Sat-spotters find secret payload launched by giant US rocket Amateur skywatchers say they have located the secret spacecraft launched aboard a giant US rocket on Friday. It is thought to be an optical spy satellite of a type which had been retired, but has now been brought back into service due to the failure of its replacement. The spacecraft, initially referred to as NROL-49*, has …
Historically, pounds were used as a standard in aerospace circles for stating such things as fuel loads, paylods and takeoff weights. It remains that way as a legacy system because it's too hard to change to metric (people might confuse metric or imperial weights).
In spite of this, there was one high profile instance a few years ago of a space mission getting bolloxed up because one team used metric units and the other team used imperial without converting between units.
The only difference between this bit of hardware appears to be the transportation techniques as well as the optics.
Guess other governments won't be filing privacy complaints about this 'bird'.
Just think the whole thing is financed on bonds sold to the Chinese!
You don't have to fire off privacy complaints; Just point a very intense light source upwards, and it can't "see" as it passes overhead.
In the US, telescopes are not allowed to use adaptive optics for this reason unless they publish their intended operations in advance and get authorisation to use them. However in other countries you can use them all you want.
Polar orbits have high inclination relative to the equator, giving good earth coverage.
A launch vehicle must depart the ground as close as possible to the ultimate inclination of the desired orbit. Any deviation from that track is wasted energy that must be made up. Wasted energy means you carry more fuel and less payload.
If you look at a map centered over Florida, you will see centers of population to the north and south of a launch pad. Some the countries located southward are unfriendly towards the U.S. Government, and wouldn't appreciate a launch flying overhead. Even before thinking about secrecy, diplomacy and safety dictate a flight path more towards the east so the vehicle heads out over water.
At Vandenberg, they get a high inclination launch (usually at night) on a southbound track, quickly taking the vehicle out over the ocean. Much safer if something goes wrong.
Search on "polar orbit launch sites" for more information - far better than I could write.
Because you have to let the streetview cars into the country - which would mean that the country had to be friendly to you before you invaded.
So you would only be able to invade countries that used to be your staunch muslim allies in the fight against the evils of communism and are now evil muslim dictators in the fight against terrorism.
They set the mirror curvature to focus in air, not the vacuum of space, so it was their refractive index calculations that were wrong.
Many years ago I ordered Belkin RS232 cable (for those that don’t go back that far, dumb terminal cable) for a job measured in metres but it shipped in reels measured in feet. We promptly ran out of cable long before finishing the office relocation and it took us a while to work out why.
There is in fact a perfectly ground primary Hubble mirror in existance, made by Kodak and on public display at the National Air and Space Museum (seen it myself). The flown mirror was made by Perkin-Elmer, using a improperly assembled null corrector. Testing by Perkin-Elmer showed they'd cocked up, but delivered the mirror to NASA anyway who never tested it themselves before sending it into space.
Funny thing is, do a search at perkinelmer.com for "hubble" returns autocorrected results for "bubble".
Isn't it funny that they always seem to get economic approval for these kinds of projects.
The whole country's economy is going to the toilet and they still feel the need to spend $15 billion dollars to spy on their neighbours. Oh, actually that would be "some other countries thousands of miles away".
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