Wednesday, 28 April 2021

USA 314 (NROL-82) imaged

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  click to enlarge Last Monday 26 April at 20:47:00 UT, ULA launched a classified payload for the NRO under the launch designation NROL-82 ....
Sunday, 25 April 2021

An upcoming French ICBM/SLBM test [UPDATED TWICE]

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click map to enlarge UPDATE (see end of post for more info): the test happened and it was an M51 SLBM Navigational Warnings HYDROLANT 1140/2...
Thursday, 22 April 2021

NROL-82: an upcoming new KH-11 EVOLVED ENHANCED CRYSTAL launch [UPDATED]

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image: ULA (updated 27 Apr 2021 with first observational orbit, see end of post) If the weather and the launch Gods cooperate, ULA will lau...
1 comment:
Tuesday, 6 April 2021

LUCH (Olymp-K), an eavesdropping SIGINT snooping around commercial comsats

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  click image to enlarge Back in 2016, I published an article in The Space Review ( A NEMESIS in the sky: PAN, Mentor 4 and Close Encounter...
Tuesday, 30 March 2021

[UPDATED] Cosmic Ballet: approach of MEV-2 and Intelsat 10-02 imaged

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image from 2 April 2021. Click image to enlarge At geosynchronous altitudes, a cosmic ballet is happening between Intelsat 10-02 (2004-022A...
Tuesday, 23 March 2021

[UPDATED] Reentry predictions for the Falcon 9 RB 2021-017BN

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click diagram to enlarge In my previous post , I discussed 2021-017BN, the Falcon 9 upper stage from the March 4 Starlink launch that shoul...
6 comments:
Friday, 12 March 2021

Apparent failed deorbit of the Starlink-18 Falcon 9 upper stage [UPDATED]

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On 4 March 2021 , after several delays, SpaceX launched the 18th Starlink batch (Starlink-18 or V1.0-17). While the launch and deployment p...
Monday, 8 February 2021

A possible (now CONFIRMED) Trident-II SLBM test launch between February 9 and 14, 2021 [UPDATED]

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click map to enlarge A Navigational Warning , NAVAREA IV 117/21 , appeared yesterday, and is suggestive of an upcoming Trident-II SLBM test ...
1 comment:
Monday, 25 January 2021

Virgin Orbit to launch first satellite for the Royal Dutch Air Force this year

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  Brik-II patch (collection author) Today, Virgin Orbit and the Dutch Ministery of Defense announced that Brik-II , the first satellite ow...
Saturday, 9 January 2021

First optical observations of the NROL-108 payloads USA 312 and USA 313

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In the early morning of January 9, I made the my first optical observations of the two payloads, USA 312 and USA 313 (2020-101A & B)...
Friday, 25 December 2020

Seasons Greetings!

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  To all of you who read this blog, I wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy, above all Healthy and Productive 2021! What a strange year 2...
Tuesday, 15 December 2020

NROL-108: another mystery launch perhaps similar to NROL-76 (USA 276)? [UPDATED]

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UPDATE 17 December 2020 16:15 UT : today's launch was scrubbed due to a pressure anomaly in the upper stage. A new launch attempt will ...