8 ms·

The launch of a super secret spy satellite failed, the satellite is lost. No need to worry about a new spy in the sky? Seems like the sort of thing you'd HAVE

The launch of a super secret spy satellite failed, the satellite is lost. No need to worry about a new spy in the sky? Seems like the sort of thing you'd HAVE to say about a secret satellite... :-)

mikeash 9y ago
Yeah, that’s my feeling too. “Everything you could actually see worked fine, but right afterwards we, uh, like, lost it. Yes, thats right, it’s gone. No need to look for it.”
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  So, what are the chances we have more than N nukes in orbit, where N > 0? I've always wondered. The time between launch and strike would be greatly reduced. Space is pretty close to land. But beyond conspiracy theories, do we know of any confirmed secret satellites? They should be detectable, but on the other hand there are so many satellites that it'd be hard to index them all. What could you do with a secret satellite? It seems like the signals would be detectable, but I'm not sure.
  - samfriedman 9y ago
    The Outer Space Treaty forbids, among other things, the placing of weapons of mass destruction in Earth orbit. Conventional weapons are fair game though, which has led to plenty of speculation on kinetic bombardment approaches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
    - hprotagonist 9y ago
      "Rodding". OF course, hauling a few tons of tungsten up there is going to be a giant pain.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Nukes in orbit would be obvious unless you shielded the absolute crap out of them, and shielding is heavy. Besides, if you get caught with a nuke in orbit, you're in real trouble, and the benefit is...? A secret satellite though? Oh the possibilities! The big problem with satellite surveillance is that people can figure out where your bird is, and simply you know... avoid it. Granted you can't hide large buildings, but you can predict when it will fly over and hide your troop numbers, mobile launch systems, etc. How do you avoid a satellite you have no tracking data on? Of course, that would require some really impressive optical, radar, and thermal stealth tech, but that's quite plausible. Of course if you were really paranoid, then maybe you'd think this isn't a satellite, but a satellite killer. I doubt it, and there are proven options to kill satellites from the ground, but it's possible.
    - elif 9y ago
      Can you explain why they would be so easily detectable? my understanding is that many space vessels use micro-reactors for power. Couldn't you just use plutonium warheads so that they look like one of those?
      - aw1621107 9y ago
        I wouldn't say "many"; nuclear-powered vessels generally are ones that are going well beyond Earth's orbit. They also aren't "normal" nuclear reactors, since they use the heat from radioactive decay to power thermocouples, as opposed to sustaining an active fission reaction like most nuclear power plants here do.
    - cuspycode 9y ago
      I don't think unshielded nukes in orbit are easy to detect. Back on Earth you need to get up close (within a few meters) in order to distinguish the radiation signature from the background radiation, and in space the background level is much higher. Source: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R40154.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R40154.pdf (see page 78 and onwards for a discussion about detecting nukes at a distance)
      - 9y ago
  - aw1621107 9y ago
    >So, what are the chances we have more than N nukes in orbit, where N > 0? I've always wondered. Legally speaking, 0, since the Outer Space Treaty forbids placing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, and all spacefaring nations so far have signed. Even if the military kept things under wraps, I'm not so sure that stationing nukes in orbit would provide a significant advantage, as you would only be able to strike a particular target when it rotates under your orbit, which means you can hit a target only twice a day at fairly specific times, while ICBMs can be launched at any time. In addition, modern ICBMs have flight times on the order of 30 minutes ([0], [1]), so satellites aren't going to be reaching a target much faster. Edit: forgot to address another point >They should be detectable, but on the other hand there are so many satellites that it'd be hard to index them all. We already track more than half a million pieces of space debris, with 20,000 of those larger than a softball ([2]), so I'd imagine a "secret" satellite wouldn't stay secret for long. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercontinental_ballistic_missile#Flight_phases [1]: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/12028/is-it-correct-that-it-takes-approx-30-minutes-for-an-icbm-to-reach-russia [2]: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html
    - ceejayoz 9y ago
      > Legally speaking, 0, since the Outer Space Treaty forbids placing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, and all spacefaring nations so far have signed. Signing treaties didn't stop us from waterboarding torture. > Even if the military kept things under wraps, I'm not so sure that stationing nukes in orbit would provide a significant advantage, as you would only be able to strike a particular target when it rotates under your orbit, which means you can hit a target only twice a day at fairly specific times, while ICBMs can be launched at any time. The big benefit would be that a target can be wiped off the map without a giant "LOOK WE DID IT" flag immediately beforehand. > We already track more than half a million pieces of space debris, with 20,000 of those larger than a softball ([2]), so I'd imagine a "secret" satellite wouldn't stay secret for long. Space debris follows a predictable track once spotted and isn't deliberately constructed to be hard to find with visual/radar observation. This is a bit like saying stealth bombers are impossible because we can easily spot airliners.
  - ambicapter 9y ago
    Keeping nukes in orbit is not that beneficial. Its stuck on a single path orbit, and it takes only slightly less energy to de-orbit it than to put it there in the first place. ICBMs take what, half an hour, to hit a target around the world?
    - ceejayoz 9y ago
      If I slap you, chances are you can figure out who did it pretty quickly. An ICBM launch followed by a vaporized city 30 minutes later points pretty conclusively to the culprit. If a disembodied hand comes out of nowhere and slaps you, you may have difficulty proving it was me that did it, especially if the hand vaporizes in the process.
      - simonh 9y ago
        Only a few countries both have nukes and have orbital launch capability, so it's going to be an extremely short list of suspects to start with. Then there are all the other disadvantages of orbital nukes. They can only strike on their orbital path, and only when they're in the right point of the orbit, otherwise they're very expensive to re-target because it means changing orbits. Because of all those points they're actually a lot slower to target than ICMBs. If they're in a low orbit then the orbit will decay and they will come down in a few years whether you want them to or not. If they're in a high orbit the costs are even higher and they're even slower to target. Finally, they're vulnerable to detection if they're up for any length of time. They really are a terrible idea.
        ceejayoz 9y ago
        Spy satellites have had to tackle those issues for decades already (staying in orbit, retargeting, etc.). It's mostly solved problems, and the use case for such a thing would be more the "I want that factory in Iran to go away but it's OK if it takes six months" than immediate needs you'd use an ICBM for. Plausible deniability goes a long way, even if it's not very plausible. Plenty of cases in the Cold War where everyone knew a side did something they shouldn't have but couldn't prove it.
  - foobarbecue 9y ago
    > So, what are the chances we have more than N nukes in orbit, where N > 0? Your question is equivalent to "what are the chances we have more than 1 nuke in orbit." Is that what you meant?
- tc313 9y ago
  Except now everybody is looking for it...
  - cobookman 9y ago
    Which might have also been there plan.
  - ninkendo 9y ago
    I'm sure even if there was a failure you'd still be able to visibly see the satellite... it's not like the fairing separation would have caused it to suddenly lose enough delta-v to deorbit. The failure, apparently, is that they can't contact the payload, not that it disappeared.
- dullgiulio 9y ago
  Or just a justification for when it's found following a trajectory that is somewhat embarrassing to explain.
sloan_royal 9y ago
I'm sure we'd never do anything like tha... nevermind http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077830/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/spy-satellites-rise-faked-fall/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077830/ns/technology_and_science-...
- westbywest 9y ago
  Today sure was an odd time for that NBC news story to turn into 404. (Cached version still on Google, as of this writing.)
aw1621107 9y ago
We already find/track orbital debris in LEO, so I'd imagine finding a satellite should be doable by interested parties, unless there's some new tech on there that makes detection significantly harder.
- sloan_royal 9y ago
  The X-37B has been known to vanish from being tracked from time to time. We've got some clever stuff.
  - aw1621107 9y ago
    Might that be just because it changed orbit and had to be reacquired? Might take a while since you have no clue what the parameters for the new orbit are or when the burn(s) took place. Some kind of new stealth tech would be pretty cool, though.
- Kelbit 9y ago
  It's been speculated that advanced spy satellites carry thrusters and fuel to conduct frequent orbit changes. I think it's pretty telling that the DoD just did a SBIR competition for software to detect evasive behavior in space junk: https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/1319195 https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/1319195
  - aw1621107 9y ago
    > It's been speculated that advanced spy satellites carry thrusters and fuel to conduct frequent orbit changes. That's not really surprising; I'd imagine most long-term satellites carry thrusters and at least some amount of fuel for stationkeeping, especially in geostationary orbit. It'd definitely make it much more difficult to track, unless you keep something pointed at it 24/7 so you notice the change in velocity. And nice find with the SBIR competition! Does seem to point towards satellites being much more difficult to track than I thought if they're constantly moving.
samfriedman 9y ago
And that interpretation is so obvious that you have to wonder if the satellite really is some classified new reentry vehicle, and the decision to publicly announce its loss is designed to make adversaries devote resources to looking for a super-stealth satellite that isn't there.
elif 9y ago
"Unfortunately, we decided to take our spy satellite on a hunting expedition, and it was permanently lost when our canoe tipped over. We looked for hours, but could not find it in that lake"

The launch of a super secret spy satellite failed, the satellite is lost. No need to worry about a new spy in the sky? Seems like the sort of thing you'd HAVE to say about a secret satellite... :-)

mikeash 9y ago

Yeah, that’s my feeling too. “Everything you could actually see worked fine, but right afterwards we, uh, like, lost it. Yes, thats right, it’s gone. No need to look for it.”

sillysaurus3 9y ago
So, what are the chances we have more than N nukes in orbit, where N > 0? I've always wondered. The time between launch and strike would be greatly reduced. Space is pretty close to land. But beyond conspiracy theories, do we know of any confirmed secret satellites? They should be detectable, but on the other hand there are so many satellites that it'd be hard to index them all. What could you do with a secret satellite? It seems like the signals would be detectable, but I'm not sure.
- samfriedman 9y ago
  The Outer Space Treaty forbids, among other things, the placing of weapons of mass destruction in Earth orbit. Conventional weapons are fair game though, which has led to plenty of speculation on kinetic bombardment approaches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
  - hprotagonist 9y ago
    "Rodding". OF course, hauling a few tons of tungsten up there is going to be a giant pain.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Nukes in orbit would be obvious unless you shielded the absolute crap out of them, and shielding is heavy. Besides, if you get caught with a nuke in orbit, you're in real trouble, and the benefit is...? A secret satellite though? Oh the possibilities! The big problem with satellite surveillance is that people can figure out where your bird is, and simply you know... avoid it. Granted you can't hide large buildings, but you can predict when it will fly over and hide your troop numbers, mobile launch systems, etc. How do you avoid a satellite you have no tracking data on? Of course, that would require some really impressive optical, radar, and thermal stealth tech, but that's quite plausible. Of course if you were really paranoid, then maybe you'd think this isn't a satellite, but a satellite killer. I doubt it, and there are proven options to kill satellites from the ground, but it's possible.
  - elif 9y ago
    Can you explain why they would be so easily detectable? my understanding is that many space vessels use micro-reactors for power. Couldn't you just use plutonium warheads so that they look like one of those?
    - aw1621107 9y ago
      I wouldn't say "many"; nuclear-powered vessels generally are ones that are going well beyond Earth's orbit. They also aren't "normal" nuclear reactors, since they use the heat from radioactive decay to power thermocouples, as opposed to sustaining an active fission reaction like most nuclear power plants here do.
  - cuspycode 9y ago
    I don't think unshielded nukes in orbit are easy to detect. Back on Earth you need to get up close (within a few meters) in order to distinguish the radiation signature from the background radiation, and in space the background level is much higher. Source: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R40154.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R40154.pdf (see page 78 and onwards for a discussion about detecting nukes at a distance)
    - 9y ago
- aw1621107 9y ago
  >So, what are the chances we have more than N nukes in orbit, where N > 0? I've always wondered. Legally speaking, 0, since the Outer Space Treaty forbids placing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, and all spacefaring nations so far have signed. Even if the military kept things under wraps, I'm not so sure that stationing nukes in orbit would provide a significant advantage, as you would only be able to strike a particular target when it rotates under your orbit, which means you can hit a target only twice a day at fairly specific times, while ICBMs can be launched at any time. In addition, modern ICBMs have flight times on the order of 30 minutes ([0], [1]), so satellites aren't going to be reaching a target much faster. Edit: forgot to address another point >They should be detectable, but on the other hand there are so many satellites that it'd be hard to index them all. We already track more than half a million pieces of space debris, with 20,000 of those larger than a softball ([2]), so I'd imagine a "secret" satellite wouldn't stay secret for long. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercontinental_ballistic_missile#Flight_phases [1]: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/12028/is-it-correct-that-it-takes-approx-30-minutes-for-an-icbm-to-reach-russia [2]: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    > Legally speaking, 0, since the Outer Space Treaty forbids placing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, and all spacefaring nations so far have signed. Signing treaties didn't stop us from waterboarding torture. > Even if the military kept things under wraps, I'm not so sure that stationing nukes in orbit would provide a significant advantage, as you would only be able to strike a particular target when it rotates under your orbit, which means you can hit a target only twice a day at fairly specific times, while ICBMs can be launched at any time. The big benefit would be that a target can be wiped off the map without a giant "LOOK WE DID IT" flag immediately beforehand. > We already track more than half a million pieces of space debris, with 20,000 of those larger than a softball ([2]), so I'd imagine a "secret" satellite wouldn't stay secret for long. Space debris follows a predictable track once spotted and isn't deliberately constructed to be hard to find with visual/radar observation. This is a bit like saying stealth bombers are impossible because we can easily spot airliners.
- ambicapter 9y ago
  Keeping nukes in orbit is not that beneficial. Its stuck on a single path orbit, and it takes only slightly less energy to de-orbit it than to put it there in the first place. ICBMs take what, half an hour, to hit a target around the world?
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    If I slap you, chances are you can figure out who did it pretty quickly. An ICBM launch followed by a vaporized city 30 minutes later points pretty conclusively to the culprit. If a disembodied hand comes out of nowhere and slaps you, you may have difficulty proving it was me that did it, especially if the hand vaporizes in the process.
    - simonh 9y ago
      Only a few countries both have nukes and have orbital launch capability, so it's going to be an extremely short list of suspects to start with. Then there are all the other disadvantages of orbital nukes. They can only strike on their orbital path, and only when they're in the right point of the orbit, otherwise they're very expensive to re-target because it means changing orbits. Because of all those points they're actually a lot slower to target than ICMBs. If they're in a low orbit then the orbit will decay and they will come down in a few years whether you want them to or not. If they're in a high orbit the costs are even higher and they're even slower to target. Finally, they're vulnerable to detection if they're up for any length of time. They really are a terrible idea.
      - ceejayoz 9y ago
        Spy satellites have had to tackle those issues for decades already (staying in orbit, retargeting, etc.). It's mostly solved problems, and the use case for such a thing would be more the "I want that factory in Iran to go away but it's OK if it takes six months" than immediate needs you'd use an ICBM for. Plausible deniability goes a long way, even if it's not very plausible. Plenty of cases in the Cold War where everyone knew a side did something they shouldn't have but couldn't prove it.
- foobarbecue 9y ago
  > So, what are the chances we have more than N nukes in orbit, where N > 0? Your question is equivalent to "what are the chances we have more than 1 nuke in orbit." Is that what you meant?
tc313 9y ago
Except now everybody is looking for it...
- cobookman 9y ago
  Which might have also been there plan.
- ninkendo 9y ago
  I'm sure even if there was a failure you'd still be able to visibly see the satellite... it's not like the fairing separation would have caused it to suddenly lose enough delta-v to deorbit. The failure, apparently, is that they can't contact the payload, not that it disappeared.
dullgiulio 9y ago
Or just a justification for when it's found following a trajectory that is somewhat embarrassing to explain.

sloan_royal 9y ago

I'm sure we'd never do anything like tha... nevermind http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077830/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/spy-satellites-rise-faked-fall/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077830/ns/technology_and_science-...

westbywest 9y ago
Today sure was an odd time for that NBC news story to turn into 404. (Cached version still on Google, as of this writing.)

aw1621107 9y ago

We already find/track orbital debris in LEO, so I'd imagine finding a satellite should be doable by interested parties, unless there's some new tech on there that makes detection significantly harder.

sloan_royal 9y ago
The X-37B has been known to vanish from being tracked from time to time. We've got some clever stuff.
- aw1621107 9y ago
  Might that be just because it changed orbit and had to be reacquired? Might take a while since you have no clue what the parameters for the new orbit are or when the burn(s) took place. Some kind of new stealth tech would be pretty cool, though.
Kelbit 9y ago
It's been speculated that advanced spy satellites carry thrusters and fuel to conduct frequent orbit changes. I think it's pretty telling that the DoD just did a SBIR competition for software to detect evasive behavior in space junk: https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/1319195 https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/1319195
- aw1621107 9y ago
  > It's been speculated that advanced spy satellites carry thrusters and fuel to conduct frequent orbit changes. That's not really surprising; I'd imagine most long-term satellites carry thrusters and at least some amount of fuel for stationkeeping, especially in geostationary orbit. It'd definitely make it much more difficult to track, unless you keep something pointed at it 24/7 so you notice the change in velocity. And nice find with the SBIR competition! Does seem to point towards satellites being much more difficult to track than I thought if they're constantly moving.

samfriedman 9y ago

And that interpretation is so obvious that you have to wonder if the satellite really is some classified new reentry vehicle, and the decision to publicly announce its loss is designed to make adversaries devote resources to looking for a super-stealth satellite that isn't there.

elif 9y ago

"Unfortunately, we decided to take our spy satellite on a hunting expedition, and it was permanently lost when our canoe tipped over. We looked for hours, but could not find it in that lake"