Posted on 03/25/2011 10:15:12 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
A pair of low Earth-orbiting demonstration satellites built by Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems for the first time on March 16 detected and tracked a ballistic missile launch through all phases of flight, a Northrop Grumman official said March 22. So-called birth-to-death tracking of a ballistic missile launch had never been done before from space -- and is the most significant achievement to date for the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) spacecraft, said Doug Young, Northrop Grumman’s vice president of missile defense and warning programs. “It’s the Holy Grail for missile defense,” Young said during a media briefing here. [Top 10 Space Weapons Concepts] Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman built three STSS demonstration satellites for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA). The first satellite, which had a classified mission, was launched in May 2009. After completing its test program, it was transferred Jan. 31 to the control of Air Force Space Command to continue supporting the service’s space situational awareness mission. The two unclassified STSS satellites were launched in September 2009 on a single United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket. During an extended on-orbit check-out and calibration phase that concluded in November, the satellites tracked multiple missile launches in the early boost and post-boost phases and demonstrated the ability to relay data from one satellite to the other.
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Too bad the Chinese now have a proven ability to shoot satellites down - thanks to Slick Willy and friends.
Too bad our side sees nothing wrong with sending Communist China our factories and money, to MAKE the missiles to do that.
Slick Willy hasn’t been around for a long time.
China is getting stronger.
And stronger.
Now that it works, Obama and Gates will stop funding it.
Treason is in season.
We’re not sending them any factories. We’re killing our own factories with taxes, regulations, and unions. The Chinese are just filling the void. Can’t blame them for that.
Don’t you people get it?
China is going to overtake America in every way.
We are going to be overwhelmed, made irrelevant and then eventually powerless - and defeated unless we stop tearing down our own country.
Wake up. This is not some political game.
Don’t you people get it?
China is going to overtake America in every way.
We are going to be overwhelmed, made irrelevant and then eventually powerless - and defeated unless we stop tearing down our own country.
Wake up. This is not some political game.
You are exactly right. The United States is being set up for the most devestating “hit” in world history. A Perfect Storm is approaching and that could easily include a nuclear attack.
One can only hope that those responsible are on the receiving end of it.
One can only hope that those responsible are on the receiving end of it.
For sure. But they seem to think themselves immune to the destruction they are bringing upon us. It’s demonic.
You don’t need them for much of anything, then, really, do ya?
Treason is in season.
That’s for sure.
Mike
At least the satellite will see it coming....
HAARP is cool
hopefully we won’t eventually accidentally torch the ionosphere.
I noticed they didn’t hint at the covariance. The problem with satellite optical tracks has always been poor accuracy. Typically the position uncertainty of a ballistic missile tracked by a satellite is cigar shaped, with the long dimension along the line of sight. Two satellites tracking from different aspects can greatly reduce the uncertainty volume if their lines of sight are perpendicular. In order to make that work, the biases have to be much smaller that the standard deviations, something not often achieved in practice.
If they are optically tracking the post-boost complex, it seems to me that it would be relatively easy to counter that by releasing a cloud of decoys, warmed perhaps by small batteries. I foresee a cottage industry of discrimination based on “features” derived from the time histories. Still, how hard would it be to mimic the time history of an RV’s IR signature?
A missile in boost phase is easy to detect and next to impossible to mimic or decoy. The right time to shoot down enemy missiles is in boost phase. Space is the high ground, the one who seizes and exploits it first will dominate the future. That will not be a country lead by President “Who’s on First?”.
So do we. And you can’t blame everything on Slick Willie. The Chinese had the infrastructure, and they also had the Russians to provide models. They aren’t stupid, either.
So do we. And you can’t blame everything on Slick Willie. The Chinese had the infrastructure, and they also had the Russians to provide models. They aren’t stupid, either.
We need this. Its a vital part of National Missile Defense.
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