US Government Declassifies Orbital Elements of Military Communications Satellites

Wow. I guess they realized that China and Russia can already pinpoint the sats, so hiding the elements is pointless?

The newly declassified data can be downloaded from space-track.org
[link to www.space-track.org (secure)]

At least for combating enemy nations it's rather pointless. Even amateurs were tracking some of these birds. Hiding the elements of their surveillance satellites still makes sense, especially against non-state enemies who may not have the means to track them. But these are satellites for communications with troops and such, the information on these particular satellites is of no real value to terror groups and such. The communications themselves should all be encrypted so there's no way to decode it even if you know where to point a dish.

Last Edited by Astromut on 12/07/2018 04:46 PM

Always with timely info! +5.

off subject but this is


[link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

So if I point a laser pointer on them I go to jail?

I doubt they'd even notice. They're communications satellites, not surveillance sats.

Ohh OK I see

Russia was going to release this data. Maybe we just decided to do it first.

have they noticed any movement of the landers "appendages" due to the wind, or is the atmospheric pressure too low?

Anything x-37b related?

:hecameinpeace:

my guess is they are also very small and so many of them they would be hard to defeat

Awesome! I casually monitor satellites of any kind on various tracking sites and go sit outside at night after everyone is asleep and watch them cruise by. It's nothing too exciting of course, but I find it enjoyable.

Being a conspiracy nut I know there is a deeper reason here besides the obvious. Most likely, they have figured out how to modulate/demodulate communication/data streams through space/time reliably using quantum mechanics. My theory anyways.

Who gives a fucking fuck astrodouche? Any government already had that and what difference did it make? The rich are rich and do not give a fuck. Get that through your astrobrian head!

You might ban me but you will appreciate the wake up.

Nope, you're just a dickhead, and I want everyone to see it.

These are all dummy ones. The real ones remain cloaked and ready to rain down fire on command.

Communications satellites, they never claimed these were weapons platforms.

"Communications"