Rainer > After the discussions about amateurs publishing spy sat orbits, > I asked myself whether it would make sense to place such satellites > in sunsynchronous orbits with equator crossings at local > noon/midnight. > Even though this would cause technical problems, it would have the > "advantage" of making them almost invisible to people like us since > they would on be observable in sparsely populated high latitude > regions. > Would this make sense and are there any indications that such > satellites exist? > Indeed they do exist. You'll probably have seen references to USA 116, 95-66A, on SeeSat. This satellite is sun-synchronous and comes over around about local midnight. However in the northern summer the Sun shines over the north pole, and USA 116 is clearly visible every night from the UK. In fact it won't disappear over my northern horizon until October, and I'm only at 52 degrees north. Best wishes David. David M Brierley Malvern, Worcestershire, UK Station 2675, 52.1358N 2.3264W 70m -- The Information contained in this E-Mail and any subsequent correspondence is private and is intended solely for the intended recipient(s). For those other than the recipient any disclosure, copying, distribution, or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on such information is prohibited and may be unlawful. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Aug 23 2000 - 06:23:06 PDT