RE: NOSS & Spysats (Cont'd)
Ted Molczan (molczan@fox.nstn.ca)
Wed, 22 May 1996 15:24:37 -0400
R.B. Minton wrote:
>also attributed this to more stealth. But one does have to admit that between
>then and now, the US has introduced stealth into its mission planning (at least
>in the form of altitude and plane changes).
I strongly doubt that any of the altitude and plane
changes we have seen are due to stealth. Most likely
they are operational requirements, but they look
stealthy to us, because we don't know what the
operational requirements are. Also, I doubt that there
is sufficient excess payload capability to permit much
orbital stunt-work. Let us briefly review the launches
of the post-Challenger era:
Lacrosse 1 was deployed by the shuttle in a 57 deg,
454 km circular orbit, and manouevred to 680 km
about one week later, where it has remained. Pretty
straight-forward.
Lacrosse 2 was launched by Titan IV into a 68 deg,
300 km by 680 km parking orbit, and almost
immediately circularized its orbit to 680 km. Again,
straight-forward.
SDS 2-1 was shuttle-deployed into a 57 deg, 300 km.
About one week later it manouevred to 454 km. It stayed
there for 3 months, before manouevring to a Molniya orbit.
This was pretty confusing, and we still don't really
know why it lingered so long in LEO. One possibility
is that it suffered some sort of malfunction that
prevented the HEO manouevre until the problem was
somehow solved. Frankly, I think we amateurs would have
been far more confused if it had made its HEO manouevre
soon after deployment - before its visibility window
precessed into the northern hemisphere were we quickly
found it.
SDS 2-2 was shuttle-deployed into a 57 deg, 330 km
orbit, where it stayed for about 6 days, before
manouevring to a Molniya orbit. Neither stealthy
nor confusing, in my opinion.
NOSS 2-1 is the only really weird LEO launch we have
seen. Its announced launch azimuth was consistent
with a 52 deg orbit, but it entered a <300 km, 61 deg
orbit. We do not know when it separated from the
Titan IV second stage, but we do know that it remained
at that altitude for about 3 days, before going to
a 454 km, 61 deg orbit. It stayed there for about 8
days, at which point, it was coplanar with the NOSS 1-8
plane, which is exactly where it deposited those
payloads. In fact, Russell Eberst stumbled across them
one night, but thought they were the NOSS 1-8 birds,
but unusually bright. (NOSS 1 sats usually are 8th
magnitude, but have been seen to brighten to 2nd
magnitude on occasion, so he did not immediately react
to their extra brightness.) On subsequent passes they
remained too bright, so he reasoned that he was looking
at something new - he explored more of the NOSS 1-8
plane, and soon found the 1-8 triad, not far from the
new ones, which he then quickly determined were from
the Titan IV launch.
I have explored some possibilities about the payloads
in a recent message, and John Pike has weighed in with
his views, so I wont rehash them now. I believe
that the initial low 61 deg parking orbits were an
operational requirement, perhaps related to placing
multiple payloads in radically different orbits, or
due to a need to catch-up to the NOSS 1-8 plane, due
to a late launch. I can't prove this, right now, but
that is my hunch.
NOSS 2-2 was briefly in a 61 deg, 275 x 670 km orbit,
if we can trust the U.N. registration of the Titan
2nd stage's orbit. Amateurs found the stage in a
63.4 deg orbit, nearly identical to that of the latest
Titan IV launch. Otherwise, not very confusing in
terms of manouevres - the NOSS 2-2 triad manouevred
to their current plane and altitude very soon after
launch.
Finally, there is USA 53, which I discussed at length
from a debris point of view in yesterday's post to
this thread. As far as manouevres go, it was pretty
straightforward. It was deployed in a 62 deg, 248 x
260 km orbit, but went to 271 km about 2 days later.
Four days later is manouevred to a 65 deg, 811 km
near-circular orbit. It seems clear that the plane
change was purely operational - the shuttle was
already pushing the envelope of payload capacity
and East Coast U.S.A. down-range safety to put the
payload into a very low 62 deg orbit. Once it reached
its final orbit, it made few if any manouevres for
8 months, before disappearing. The timing of this,
in mid-Nov'90, appears to have been related to the
build-up for the eventual Operation Desert Storm.
There are rumours that it was sacrificed in support
of the war - either in a very low orbit that caused
it use up its supply of orbital maintenance propellant,
or in a HEO, moderately eccentric orbit, designed to
facilitate wide-area surveillance.
>since the majority of groundstations are probably in the US, I would expect to
>find other transmissions. I'm pretty sure that military SAR transmissions are
>encrypted; but commercial SAR (such as Canada's RADARSAT) may not be. Can any-
>one add thoughts to this?
But given the TDRSS, SDS and Milstar networks, would
they transmit anything of consequence directly to
the ground, apart from radar signals? Perhaps we should
ask the Hearsat-L folks whether or not they have detected
anything from the LEO spysats.
>My basic feeling is that whenever seesat-l (or another amateur group) finds one
>of their (our!) spysats, someone in the higher echelons voices an "oh-shit" and
>a call comes into the skunkworks to add another layer of black paint to the new
>one. An example can be found at the Phillips Laboratories URL where under
>publications (or let contracts), there is a reference to studying glints from
>geosync satellites. They are obviously concerned.
Well, starting with USA 53, the Kh's are 1 magnitude
fainter, but they are still very bright, especially near
perigee. So far, we have no way to determine whether
or not this is due to stealth or a radically new bus or
solar panel design.
The NOSS 2's are 2 magnitudes brighter than the NOSS 1's,
so they would seem to be good candidates for some flat
black paint - it will be interesting to see whether or
not the 2-3 triad is any dimmer than the previous two
constellations.
>for the last decade, or two, or three .... (my first was Sputnik III R/B).
>This should open the door for a lot of "I can beat that" people.
Ah, those were the days - when everything was new, and almost every
launch set some kind of record. I can't go quite as far back as you, but
the early '60s were certainly exciting times.
bye for now