4 ms·
> but there's only a handful of these. Huge if true.
by 3pt14159 4y ago
> but there's only a handful of these.
Huge if true.
- tullianus 4y agoOh, there are plenty of US satellites with classified payloads/missions; I just mean that most classified US satellites DO have orbital elements listed in the Space Force catalog.
- bagels 4y agoOften not in the public catalog though.
- aerostable_slug 4y agoI'd add that it would be pointless to try to hide a fair number of them, given that they approach the size of school buses (no joke — the now-retired KH-9 was nicknamed "Big Bird" for good reason) and can be imaged on relatively consumer-ready optics. Some Russians made a nice stink a few years ago by using (IIRC) laser illumination to make some relatively high-res shots of American recce sats. The interesting aspects of them have to do with how far off-axis they can function. This was the major consequence of loss of the Morison leak of the KH-11 shots of a Soviet carrier to Jane's Defense Weekly — the image revealed how far off-axis it could image and some clues to how it processed imagery.