America Is Launching A Giant, World-Sucking Octopus Into Space

[pinboy3niner]

15. Government spy satellite rockets into space on Atlas 5

BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: December 6, 2013

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But independent satellite-watchers believe the spacecraft will join the NRO's fleet of spacecraft with radars to penetrate cloaks of clouds and darkness and reveal what adversaries are doing regardless of weather or time of day.

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But hobbyists have honed their ability to track satellites in orbit, watching them go overhead based on known launch trajectories and previous experience. With several observations, the hobbyists can estimate a satellite's orbital altitude and inclination, or the angle of the craft's ground track with the equator.

Thursday night's mission, officially dubbed NROL-39, launched on the same type of rocket and on a trajectory mirroring the September 2010 flight, which put its payload in an orbit nearly 700 miles up in a unique retrograde orbit traveling in the opposite direction of Earth's rotation.

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According to top secret budget documents leaked by Edward Snowden and published by the Washington Post in August, the radar spy satellites are given the codename "Topaz" and replace a previous generation of radar-equipped "Onyx" spacecraft.

The budget document indicated five Topaz satellites are planned before transitioning to a "Block 2" line with upgrades. If the interpretation is correct, two more Topaz satellites remain to be launched before the NRO moves to a follow-on system.

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http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av042/131206launch/