
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3277/1
======
LMYahooTFY
Very interesting.

If I recall the details correctly, there have been observations recently of
another NRO satellite in a geostationary orbit above the middle east and west
Asia, that apparently can maneuver and reposition itself.

And if I'm still not mistaken (may have been a different satellite) it was
confirmed that this satellite had extraordinarily high communications
bandwidth and was speculated to be used either for SIGINT or for operating
UAVs.

Anyone interested in it, other classified satellites and classified things on
the map in general should look up Trevor Paglen. He's a Geographer who's
recently begun taking pretty spectacular shots of classified satellites.

~~~
dkersten
> it was confirmed that this satellite had extraordinarily high communications
> bandwidth and was speculated to be used either for SIGINT or for operating
> UAVs.

Given that the recently launched civillian satellite Viasat-2 has a bandwidth
of 300Gb/s and a reported expected latency of about 25ms, its not hard to
imagine that a classified satellite like this may have crazy high bandwidth
and low latency, perfect for reconnaissance, SIGNINT or operating UAVs.

~~~
sephamorr
Not sure where you got the 25ms number from. Viasat-2 is in geostationary
orbit at 35000km. The roundtrip speed of light delay alone is 240ms.

~~~
dkersten
I’ll try to find the source. I guess it must have been mistaken given what you
said.

EDIT: Haven’t found the source. I did find that the existing ViaSat-1 latency
(on Exede, and actual ping times not satellite->ground latency) is 600 to
700ms, so that’s roughly in line with what you said. Exede do a bunch of
latency compensation where they can so people often report lower latency, but
for eg online games that obviously won’t work.

I also know that what I read before was specific to airplane in-flight
internet, although I doubt commercial flight altitude make any difference to
latency, so that’s likely an irrelevant point.

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rdtsc
A test and demo of capabilities such that Russians and Chinese notice is the
most plausible explanation I'd guess. Not sure if they cared if amateurs
noticed or not.

~~~
nabla9
It's impossible to hide anything in leo from Russians or Chinese. They have
their own radar and telescope surveillance networks. They always notice.

~~~
kryptiskt
Stealth satellites aren't impossible given that all the tech has already been
developed for Earthbound use, and unlike aircraft you only have to make the
Earth-facing side stealthy.

~~~
Teever
How do you make the stealth satellite not block star light as it passive in
front of them from the perspective of a ground based observer?

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elfchief
Anyone know what software they use to do the Vimeo video in that article? I've
been wondering for a while, when I've seen videos like that...

~~~
slandersson
Often either STK (expensive, but there is a free version) or CNES VTS (free)

Source: I use them both at work.

Links:

[https://www.agi.com/products/engineering-
tools](https://www.agi.com/products/engineering-tools)

[https://logiciels.cnes.fr/content/vts](https://logiciels.cnes.fr/content/vts)

------
slr555
Allow me to don a shiny new cap of quality Reynolds aluminum foil and say
this.

If it was meant to be observed, and if it was intentional, and if it was
nearly "danger close", couldn't this suggest that USA 276 is a platform in
development not just to deploy sensors for observation but perhaps to, in the
future host systems for engaging and destroying satellites.

~~~
onion2k
Would there be a necessity to get close to a satellite to destroy it? Some
sort of rocket could be launched from quite far away without needing much fuel
if it was already in a similar orbit.

~~~
exhilaration
No need for such a complex solution, the Chinese just launch a missile from
the ground: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-
satellite_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-
satellite_missile_test)

~~~
WJW
So do the Americans:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost)
.

If you can get close to a satellite however, you can take photo's from up
close or from arbitrary angles. Spy agencies might be very interested in this.
You could conceivably also put in inside your cargo bay and bring it back to
the surface for 'disassembly', though its owners would probably be unhappy
about that.

~~~
sliverstorm
You mean like they did with the space shuttle? :)

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dooglius
Huh, I thought that orbit details of all satellites was tracked. If not,
collisions probably become much more of an issue.

~~~
nabla9
They are. Not everything is published. In US tracking is done by military, not
NASA.

~~~
dboreham
In North Dakota, at Concrete.

