Posted on 10/10/2015 4:52:08 PM PDT by InMemoriam
WASHINGTON — A mysterious Russian military satellite parked itself between two Intelsat satellites in geosynchronous orbit for five months this year, alarming company executives and leading to classified meetings among U.S. government officials.
The Russian satellite, alternatively known as Luch or Olymp, launched in September 2014 and seven months later moved to a position directly between the Intelsat 7 and Intelsat 901 satellites, which are located within half a degree of one another 36,000 kilometers above the equator. At times, the Russian satellite maneuvered to about 10 kilometers of the Intelsat space vehicles, sources said, a distance so close that company leaders believed their satellites could be at risk.
...
The satellite’s movements were observed months after the Air Force said it was watching two other Russian military satellites, each with maneuvering capabilities that are consistent with, but not necessarily indicative of, an on-orbit antisatellite weapon.
Those satellites, known as Cosmos 2499 and 2504, have been the subject of widespread speculation among space tracking experts and policy analysts. They are among the reasons that Defense Department officials have been sounding alarms over the past year or two about threats to U.S. space systems from China and Russia.
(more at link)
(Excerpt) Read more at spacenews.com ...
Obama raises his hands and it will vanish by the force of his will.
With an enemy islamist as CIC, what could possibly go wrong?
Send the X-37B out to kill it. Wasn’t our X-37B aloft during this time frame? Perhaps that is why we sent it up again?
All mechanical Diesel Engined vehicles are starting to look pretty good.
They aren’t worried about those commercial sats, they are concerned that the Russian sat could easily maneuver close to one of the big NRO birds... the ones with 300ft+ mesh dish antennas.
Those sats are possibly our greatest sigint assets.
Greater than 85db of gain across a wide swath of bandwidth..
perhaps 100mhz-12ghz or so.
If it radiates at all those birds can pick it up and link it back to Fort Mead :-)
This is not supposed to happen under “I look different” Obama’s watch. Remember, all Obama needed to do was to go on an apology tour around the world, lamenting the misdeeds of white America and let the world soak up his Magnificence. Utopia would follow.
Meanwhile, our loser “president” worries about putting transgendered weirdos in the military and bringing vast number of muzzies to America.
January 20, 2017 can’t come soon enough.
i wish the damn thing would crash down on ft meade. they are a frigging pox on this country.
Active Duty ping.
The x-37 can’t fly that high
Oh, you mean the one engine that EPA has been most at war with? I don't think that anyone makes one anymore thanks to all of the restrictions.
Maybe Putin’s setting up the chess board for the next game...
Perhaps that is why the Russians sent theirs.
No action without an equal but opposite reaction.
It could fly to 22K miles - if we had a heavy lift capable of putting it there.
Gary Sellars • 10 hours agoThis article leaves obvious questions unasked. Is Olmp-K is a recognised slot, and has that slot been allocated for Russian use? I gather it must be, else the article would say so? Therefore what the #$%& is the problem??? Geo-stationary orbit is getting crowded these days, so unless those infernal Ruskies are stealing someone else's pre-allocated orbital slot, i don't see what the fuss is about. [Emphasis added]
That is an “if”. As currently configured, it can’t get to geo on its own. It will need a geo-transfer motor to get out of LEO and get to GEO.
Good catch. One reason they might run the story even if the Russians took a nominally open slot is the close approaches - 10 km to the neighboring satellites and 5 km to a different unnamed satellite.
From the article:
Five kilometers is extremely close for geosynchronous satellites and usually requires satellite operators to closely work together to minimize the chance of a collision.
Something to ponder...
If someone can build stealth aircraft, perhaps someone
is building stealth satellites ?
Hah! Didn’t see that one coming did ya?
It’s a mini-shuttle!
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