John Pike posted the following ITAR-TASS report on two Usenet newsgroups: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ITAR-TASS reported, that according to an "informed source in the Ministry of Defense, at 0:18 Moscow Time of Dec 6 the satellite of the Key Hole type was launched from Vandenberg USAF Base. Now the satellite is in low Earth orbit with the following parameters: - inclination 98.7 deg, - period of revolution 95.7 min, - height in an apogee 976 km, - height in a perigee 156 km. During the nearest day after several maneuvers the satelite will be inserted into an operational orbit. As the source reported, currently there have been already two similar reconnaissance satellites. ..." --------------------------------------------------------------------------