Saturday, 31 May 2014

[AGAIN UPDATED] USA 161 recovered (?) - and new ideas on changes in the KH system

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CORRECTION 1 June 2014: The object I observed on May 31 turns out to be NOT the KH USA 161, but one of the IGS objects , IGS 8R (2013-002C)...
Wednesday, 21 May 2014

USA 224 recovered, USA 186 still drifting, and looking for GPS IIF-6 20 minutes after launch

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For various reasons, I am a bit late in keeping the reader up to what is happening to the KH-11 Keyhole/CRYSTAL system of optical reconnais...
Monday, 5 May 2014

KH-11 USA 129 is missing, USA 186 has still not manoeuvered

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USA 129 (96-072A), the oldest of the KH-11 Keyhole/CRYSTAL/KENNAN optical reconnaisance satellites, has gone missing. The last observers t...
Sunday, 4 May 2014

Imaging SWARM A and C

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On 22 November 2013, ESA launched SWARM , a group of three futuristically looking scientific satellites (2013-007A, B and C) whose purpose i...
Sunday, 20 April 2014

[UPDATED & CORRECTED] Observing the SpaceX Dragon CRS-3, the ISS and two pieces of Dragon launch debris

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CORRECTION (21/04/2014 12:55 UT): in the initial post, the two debris pieces were misidentified. "2014-022C" turned out to be 20...
Saturday, 12 April 2014

Progress M-22M in twilight

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Yesterday evening in late twilight (sun 11 degrees under the horizon, waxing gibbous moon low in the sky) I observed Progress M-22M (2014-0...
Thursday, 10 April 2014

Eagle Eyes

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Recently I posted a topic on USA 184, one of the SBIRS-HEO satellites. That post was illustrated with amongst others this patch: click...
Tuesday, 1 April 2014

[updated] The bright fireball over Germany of 31 March 2014, 22:34 CEST: an earthgrazing meteor, not a satellite re-entry

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[updated 20:55 UT (1/4/2014) to reflect revised fireball duration] Yesterday evening German astronomical internet fora and my Twitter time...
Monday, 31 March 2014

Observing USA 184 (TRUMPET-FO/SBIRS-HEO)

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It had been a while since I last observed objects in HEO ( Highly Elliptical Orbit ). Most of my recent focus has been on the KH-11 in Low E...
Saturday, 29 March 2014

An update on the evolving KH-11 Keyhole/KENNAN/CRYSTAL system

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In several previous posts from September 2013 onwards, I analysed and prognosed changes to the KH-11 Keyhole/KENNAN/CRYSTAL optical reconna...
Friday, 28 March 2014

A flare show by USA 245

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Wednesday evening saw a dynamic atmosphere, where clear skies intermittently were broken by fields of fast moving scattered clouds. I targ...
Sunday, 23 March 2014

First post winter-blackout observations of KH-11 Keyhole/CRYSTAL USA 129

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One by one the KH-11 Keyhole/CRYSTAL optical reconnaissance satellites are emerging from the Northern hemisphere winter black-out. Following...
Monday, 17 March 2014

Open Question: Could US Military SIGINT satellites help to narrow down flight MH370's last location?

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Please note: this post contains discussions of a highly speculative nature Over the past days, it has become clear that the lost Malaysia...
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