or as it's also known, Aviation LEAK...
Posted on 04/29/2007 7:10:41 AM PDT by dan_s
Secret National Reconnaissance Office dual satellite ocean surveillance mission to track potential terrorist movements at sea and Chinese and Iranian ship tactics is being readied for liftoff June 14 here on an Atlas V, say intelligence sources.
The National Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) flight is designated NRO L-30. "We're on track for a mid-June launch of the Atlas V," says Lt. Col. Kent Nickle, director of operations for the 5th Space Launch Sqdn. of the 45th Space Wing here. He did not address the secret ocean surveillance payloads, however.
The importance of NRO's space ocean surveillance role in connection with the Navy and Coast Guard has been elevated since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The need to track thousands of civilian ships worldwide has intensified, given the potential for seemingly harmless shipping to be involved in nuclear, chemical or biological terrorist operations.
And nations like China and Iran are also demonstrating new sea-based tactics and capabilities that must be monitored.
The two satellites on the Atlas V mission have a combined mass of about 6.5 tons and will use primarily electronic intelligence (elint) techniques combined with interferometry. The technique involves comparing the differences in the elint data from each spacecraft to derive a ship's position and direction of travel data. The spacecraft and launcher have a combined total cost of roughly $600-800 million.
The satellites will fly in a formation that is precisely controlled to obtain data at different times as they overfly specific ships as they move or remain stationary between the satellites' passes
Those data will then be combined with information from about 18 other NRO ocean surveillance satellites spaced in six-to-seven separate formations orbiting the globe.
At the same time that the NRO is readying the ocean surveillance mission, the agency is also initiating a several hundred million-dollar procurement for a new stopgap optical imaging system.
The new system is aimed at enabling the intelligence community to recover from delays in the Future Imagining Architecture (FIA) program, which has yet to launch an op-erational satellite.
The delays occurred because of poor Boeing performance in the optical program that has now been given to Lockheed Martin. Boeing has retained the imaging-radar half of the program (AW&ST Sept. 5, 2005, p. 23).
The new spacecraft are especially needed to obtain imaging intelligence of China, Iran and North Korea as older imaging reconnaissance satellites expire. The competitors will likely be be DigitalGlobe and GeoEye.
The twin-satellite ocean surveillance mission is part of a military space launch surge to launch eight additional Defense Dept. payloads through year-end. Five of them will be launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here.
"All three of our squadrons are very busy," says Col. Scott Henderson, 45th Launch Group commander.
Many of the missions involve development on new technologies important for growing U. S. military space operations, such as ballistic missile defense and space surveillance.
As an indication of new allied dependence on space systems, two additional Delta II military missions, at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., will carry the first two of three Cosmo-SkyMed imaging radar spacecraft for the Italian Ministry of Defense.
The Atlas V ocean surveillance mission will be NRO's first launch since the agency was stunned by the in-orbit failure of a $200-300-million class research and development spacecraft affiliated with the FIA program.
That NRO flight, designated L-21, was launched successfully from Vandenberg on a Delta II on Dec. 14, 2006 but then it suffered a catastrophic malfunction. The NRO has never commented publicly on the failure, but it has drawn substantial scrutiny by the Congress and other intelligence users in Washington.
The Atlas V ocean surveillance mission will fly a northern launch trajectory directly up the U. S. east coast to place the spacecraft into about a 1,000-km. (620-mi.) orbit to be inclined eventually about 63 deg. to the equator. The mission in June will be the first NRO flight of any kind of the Atlas V.
The other major U. S. military space missions scheduled for launch into orbit through 2007 are:
Naaah.
Too easy.
Super Secret NRO Stuff (well, until it's spread all over the news.)
“As an indication of new allied dependence on space systems, two additional Delta II military missions, at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., will carry the first two of three Cosmo-SkyMed imaging radar spacecraft for the Italian Ministry of Defense. “
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I guess if you want to spy on the Chinese, you don’t use one of their (cheaper) launch vehicles....:^)
Great, Aviation Week, let’s tell them which bird to target. And being in the ground zero county, let me issue a double dose of thanks. /tu
New York Times had obtained prior exclusive rights.
Big changes since 1941 and even recently.
or as it's also known, Aviation LEAK...
Hopefully NSA and others are working on a stacked system, satellites up at the top, subs at the bottom with UAV’s both low and mid-level inbetween.
Each of those could target different systems while also targeting the same systems with different ops and different capabilities.
Each could send back broadband intercepts to deskbound lings and elint guys searching the airwaves just like before, almost real time, close enough probably.
Cheaper, nearly as effective (maybe more so) with little/no risk of lives lost on our side.
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