Subject: Re: Counting Spysats From: thomsona@netcom.com (Allen Thomson) Date: 1996/08/22 Message-Id: <thomsonaDwJvLE.9K1@netcom.com> Newsgroups: sci.space.policy,alt.politics.org.cia A correspondent who wishes to remain anonymous has sent in some comments on the "Counting Spysats" message I left here a few days ago. With his permission, I'm posting his comments and have added a few more of my own. Quotes from my original message are marked with AT:, his comments with AC:. AC: Liked the article. Shame he wasn't pinned down even more. AC: snip AT: Based on indications that the US is intending to send AT: spysats into significantly higher orbits than it traditionally AT: has and other considerations, John Pike has hypothesized that the AT: vanished satellites are in "short Molniya" orbits with AT: perigee/apogee something like 500/5000 kilometers. Additionally, AT: he suggests that they might be designed to have optical and AT: radar signatures matching those of existing debris populations. AT: (The USA-40 debris look like a promising candidate for such a AT: chaff cloud.) Whether this is actually true or not, it serves AT: as an example of the "there-but-unrecognized" family of AT: explanations for the disappearing satellites. AC: I've got to pull you up on this one. I know JP likes his AC: theories, but any one who has worked with elsets, seen objects AC: etc will agree this cannot be true. Firstly, if you hide a KH in AC: a debris cloud, you are inviting trouble with your own pieces AC: (and can you really create a debris cloud with pieces all radar AC: trackable?) from non RCS ones and score an own goal in hitting AC: your own bird. Probably "constellation of decoys" is a better term than "chaff cloud". In any event, I don't think the pseudodebris need be particularly hazardous to the object being masked. Space, as people like to say, is vast and the actual density of objects in the constellation would be very small. Moreover, the decoys and satellite would be in similar orbits, making the relative velocities small and reducing the frequency of encounters. Finally, a tailored decoy constellation needn't contain that many objects: the USA 40 debris, which are the best orbitological match to John's hypothesis, number only a few dozen, AFAIK. Not all the pieces need be trackable all the time (radar cross section is notoriously variable, as the satellite situation reports from NASA demonstrate) -- it would be better if they weren't. The point, after all, would be to lull observers into thinking there's nothing suspicious about an object detected in that region. Having putative debris which are sometimes seen, sometimes not, would be ideal cover. AC: Secondly, I would like to see a designed optical signature. With AC: all different viewing aspects, to make a mag +1 KH look like a AC: +8 piece of crap is pretty good. Is it worth it? To reduce AC: reflection, thus blackening the thing thus temperature problems? AC: And in IR as well? As in the case of radar signature reduction (F-117, Sea Shadow, B-2 etc), the important principle in optical signature reduction in space is likely to be "directed reflection" rather than absorption ("blackening"). Remember that the moon has the albedo of asphalt; really black blacks are hard to come by, whereas good mirrors are fairly easy to make. If you know where the observer is, simply hide behind a mirror canted to show him a view of space. But your overall point is well taken, and it's the variety of possible viewing/illumination geometries and the multiplicity of available detection methods that have led most people, myself among them, to conclude that long-term LEO or MEO satellite invisibility just isn't in the cards. The contribution John's hypothesis makes is that the concept shifts from invisibility to a much more robust form of deception. Even if the observers see the satellite, they aren't alarmed, as they believe they know what it is: just another piece of debris in a known population. This doesn't completely solve the many angles/many methods problem but it helps. The major remaining problem, which led me to think about the "Something Else" category, is that the US has been advertising that the disappearing satellites are something interesting. Which has probably led other countries to try to find out what's going on by activating spies, developing more powerful space surveillance techniques and so forth. But the advertising is also a big hint that Something Else is going on... At this point we're entering the wilderness of mirrors and prudent analysts step back until more information is available. AC: Last - if your KH is in a debris cloud, how do you stop the AC: differentiation between drag on the orbits? The debris will AC: start to fall away leaving your KH exposed. And if you 'burn' AC: the KH to remain within the cloud, the n/2 will show as a jump. AC: A piece of debris with a restartable engine, or even an ion AC: drive. Even ion drives can be spotted (cf Cosmos 699 and the AC: first of the eorsats with microthrusters). Do you create the AC: cloud first and quickly put the KH into it, or create the cloud AC: around the KH like chaff? The drag problem is alleviated to some extent (details left to those willing to model the situation) by moving to higher orbits, which is what JP hypothesizes. At those altitudes, I wouldn't rule out clever use of radiation pressure, teeny thrusters, etc. to make up the difference between the drag characteristics of the satellite and the decoys. Again, detailed studies are needed to determine what's reasonable and what's not. AC: Sounds wonderful, but I don't run with it. I don't AC: doubt your covert launcher at all though..... I'd very much like to believe that we have a quick-response capability to launch spysats. If it (and they) were covert or semi-covert, so much the better, as that would contribute to survivability on tactical timescales in a war. But, all the Aurora stuff taken into account, I'm not persuaded that we do possess such an ability. For arguments on the other side, see "Secret Aircraft Encompasses Qualities of High-Speed Launcher for Spacecraft," by William B. Scott in Aviation Week and Space Technology, 24 August 1992. OTOH, it would be hard to argue that the NRO couldn't have developed a Pegasus-like smallsat launcher during the 1980s, or even something that could be launched from a ship or submarine. The corporate culture there seems to have been totally against such a thing, but if they did it, good for them. AC: BTW why do you think when they classified the US objects in AC: 1983, some DMSPs remained fully open, while others from years AC: past suddenly became under wraps? And when they were tracked, AC: exhibited optical signatures quite unlike normal DMSPs and were AC: highly flashing, more like elints really.....if you want to hide AC: a program, do it in full view inside a boring wxsat system. AC: Except classifying it drew attention to the differences. AC: How many payloads have been put overboard from the Shuttle and AC: never catalogued, like Tips is still missing but is observable. AC: A GAS real one and some 'debris' comes out of the can and hey AC: presto, two elints in orbit at 57 / 51 degrees. These are fascinating possibilities that I haven't seen addressed before. I hadn't known about the DMSP anomalies at all. As discussed in last May's message on "Denial, Deception and Disappearing Satellites," the 1983 orbital element classification decision must also have stimulated a number of people to upgrade their tracking and orbit determination capabilities. AC: Far better to put things onto second stages which just go round AC: and round and who would bother looking at them or switching off AC: radars etc when a 'rocket' flies over? Covert elints? Covert AC: store and forward comms? A compact telescope (Mars Observer class) on a stabilized or smart upper stage is certainly attractive, and probably what I'd choose if the problem were to put up a really covert long-term photoreconnaissance satellite. ELINTs seem so easy to hide that I'd suspect almost anything of having a radio receiver and tape recorder on it.
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