Imaging Geostationary satellites, and PAN's past relocations

Last week saw some clear evenings, and I used one of them to image some geostationary satellites. It concerned "the usual suspects": MENTOR's, MERCURY's and the enigmatic, probably SIGINT satellite PAN (2009-047A). The latter satellite has not been moved for quite a while now: since the end of 2013 it is at longitude 47.7 E, parked close to a number of commercial comsats. In the past it was frequently relocated, taking positions next to various commercial COMSATS. In four years time between 2009-2013, it moved at least 9 times (which is a lot) to various longitudes between 33 E and 52.5 E.

PAN amidst several commercial COMSATS on 9 December 2015 (click to enlarge)

The diagram below charts these frequent movements of PAN. Relocations typically took place about once every 6 months. Late 2013, they stopped. PAN however must still be operational, as active station-keeping is necessary for it to stay at 47.7 E.

relocations of PAN over time, 2009-2015 (click to enlarge)

Four other SIGINT satellites and a military comsat were imaged as well: Mentor 4 (2009-001A) and Mentor 6 (2012-034A), Mercury 1 (1994-054A) and Mercury 2 (1996-026A), and the military comsat Milstar 5 (2002-001A).

Mentor 4, next to commercial comsat Thuraya 2 on 9 Dec 2015 (click to enlarge)

Mentor 6 and a number of commercial satellites, close to the Orion nebula, on 9 Dec 2015

Using the remote telescope at Warrumbungle (MPC Q65) in Australia, I recently (4 December 2015) also checked-up on the recently launched US Navy COMSAT MUOS 4 (2015-044A). It is still at its check-out location over the Pacific at longitude 172 W, but some recent press statements suggest check-out has been successfully completed, and it will be moved to its operational position at longitude 75 E near India in the spring of 2016.

CLIO

On 16 September 2014, the US military launched an enigmatic satellite (2014-055A) from Cape Canaveral into a geostationary orbit. It was not disclosed for which agency the object was launched (this is information that usually is disclosed). Nor what its function would be (this is information sometimes but not always disclosed). All we know is the rather uninformative name, CLIO, that it was built by Lockheed Martin and based on their commercial A-2100 bus.

CLIO imaged on May 13, 2015 (click image to enlarge)

CLIO is currently located at longitude 108.0 E, over Indonesia, where I imaged it yesterday using the 0.51-m telescope of Warrumbungle (MPC Q65) in Australia. The image can be seen above: CLIO is positioned just north of Telkom 1 (1999 042A), an Indonesian satellite for satellite telephony. (since Telkom 1 is also built on a Lockheed A2100 bus, the brightness difference in the image above is interesting, and probably due to different attitudes (orientations) of the satellites, although it potentially could also indicate custom components on CLIO, e.g. something like a large dish antenna).

click to enlarge

In many ways CLIO appears similar to another enigmatic satellite,  PAN (USA 207, 2009-047A), launched in September 2009 and infamous among our amateur tracking network for its frequent repositioning.

PAN was also built by Lockheed Martin and like CLIO based on the A-2100 bus. As with CLIO, the government agency behind it was not disclosed, and no indications of its role provided. What was known, is that PAN was developed and built rapidly (in less than 3 years time) using off-the-shelf commercial parts, apparently in response to an urgent need of some undisclosed government agency (which I suspect is either the CIA or NSA). Much speculation has occurred about the role of the spacecraft. The frequent relocations (which stopped at the end of 2013) make clear it is not a simple communications or early warning platform. PAN is currently located at longitude 47.9 E over east Africa.

Because of the similarities, several analysts believe that CLIO, five years after PAN, is a follow-on to the PAN program. The two satellites are currently 60 degrees separated in longitude.

PAN and other geostationary satellites in a frosty winter sky

Last Sunday evening, the pass of the Terra SAR X and Tandem X close duo posted earlier here and a pass of Lacrosse 4 shortly after that, were not the only observations I made. Somewhat later that night, I targetted several geostationary satellites, using both the Canon EF 2.5/50 mm Macro lens and the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180 mm lens (the latter for the first time on geostationary objects).

click image to enlarge

The image above, taken with the EF 2.5/50mm lens, shows two geostationary objects close to the Orion nebula.

One is the classified object USA 202/Mentor 4 (2009-001A), a big SIGINT geostationary satellite with a brightness of about mag. +8. It has featured on this observing blog earlier. The other one, Galaxy 8 (1997-078A), is a commercial communications satellite and was captured serendipitously in the same image while it was brightly but briefly flashing. It is not visible in an image taken 30 seconds later (and only faintly visible in an image taken 3.5 minutes earlier).

I also imaged the mysterious classified geostationary PAN (2009-047A) for the first time, using the new Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180 mm lens. Below image shows it together with the nearby commercial geostationary satellites Paksat 1 (1996-006A) and Hellas-sat 2 (2003-020A).

click image to enlarge

PAN is a very mysterious object, the mysteries surrounding the 2009 launch being discussed at length by Dwayne Day in his Space Review article here. The mystery was (and is), that no Agency (neither NRO, USAF, US Navy nor CIA) claimed responsibility for the launch. Owner and role are hence unknown. There was much speculation about the possible role of the spacecraft, and the meaning of the acronym PAN. The latter got at least one "solution" when the launch patch (below) appeared, suggesting PAN stood for "Palladium At Night". Whatever that may mean.



The same images that contained PAN, Paksat and Hellas-sat 2 also contained the very faint trail of a Breeze-M tank (2009-050C) and two more geostationary satellites: Eutelsat W4 and Eutelsat W7 (2000-028A and 2009-065A). This all in an image only a few degrees wide!

click image to enlarge

Last but not least, the classified geostationary communicatiosn satellite Milstar 5 (2002-001A) was imaged. In the same image(s), two other, commercial geostationary satellites were visible: Galaxy 11 (1999-071A) and Inmarsat 4-F2 (2005-044A). A rich haul of geostationary objects, obtained at mildly frosty temperatures of -2.5 C!

PAN/NEMESIS 1 is still drifting

 

click image to enlarge

In a blog post in September, I wrote that after almost eight years of being steady at longitude 47.7 E, the classified  SIGINT satellite PAN/NEMESIS 1 (2009-047A) had started to slowly drift eastwards, with the drift starting in February 2021.

Observations on the evening of November 8 show that it is still drifting. Currently it is near longitude 54.8 E, close to Yamal 402 and the grouplet GSAT 8, GSAT16 and GSAT 29, as is visible in the image above.

As it is drifting eastwards, it is getting lower in my sky: currently it is at 14.7 degrees elevation above my northeastern horizon.

The history of PAN's relocations so far (for backgrouds on PAN, its probable role and its frequent relocations during the first five years of its life, see my 2016 article in The Space Review):

click diagram to enlarge

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

 

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 Encounters of the SIGINT kind) about the mysterious US classified satellite PAN, and Mentor 4, another classified US satellite.

Both are SIGINT satellites launched in 2009, that are positioned close to commercial telephony communications satellites in GEO in order to eavesdrop on their communications. While Mentor 4 (an ADVANCED ORION) dedicatedly covers Thuraya 2, PAN (NEMESIS 1) moved from satellite to satellite in a 'roving' role every few months during the first 5 years of its operational existence. Its sister ship CLIO (NEMESIS 2) launched in 2014 has done pretty much the same.

But (of course) the USA is not the only country playing this game. In the same year that CLIO (NEMESIS 2) was launched, the Russian Federation launched LUCH (2014-048A), aka OLYMP-K or OLIMP-K. In 2015, in an essay in The Space Review, Brian Weeden pointed out that LUCH was roving from satellite to satellite too, possibly eavesdropping on their communications. This created headlines at the time. By all means, LUCH/OLYMP-K is the Russian equivalent of PAN and CLIO.

The diagram below shows the frequent repositionings of LUCH/OLYMP-K over the years ( a table with major repositionings is at the end of this post):

click diagram to enlarge

LUCH has recently (in the second week of February, 2021) been relocating from longitude 3 W to 8 W and is now positioned near EUTELSAT 8 WEST B (2015-039B). Before the relocation, it had been close to ABS-3A (2015-010A) for several weeks. 

I shot this image below on March 29th, when LUCH and EUTELSAT 8 WEST B were about 90 km apart:

 

click image to enlarge

The image was made with a CANON EOS 80D and Samyang 2.0/135 mm lens (10 seconds at 1000 ISO) and was a by-product of targetting MEV-2 and several classified objects in this stretch of sky.

The table below gives longitudinal positions for LUCH/OLYMP-K. The table focusses on major relocations.

Dates refer to he moments the longitude appears to get stabilized, and have generally been preceeded by a period of drift. Also indicated is what satellite was closest to LUCH/OLYMP-K at the start of each stable period. Note that in several cases, multiple satellites were close by and possibly targetted as well.

TABLE: positions of LUCH/OLYMP-K since late 2014 

DATE          LON      NEAR

17-02-2021    08.1 W   EUTELSAT 8 West B       2015-039B
06-11-2020    03.1 W   ABS-3A                  2015-010A
28-09-2020    04.9 W   Eutelsat 5W B           2019-067A
11-05-2020    01.1 W   Intelsat 10-02          2014-058A
28-03-2020    21.5 E   EUTELSAT 21B            2012-062B
28-11-2019    70.6 E   EUTELSAT 70B            2012-069A
22-10-2019    68.4 E   Intelsat 20             2012-043A
25-08-2019    65.9 E   Intelsat 17             2010-065B
01-07-2019    64.0 E   Intelsat 906            2002-041A
21-02-2019    60.0 E   Intelsat 33E            2016-053B
28-10-2018    57.0 E   NSS 12                  2009-058A
03-07-2018    49.9 E   Turksat 4B              2015-060A
07-06-2018    48.0 E   Eutelsat 28B            2008-065B
27-04-2018    47.5 E   Yahsat 1B               2012-016A
17-01-2018    41.9 E   Turksat 4A              2014-007A
25-10-2017    38.1 E   Paksat 1R               2011-042A
18-08-2017    32.7 E   Intelsat New Dawn       2011-016A
14-09-2016    09.9 E   Eutelsat 10A            2009-016A
11-01-2016    01.1 W   Intelsat 10-02          2004-022A
05-10-2015    24.3 W   Intelsat 905            2002-027A
26-06-2015    18.1 W   Intelsat 901            2001-024A
22-02-2015    96.4 E   Express AM-33           2008-003A

An unknown object in (near) Geostationary orbit: Express AM-5?

The evening of December 29 2013 started clear, so I did a small survey of a part of the geostationary belt. Main focus of the session was PAN, as well as Mentor 4 and 6.

Inspecting the images I found an unidentified object in near-Geostationary orbit some 4 degrees east of PAN, between Mentor 6 and NSS 5, on several images (positions here). The image below shows it near M42, the Orion nebula, near 19:17 UT:

click image to enlarge

In addition to the UNID you can also see a classified satellite at left, Mentor 6 (2012-034A), a SIGINT satellite also known under the code name Advanced Orion. At right are two commercial geostationary satellites, NSS 5 (1997-053A) and Galaxy 26 (1999-005A).

Cees Bassa in the Netherlands and Greg Roberts in South Africa also observed what is likely the same UNID object later that night. While it is not easy to fit a reliable orbit to such a relatively short span of observations, the suggestion is an object with an inclination near 0 and a Mean Motion of about 0.92 revolutions per day, i.e. an object near Geostationary altitudes.

The Mean Motion could suggest an old object being moved to a Graveyard Orbit. If this is the case, we haven't been able to identify which 'old' object it is yet.

Another option is that this is a new object. The only likely candidate in that case is the Russian satellite Express AM-5 which was launched on December 26th. This object seems to have been temporarily "lost" by JSpOC: as I write this (Jan 2),  Space-Track does not list orbital elements later than December 26th (when it was still in  a temporary transfer orbit).

For the moment, Mike McCants has given it the name UNK 131229 (with the acronym UNK meaning "Unknown").

This observing session also served to check on PAN (2009-047A). PAN is a highly mobile satellite and often moves position in May and December (I have written on the mystery of this satellite before). Not this time, it seems: it is still at the position it has been in for several months, forming a trio with the commercial satellites Yahsat 1B and Intelsat 10:

click image to enlarge

Other classified objects imaged this night were the old SIGINT Mercury 1 (USA 105, "Advanced Vortex", 1994-054A), and the SIGINT Mentor 4 (USA 202, 2009-001A). Mercury 1 was placed at 48 E and recovered by me about a year ago.

click images to enlarge

During this observing session, I captured a bright irregular orange light moving across the sky: a 'Thai Lantern' ( a miniature hot-air balloon). They are the cause of many false fireball and re-entry reports. Here it is, moving through Orion while carried by the wind:

Two days earlier, on December 27, I also did my periodic check on Prowler (90-097E), using the 61-cm Cassegrain of Sierra Stars Observatory in Markleeville, California (MPC G68).

I concluded the evening of the 29th by making some shots of M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Unfortunately, some thin haze came in after a while. The image below is a stack of 16 haze-free images of 30 seconds exposure each, with a CLS filter (against light pollution - the images were taken from Leiden town center)) and Zeiss 2.8/180mm lens piggyback on the mount of my C6:

click image to enlarge

PAN has moved again [UPDATED]

On April 23 I wrote the following about PAN (2009-047A) and its frequent relocations in my post here:

"No doubt it will move again in the future, perhaps in May as December and May are frequently the months the satellite is moved"

I was very right with the "perhaps in May": PAN is on the move again!

Greg Roberts observing from South-Africa noted it missing at its old position on April 29. He recovered it on May 4th near the commercial geostationary Comsat Yamal 404. It is not (yet) clear whether that is its final position, or whether it is still drifting. Greg next initially thought he recovered it near the commercial comsat Yamal 404 on imagery from May 4th, but that turned out to be a mistake: as Mike McCants pointed out, the object in question was in reality the commercial geosat GSAT 8.

Ian Roberts, another South African observer, then located what likely indeed is PAN near Intelsat 12 on May 6th. Greg Roberts then managed to find it in his earlier images of May 4th as well, confirming Ian's observations.

Just goes to show that even the most secret of all satellites cannot escape the inquisitive eyes of a dedicated amateur.

PAN, other Geostationary satellites, and another UNID (this time Greg's)

As reported earlier I had a prolific observing session on Geostationary satellites in the evening of November 18th, discovering amongst others an unidentified geostationary object now temporarily designated Unknown 121118 (see here and follow-up here with imagery by Greg from S-Africa: an more on it near the end of the current post).

Below is some more imagery showing various classified and unclassified objects. All images were made using a Canon EOS 60D with a SamYang 1.4/85mm lens at ISO 1000.


Unknown 20121117 (Greg's UNID)

The November 18th imagery includes imagery of a second unidentified object, Unknown 121117 discovered by Greg Roberts (CoSaTrak) from South Africa a day earlier on the 17th (a third initially reported  'unid 'by Greg turned out to be identifiable as a known object, a Chinese CZ-3C r/b). So Greg recovered my Nov 18th UNID on the 19th, and I recovered Greg's Nov 17 UNID on the 18th: nice teamwork!

The image below shows it together with a number of nearby commercial geosats (the veil-like lighter streaks in the image are cirrus clouds, who had begone to invade an initially clear sky):

click image to enlarge

Below is one of Greg's images of the object from 17 November taken from S-Africa: in my image above taken a day later the object has drifted quite a distance more to the West.

(image courtesy Greg Roberts, CoSatTrak S-Africa)

Unknown 121117 is a truely uncatalogued object. There is nevertheless some idea about the identity of this satellite, but I am currently not allowed to provide more information.



PAN

PAN (09-047A) and the nearby commercial geosat Paksat 1R visible in Greg's Nov 17th image are visible on my Nov 18th imagery as well. The image below basically fits to the upper image above (see the Eutelsat pair visible in both images), giving you a sense how Greg's Unknown 2012117 has moved in a day time:

click image to enlarge

I have written about PAN on this blog several times before: it is an enigmatic classified satellite that frequently relocates.


Mentor 4, Thuraya 2 and the Mentor 1r

Among the other objects imaged were the SIGINT Mentor 4 (and the nearby commercial satellite Thuraya 2), and a r/b from the Mentor 1 launch, Mentor 1r.

Mentors (the biggest geostationary satellites in existence and the biggest man-made objects in space with exception of the ISS) are relatively bright objects (typically mag. +8):

click image to enlarge

I already posted imagery of another Mentor, Mentor 5, as well as the SIGINT Vortex 6 in an earlier post.


More on my UNID, Unknown 121118

This object in an 8.5 degree inclined geosynchronous orbit (see here and here for earlier coverage) remains 'unidentified' (i.e., is not present in public orbital catalogues such as USSTRATCOM's): we are however starting to believe it could be a classified object that has recently been moved to this location from somewhere else. It is currently positioned over 48.3 E and appears stable in longitude:

click map to enlarge

PAN is on the move, and detection of an unknown object in near-GEO

Last Wednesday evening (16 May) saw very clear skies. Combined with the absence of moonlight, an ideal situation to target geostationary objects, which are low in the sky for me at 52 N. As they are low  and I am in an urban environment, I need a very transparent sky.

Normally I use the 2.8/180mm Zeiss Sonnar, but this time I went for the SamYang 1.4/85mm. The limiting magnitude of this fine lens is only slightly less than that of the 180mm, but the FOV is twice as large (10 x 14 degrees). It is a geostationary magnet: in one single image I counted 20 geostationary or near-geostationary objects! In total, the session (a sweep of some 25 degrees of equatorial sky in the S-SE, at elevations of 15 to 25 degrees) recorded 38 objects: 7 classifieds, 30 unclassifieds and one unknown.


An UNKNOWN object on May 16

As part of the session, an object in near-Geostationary space was serendipitously observed that cannot be matched to any known object (for recorded positions, see here). It was slowly moving near the commercial geosats Eutelsat 36A and Eutelsat 36B (00-028A and 09-065A) and was captured on several images, small parts of four of which are shown below (note the movement relative to the stable Eutelsats):

click image to enlarge

As Heavensat with the latest orbital catalogues loaded showed nothing in this position I initially logged it as a 'UNID'. Then a check with Ted's IDSat software resulted in a very superficial match with the DSP F20 cover (00-024E), but a clearly non-linear delta T suggested this could be a spurious match (see the questionmark and note under my data report here).  Next Mike McCants contacted me, it was indeed a spurious match in his opinion as his analysis of my data suggested an approximate orbit that does not match the DSP F20 cover at all. So for now, the object is designated as UNKNOWN 120516.

Objects like this do not spontaneously materialize, and there is no recent launch that can account for this object. It is therefore likely an old object being relocated. According to Mike, one possible (but by far not certain) option is that it is the classified object Mercury 1 (94-054A, or USA 105), which has not been observed for some time, being retired and relocated to a graveyard orbit.

Unfortunately, both Greg Roberts in South Africa and me here in the Netherlands were clouded out last night and today, so follow-up using Mike's approximate search orbits is troublesome for the moment.


PAN being relocated again

Another classified geostationary object on the move again is the enigmatic PAN (09-047A). This object has an unusual history of frequent relocations, moving to and fro in longitude each few months. It was at 44.9 E in the spring of 2011, then relocated to 39.1 E in the summer of 2011 and next moved to 52.5 E somewhere between late October 2011 (I still observed it at 39.1E on 23 October 2011) and January 2012, when Greg Roberts noted it missing after which Ian Roberts recovered it at 52.5 E early February.

And now its is moving again: Greg Roberts was the first to note this on May 10 and recovered it on May 14 and May 16 while it was and is moving towards 39.1 E (a position it has previously occupied). I imaged it near 39.1 E too on Wednesday evening May 16. Below is a part of one of the images, showing PAN and several commercial geostationary objects, as well as two old rocket boosters in GTO:

click image to enlarge

 Other classified (near-)  geostationary objects observed this evening were the SIGINT Vortex 6 (89-035A, also in the process of being relocated), the SIGINT Mentor 4 (09-001A), it's rocket (09-001B), the Milstar 5 communication satellite (02-001A), the DSCS 3-13 R2 rocket (03-008C) and the DSP early-warning satellite DSP F23 (07-054A).

Apart from these geostationary objects, I observed the LEO object USA 186 (05-042A, a KH-12 Keyhole) as well that evening, in its new orbit after it manoeuvered earlier this year.

UNID-I 3 May 2011 = PAN [UPDATED]

On May 3rd, I found two unidentified geostationary objects close to Galaxy 27 and Intelsat 12 (see report and pictures here).

One, UNID-I, was stable in brightness. The other, UNID-II, was flashing. I imaged UNID-I the next night (May 4th) as well, showing it drifting westwards. I might have imaged UNID-II again too, though misidentifying it at that time as Intelsat 12 (except for the occasionally very bright UNID-II, the objects were, due to worse observing conditions, at the edge of detectability).

At that time (see the link above) there already was some suspicion that UNID-I could be the enigmatic classified geostationary satellite PAN (09-047A), caught in the act of yet another relocation.

That suspicion is now confirmed, following additional imaging by Peter Wakelin from the UK on May 8th. Still drifting when I picked it up on May 3rd, PAN now appears to have settled in a new position at 44.9 E, just west of Galaxy 27 and Intelsat 12. It has moved 2 degrees higher in my local sky, to an altitude of 19 degrees.

The identity of the second, flashing UNID, UNID-II which is still drifting westwards on May 8th, is still uncertain. While it is possibly the Indian communication satellite GSat-2 (03-018A) in the act of relocating, Space-Track still lists that object stable in its usual orbit slot placing it at 48 E. So we have something of a remaining mystery to solve there (although in the end, it will probably turn out to be Gsat-2, with Space-Track for some reason failing yet to recognize it is being moved).

UPDATE 09/05/2011: about an hour after I posted this, Space-Track updated the orbit for Gsat-2, showing that UNID-II is indeed Gsat-2, probably on it's way to the graveyard orbit. So, it appears I beat Space-Track to it by several days!

PAN (09-047A) has a history of frequent relocations, making this already enigmatic satellite the more enigmatic. Previous to this early May 2011 relocation, it relocated in early December 2010, an event that I was the first person to detect as well. So far, it has been located at 33.0 E from late 2009 to May 2010 and then was moved to 38.0 E; then to 49.0 E in December 2010; and now to 44.9 E in May 2011.

[UPDATED] Two Unidentified Geostationary Objects on May 3 and 4

May 3 was an unusually clear evening, and I decided to target a few classified geostationary satellites, using the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm.

While imaging the region of PAN (09-047A) and Mentor 4 (09-001A), I found two unidentified objects. Yes: two.

The first object, UNID-I, was discovered close to the commercial geosats Galaxy 27 (99-052A) and Intelsat 12 (00-068A). It was present on multiple images, and the astrometry shows it is stable in declination. It was about as bright as the two commercial geosats, and stable in brightness.

The plot thickened, when a second unidentified object, UNID-II, was discovered just east of the first, just north of the commercial geostationary Syracuse 3A (05-041B). This object was irregular in brightness, alternating between faint and very bright (comparable to Mentor 4 at peak brightness, i.e. about mag. +8).

Below image shows UNID-I near Galaxy 27 and Intelsat 12:

click image to enlarge

The two images below show UNID-II near Syracuse 3A, and the clear flaring behaviour of the UNID.

click image to enlarge

On May 4th, the sky quality was poorer. Nevertheless I tried to recover the two objects, with partial success: UNID-II was captured again on several images.

It had drifted westwards, closer to Galaxy 27 and Intelsat 12 towards the position of UNID-I. The latter was not visible on the images, most likely due to the poor sky quality (Galaxy 27 and Intelsat 12 were barely visible either).

The object showed a clear variable brightness behaviour, being invisible in one image and very bright in the next one taken 30s later. Together with the slowly changing declination, this shows that the object is likely UNID-II, not UNID-I.

Below images were taken 30 seconds apart: the object is bright in one, and invisible in the other:

click image to enlarge

In the series of images, it is present in the following images:

from - to (UTC, May 4th)
---------------------------------------
21:03:02.30 - 21:03:12.35
21:04:02.30 - 21:04:12.35 - very bright
21:05:02.30 - 21:05:12.35
21:07:32.30 - 21:07:42.35
21:08:02.30 - 21:08:12.35
21:08:32.30 - 21:08:42.35 - very bright
21:11:02.30 - 21:11:12.35
21:12:02.30 - 21:12:12.35
21:13:02.30 - 21:13:12.35 - very bright
21:14:02.30 - 21:14:12.35 - very bright
---------------------------------------

As can be seen, there is a clear semi-1 minute periodicity in this.

I have no idea as to the true identity of these two objects. As I could find no trace of PAN (09-047A) near Yamal 202 on my May 3rd images, it is possible that UNID-I is PAN once again relocating.

The presence of a second, tumbling/spinning object, UNID-II, close to it however suggests that more is going on. Finding two UNID's close together is definitely weird and might suggest a connection between the two objects.

UNID-II has a small but clear inclination to it's orbit and appears to be drifting westwards. UNID-I is stable in declination, indicating an inclination close to zero. It might be drifting as well (only more observations will tell, given that I failed to find it on May 4th).

UPDATE 5-5-2011:
Ted Molczan feels UNID-II (the flashing one) could be the Indian commercial geosat Gsat 2 (03-018A) in the act of relocating. UNID-I could indeed well be, as I suggested in my report on Satobs, the classified geosat PAN (09-047A) relocating, according to Mike McCants. I captured the same satellite relocating in December last year: this enigmatic satellite is frequently on the move.

PAN (no longer drifting) on January 2nd 2011

As I discovered on December 8th 2010 (see here), PAN had started to drift away from it's old position at 38.0 E on 2010 December 1st (see here).

Greg Roberts in South Africa and me in the Netherlands followed it drifting eastwards at a rate of about 0.5 degrees/day over mid-December 2010. I dropped out of the chase after December 14th, when a long period of wintery weather with snow started in the Netherlands.

On December 27th, Greg failed to recover it at the position projected by the drift rate and surmissed it had stopped drifting. He confirmed this on December 29th, when he found it in position 49.0 E. It has stayed in that stable position since.

Below diagram shows that it reached that position at 2010 December 24.2:

click diagram to enlarge

Yesterday evening (2 January 2011) I managed to image PAN in it's new 49.0 E position during a short period of clearings:

click image to enlarge

I am happy the drift has stopped, as PAN otherwise would have slowly drifted out of my reach. In it's new position, it is lower and more to the northeast in the sky for me: actually it is now quite low at an altitude of only 17.9 degrees (just above tree-top and roof-top level for my locality), 5 degrees lower in altitude and 11.3 degrees more eastward in azimuth than it was in November 2010.

Below diagram shows the change in azimuth and altitude between late November 2010 (right) and now (left).

click diagram to enlarge

SIGINT Galore!

USA 136 (Trumpet 3), a TRUMPET in HEO. 28 Nov 2016
click to enlarge

The evening of 28 November was very clear - no moon and an extremely transparent sky, with temperatures around zero.

I used it to target several objects in GEO and HEO. Due to the favourable sky I could use exposure times twice as long as usual.

All the classified objects imaged were Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) satellites, i.e. eavesdropping satellites. The image above shows you one of the TRUMPET satellites, USA 136 (1997-068A), crossing through Andromeda. This is an object in a 63 degree inclined HEO orbit. The satellite was coming down from apogee at that moment and at an altitude of ~31 500 km.

Below is another object in HEO, USA 184 (2006-027A). This too is a SIGINT satellite, part of the TRUMPET-Follow On program (aka Advanced TRUMPET. It also serves as a SBIRS platform.

USA 184, a TRUMPET-FO in HEO, 28 Nov 2016
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This object was near apogee at this moment, at an altitude of 39 000 km over the Faroër Islands, which is why it looks stellar in this 20-second exposure. The star field is in Cassiopeia.

Both these objects hadn't been observed by our network for a while, hence they were somewhat off their predictions (1.5 degrees in position in the case of USA 136; and 1 degree off position in the case of USA 184).

I also briefly imaged a part of the geosynchronous belt, much lower in the sky. The targetted GEO objects were SIGINT satellites too: both Mercury 1 and Mercury 2 (1994-054A and 1996-026A), The Advanced ORION satellites Mentor 4 and Mentor 6 (2009-001A and 2012-034A) and the NEMESIS satellite PAN (2009-047A).

PAN and Mentor 4 (both shown below) have a story attached to them and were the subject of my recent article in The Space Review, which you can read here.

PAN (USA 207), a NEMESIS in GEO, 28 Nov 2016
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Mentor 4 (USA 202), an Advanced ORION in GEO, 28 Nov 2016
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Imaging a "UFO" (Ultra High Frequency Follow-On)

UFO F2 on 3 March 2016
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The image above is my first image of a UFO...

(* cue X-Files tune *)

No need to call in Mulder, however. The object in the image is a geosynchronous satellite, UFO F2 (1993-056A).

The truth is out there

The acronym 'UFO' in this case does not stand for the classic Unidentified Flying Object. It stands for Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Follow-On, the name of a class of US Navy communication satellites.

The UFO satellite constellation consists of 11 satellites (not all of them operational) in geosynchronous orbit, launched between 1993 and 2003. It serves fleet-wide communication needs for the US Navy (including its submarines, but also Marine units on land). The system is currently being replaced by the newer MUOS constellation (see a previous post) and will gradually be phased out.

UFO satellite constellation on 9 March 2016
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The first launch in the series, the launch of UFO F1 on 25 March 1993 with an Atlas 1 from Cape Canaveral, resulted in a partial failure to reach the intended geosynchronous orbit due to the failure of one of the rocket engines. The second UFO launch, UFO F2, the one imaged above, was the first truely successful launch of this satellite class.

USA 236 on 28 February 2016
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I imaged more geosynchronous objects the past week, taking advantage of clear moonless evenings. The image above shows a star field in Orion in the evening of 28 February 2016, with USA 236 (SDS 3 F7, 2012-033A), an SDS data communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit. These satellites relay data from other US military satellites, optical and radar reconnaissance satellites in Low Earth Orbits such as the KH-11 'Keyhole'/CRYSTAL, Lacrosse (ONYX) and FIA (TOPAZ), to the US.

PAN on 28 February 2016
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I also did my periodic revisit of the enigmatic SIGINT satellite PAN (2009-047A) as well (see image above). PAN is still stable at 47.7 E (see my long-term analysis here), near Yahsat 1B. The image above shows it near that satellite and a number of other commercial communications satellites in an image taken on 28 February 2016.

Mercury 1 r on 3 March 2016
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On Feb 28 and March 3, I recovered Mercury 1 r (1994-054B), the upper stage from the launch of the Mercury 1 SIGINT satellite. We had lost this object for a while, it had not been seen for 153 days when I recovered it. The image above shows it in Hydra on 3 March 2016.

USA 186 on 5 March 2016
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As spring is approaching, the visibility of satellites in Low Earth Orbit is gradually coming back for northern hemisphere observers.  This means we can take over from our lone southern hemisphere observer, Greg. The image above shows the KH-11 'Keyhole'/CRYSTAL optical reconnaissance satellite USA 186 (2005-042A) imaged on 5 March 2016.

Observing Geostationary Satellites from Leiden and Arizona

While the focus was on LEO and HEO satellites earlier in October, I primarily targetted Geostationary satellites last week. Both from my own locality with my own equipment, as well as by means of a "remote" telescope in Arizona.

The two images below were taken from Leiden (the Netherlands) in the early evening of October 23, using my own equipment (Canon EOS 450D + Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm).

They show the enigmatic, frequently re-locating PAN satellite (09-047A: see Dwayne Day's article here) and the SIGINT (eavesdropping) Mentor 4 (USA 202) satellite (09-001A), as well as a few commercial geostationary telecom objects: Hellas-sat 2 (03-020A), Thuraya 2 (03-026A) and Paksat 1R (11-042A).

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As can be seen, PAN and Hellas-sat 2 are a very close pair now, so close that I am not actually 100% sure which one is which (the westernmost one or rightmost one is likely PAN). As can be seen in comparison to this post from May, it has relocated again, from 45.0 to 38.9 E - it did so in July, when I was on hollidays.

Somewhat earlier the same week, when the sky in Leiden was overcast, I took refuge by hiring a "remote" telescope again. This time not the 61-cm of SSON, but the 37-cm Cassegrain of Winer Observatory (MPC 857) in Sonoita, Arizona, USA. While a smaller instrument, this telescope has a larger FOV which is good if the satellite is a bit off from predictions, and allows te satellite to be captured on more than one image when a 3-image run is done. Also, it is cheaper to rent.

Targets were two "usual suspects": the enigmatic Prowler (90-097E: see story and links in my previous post here) on October 17 and 21 and the SBIRS-GEO 1 (11-019A) on October 21:

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Note: because the telescope follows the stars, the satellites become trailed, unlike the images shot from Leiden which are from a stationary tripod (hence the stars trail, but the satellites not).

A few non-geostationary satellites were tracked the past two weeks as well. They include the STSS Demo 1 & 2 (09-052 A & B) and the USA 89 r/b (92-086C) on October 22, and the HEO ELINT & SBIRS platform USA 184 (06-027A) on October 15.