2 ms·

Isn't the shuttle so big that it would be easy to track and see it?

• enave3 5y ago
  yes, but no country can track a given object in LEO for its entire orbit (unless it's transmitting its position to another satellite). So the idea is that the shuttle launches with a secret payload, and every 90 minutes you see it pass overhead. This goes on for days or weeks. Eventually it lands. What happened? Well what you don't know is that on day 2, while it was over the Pacific and you weren't tracking it, it fired the OMS, deployed a payload, then fired the OMS again to return to it's previous orbit. There's a whole other satellite out there and you don't know about it until you find it by some other means. And eventually you will find it. But the military is happy to pay for that short window of subterfuge.