Hello Marco I've checked through my notes of airspace closures during July and August and there are some 'orphan' closure zones flagged up around Jiuquan and Taiyuan. Some are near known drop zones but are different in shape and size from the ones we normally see for CZ launches, and they generally don't have the right 'feel'. A launch from Taiyuan to polar orbit has a ground track that crosses the Taklamakan Desert in western China at the end of its first circuit. There are often closure NOTAMS for that area and on some occasions there are accompanying 'corridors' directly back towards Jiuquan/Taiyuan. Those are obviously missile or atmospheric flight hardware tests. Taklamakan is a good area for clandestine operations - remote, and something landing awkwardly or off-target isn't going to do a lot of damage or inconvenience residents. There are two airspace closure NOTAMs for Taklamakan during the July-August period as noted in the FT article. They have similar boundaries and there are some nearby air route closures at the same time. They are August 4 and overnight August 8/9 UTC but there are no matching NOTAMS that might relate to a CZ launch. Unlike the Soviet FOBS tests in the 1960s, there is no tell-tale rocket stage or any debris catalogued. Robert Christy > On 16 Oct 2021, at 20:14, Marco Langbroek via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org> wrote: > > Intelligence rumour that China last August tested a FOBS (Fractional Orbital Bombardment System) - a missile that briefly goes in orbit, like a satellite, and then is deorbitted to strike a target: > > https://www.ft.com/content/ba0a3cde-719b-4040-93cb-a486e1f843fb > > Marco > > _______________________________________________ > Seesat-l mailing list > http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-lReceived on Sun Oct 17 2021 - 09:10:15 UTC
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