John Pike has posted the following message on a number of newsgroups. It's interesting that the two "unidentified" geosynchronous satellites found by Rainer Kracht are near the locations of US CSID-E2 and E3/E4. (Although the message is dated 16 February, it just appeared on my server.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Pike <johnpike@fas.org> Newsgroups: sci.space.policy,sci.astro.amateur,alt.politics.org.cia,alt.politics.org.nsa,rec.radio.amateur.space Subject: GEO Orbital Locations of US SIGINT Satellites [check them out!!] Date: 16 Feb 1996 00:29:59 GMT Organization: Federation of American Scientists At the 1995 World Radio Conference, the US registered the following satellites as operating in the 17.8-21.2 GHz downlink and 30-31 GHz uplink bands. station longitude US CSID-A1 E 000 US CSID-A2 E 044 US CSID-A3 E 075 US CSID-A4 E 082 US CSID-A5 E 092 US CSID-A6 E 110 US CSID-E1 W 010 US CSID-E2 W 013 US CSID-E3 W 024 US CSID-E4 W 030 US CSID-W1 W 141 US CSID-W2 W 144 The US also registered US CSID-P non-GSO [63 degrees, 39400-1000 km, 8 satellites] [source: WRC-95 Document 235(Rev.2)-E 14 November 1995] ------------------ It is to be expected that geostationary SIGINT [VORTEX, MAGNUM, etc] birds will be found occupying some [but perhaps not all] of the registered orbital locations, and that the HEO registrations cover JUMPSEAT/TRUMPET spacecraft. These systems have been operating at these locations since the 1970s, and their spectrum/orbit allocations were grandfathered to protect them from potential interferrence from new KA-band applicants, such as Teledesic. These systems are associated with two ground stations, one in the Washington area, and the other at Castle Rock near Denver. These ground stations have a 200 dbi gain. -- John Pike Federation of American Scientists http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/ CyberStrategy Project http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/cp/ Intelligence Reform Project http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/irp/ Military Analysis Network http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/man/ Space Policy Project http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/spp/