A great article about clandestine space operations and their happenings (also, relaly cool picture of a Delta IV heavy lifting rocket):
http://www.astroengine.com/?p=3286
Quote(Saturday, Jan. 17th), one of the most powerful rockets on the planet thundered to life at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying something into space. Although the world has a good idea as to what this something was, it was a reminder that even during these times of intense media scrutiny and the guise of government transparency that there is a lot going on in space that we may never know about. However, far from clandestine launches at the dead of night being a bad thing, they appear to whet the worlds appetite for finding out more about the top secret military payloads routinely being put into orbit?
I was also reading today that China plans on launching military space stations in the near future, whether or not these will be like the Soviet ones has yet to be revealed. One Soviet-era military space station actually had a 20mm canon on board that was actually test fired in orbit (OPS-2 (Salyut 3)).
It's too bad they never got the Polyus spacecraft built, it had everything a potential cartoony supervillain would love:
- Radar
- Optical sighting system for the canon
- A Canon!
- Barium cloud generation system (for camouflage)
- Laser communication link
- Black Paint
:D
Hey just as long as we get over to the Vela star system before the Ur-Quan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Quan_Masters) show up we're universally in the black as a species. (j/k :P)
There's nothing quite like a semi-secret space launch to fire up the imagination. Not all of them can be about sorting tiny screws in space re: the Simpsons episode. Also I'm noting the wording in the follow-up article about the mission payload of the rocket heavily implies conjecture which just makes it curiouser.
It was a spy satellite by all accounts, likely headed for Mess-O-Potamia
Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 11, 2009, 07:11:07 PM
It was a spy satellite by all accounts, likely headed for Mess-O-Potamia
Yeah, I heard the same basic thing. I can't recall if its a snooper satellite that listens into radio signals (cell phones, sat phones, telephone calls, any radio signal coming from the surface at all, or bouncing from near satellites), or if its another hires picture taking box... But anyhow I do recall it was to cover a large swath of Asia (South Asia/North Africa).