Top Secret US payload launched into space successfully A mysterious spy satellite got off the ground safely yesterday evening from Cape Canaveral in Florida, United Launch Alliance has said. Youtube Video A ULA Atlas V rocket stack blasted off with the clandestine payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, which was designated NROL-67 and is a "mission in support of national …
That's because the spy satellites don't have those bonehead morons in Congress involved. Congress has tried everything to shoot down COTS despite it paying for American jobs and technology.
However, Atlas V uses Russian RD-180 engines. All the recent American attempts to design new rocket engines (with the shining exception of the SpaceX Merlin) have failed completely.
"All the recent American attempts to design new rocket engines (with the shining exception of the SpaceX Merlin) have failed completely."
The US hasn't really attempted to build any new engines. And the US isn't really a singular group. This satellite was launched by the NRO. Normally the NRO used Titan IV Heavies, but they were really expensive. So they switched to the Atlas V, built by the United Launch Alliance. If you have the cash, the United Launch Alliance will put up an Atlas V for anyone. The Atlas V is scalable to various sizes of payloads and different orbits.
However, NASA is pretty close to obtaining a domestic RD-180. Except, until recently, there wasn't any reason to spend the money to do so.
The launch vehicle is chosen to match the payload. I think the NRO has been the only customer for the full-fat Delta IV Heavy capable of putting about 25 tonnes into low earth orbit. The Atlas V mod 541 used for this launch is good for about 18 tonnes.
As for "new" engines, design and development has plateaued out with little extra performance to be gained from existing fuels. The aim now is simplicity, lower weight and manufacturing cost hence the development of the RS68/RS68A as used on the Delta IV, cheaper and simpler than the RS25 used on the Space Shuttle.
No. It's all about budgets. NASA always gets the short end of the stick. They are lucky if they can keep the lights on. This is in stark contrast to the military that has an entire political party near dedicated to the prospect of giving the Pentagon anything it wants.
The armed services can fund a rocket program with the spare change from the couch.
NASA is lucky to have a couch.
"That the USA seems to have enough money lying around to launch dozens of spy satellites, but when they want to send a couple of people to the ISS they need the russians to do it for them ?"
Because the "I" in ISS is for International. NASA don't run the ISS. NASA has been kicking in about 40% of the ISS budget, which is a lot given how many countries are involved. So it is just a matter of fairness for Russia to contribute lift capacity to ISS. It is the least they can do, as their space toilets are garbage.
It would seem to me that if I had the ability to track a routine flight, clear on the other side of the planet, in near-as-makes-no-difference real time, I wouldn't exactly be letting on that I could do it.
Perhaps giving a couple, discrete, helpful nudges trickled out in such a way, and on such a timetable, as to not be suspicious. That is if I felt helpful - but even then, certainly not in a way that says "Here is where it is".
Note: I am not suggesting any conspiracy here, purely that if anyone did have the information, this incident, tragic as it is, wouldn't register high enough on the strategic-importance list to tip the cards.
Karl P
"It would seem to me that if I had the ability to track a routine flight, clear on the other side of the planet, in near-as-makes-no-difference real time, I wouldn't exactly be letting on that I could do it."
That would be a rather stupendous amount of money wasted each day, to effectively be keeping real-time eyes on the entire surface of the earth, not to mention storing that data on the off-chance.
Earth is about half a billion km^2. At resolution of 1 pixel per m^2, that's 5 * 10^14 pixels. Say an 8 megapixel image is 4MB as an average (JPEG, probably useless for spotting objects of interest, but hey ho), 62.5m images, 250TB data. For a one-off snapshot.
That's a lot of data. And a lot of satellites. And a lot of bandwidth required to get it back down again.
If you watch the ARGUS drone video from a few years ago at about 1 minute in the system demonstrates that it is able to catalog and track individual objects. If we presume that each satellite can do similar processing, the actual imagery need not be sent back to its minders. Considering that who went where, and with whom are the primary questions that a "real time" system would seek to answer it makes even less sense to send the actual imagery rather than just the data.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBfSbdAC-3k
Re: I wonder... ...interesting Boeing and Rolls Royce are very quiet on this.
Not really. RR often take real time telemetry from their engines in service, and when fitted to Boeing aircraft this service is combined with Boeing's offering of real time data to the airline, to better plan service schedules. However, it an option offered to airlines at extra cost, so is only present on about 75% of that model of Boeing.
"With so much (and very expensive) high-tech stuff in orbit, how come there's no sign of Malaysian Airlines MH370?"
There was an article about this on El Reg recently. Basically the plane disappeared in a boring part of the world, spy-wise, and is now hidden from satellite view by 4500m of water..
the launch badge or shoulder patch, whatever you want to call it, has a picture of Pegasus on it. I wonder if that might actually mean something. At any rate, it is just another piece of hardware that will almost certainly be used by the United States government against its own citizens. Whither Bellerphon? Whither all the Gods? We need a hero!
There are different meanings of the word secret. As used in the title, the word "secret" is an adjective, or a "describing word", it gives more information about the noun that it describes.
As used in the title, the noun it is describing is "payload". The "payload" is the secret, not the launch.
You can tell this because of the order the author put the words in. If he had written "US payload top secretly launched into space", then that would have been a dichotomy worthy of note. You can tell the difference here because "secret" has become "secretly", an "adverb" - it is now describing the verb in the sentence, "launched".
In case it is not obvious, satellites are not very secret. It is impossible to secretly launch a satellite. Once launched, it is very hard to hide a satellite - you can simply look up and see it. Therefore, it makes no sense to hide that you are launching a satellite - as soon as you do launch it, people will know that you have launched it, and can track it.
On the other hand, those observers don't know what that satellite payload does, until it does it - perhaps not even then. Is it just taking pictures, or does it have a nuke on board to drop on Kazonistan? No-one knows, IT'S A SECRET.
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