THE SECRET SPIES IN THE SKY - Imagery, Data Analysis, and Discussions relating to Military Space
SatTrackCam Leiden (Cospar 4353) is a satellite tracking station located at Leiden, the Netherlands. The tracking focus is on classified objects - i.e. "spy satellites". With a camera, accurate positional measurements on satellites of interest are obtained in order to determine their orbits. Orbital behaviour is analysed.
This blog analyses Missile tests too.
Pan on August 8/9, 2021, imaged from Leiden. Click image to enlarge
Five years ago, in 2016, I wrote a long article in The Space Review titled "A NEMESIS in the sky: PAN, Mentor 4 and close encounters of the SIGINT kind". The primary subjects of that article were two SIGINT satellites: PAN (Nemesis 1) and Mentor 4.
In the article, I discussed what we had observed and deduced about PAN as amateur trackers, to what had been recently revealed about PAN by leaked documents from the Snowden files.
In the article I documented the frequent movements of PAN (2009-047A): for four years between its launch in September 2009 and mid 2013, PAN, very unusual for a geosynchronous satellite, was roving from location to location, each time being put close to a satellite for commercial satellite telephony. For information on the "why" of that, and the larger context of it (a new kind of SIGINT information gathering), I refer to the earlier mentioned Space Review paper which goes into details.
Mid-2013, four years after launch, the frequent relocations stopped. For 8 years, the position of PAN remained stable in longitude near 47o.7 E. It's roving days, snooping around and sniffing other satellites, were over. Until this year.
Somewhere between 6 February and 7 May 2021, PAN started to move again, eastwards in longitude. Observed longitudes over the period May-August 2021 suggest a drift eastwards at about 0.025 deg/day.
Assuming a stable drift, the move appears to have been initiated within a few days of 11 February, 2021.The last observation still showing PAN at 47.7 Ewas on 6 February 2021 (as it happens, our network did not observe it again untill early May 2021 when it had already moved eastwards by two degrees).
The diagram below (an updated version of one that appeared in my 2016 Space Review article) shows the positions in longitude that PAN has been taking up since its launch in 2006. Note the frequent relocations over the period 2009-2013, then the long stabilization at 47.7E, and the start of a new drift episode in 2021:
click diagram to enlarge
The question now is, what this drift since February means:
(1) Has it deliberately been brought into a drift state to move it to an eventual new position?
(2) Has it reached end-of-life and been manoeuvered into a graveyard orbit?
A 'graveyard orbit' is usually an orbit that is located at least 235 km higher than a geosynchronous orbit. That does not appear to be the case here: if anything, the orbit seems to be a few km lower than it previously was. So it appears to be option (1).
It will be interesting to see whether PAN will stabilize its longitude at some point or not, and where that will be. Unfortunately, as it is drifting eastwards it is getting lower in my sky (currently, it is some 16 degrees above my local horizon), and there do not appear to be many other amateurs covering it currently.
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
17-02-202108.1 W EUTELSAT 8 West B 2015-039B 06-11-202003.1 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 10A2009-016A 11-01-2016 01.1 W Intelsat 10-022004-022A 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
I hardly can't believe it: but today, this blog turns
15 years!
It all started very humble. The very first post on this blog, titled "Dutch weather sucks!", went up on 6 August 2005. It was a very simple, brief message, noting how I was defeated by weather that night.
Most of the early posts on this blog back in those days were such very brief and simple notes (but then, blogs back in those days were much more simple affairs). It were very basal, verbatim reports on my nightly observing activities. A lot of it was bitching on the proverbially bad Dutch weather (seriously: for a satellite tracker I am situated in one of this Worlds worst locations considering weather. And light pollution).
My equipment back in those days was very simple too: nowadays it is much more sophisticated (but still, all is done with off-the-shelf equipment that in itself need not be very expensive).
This blog is what I would call a Niche Blog: one that is dedicated to some
weirdly esoteric field of interest. There are literally only a handfull of amateurs
Worldwide who are actively tracking satellites, maybe 15 active observers altogether (but a lot more who like
to read and talk about it). Space Situational Awareness, to use the professional terminology, is a decidedly geeky field.
The X-37B military space plane OTV 6 (click image to enlarge)
Therefore, it has always surprised me how many readers my blog draws, especially when something special is going on. In the latter case, this blog can draw an audience of thousands of readers per day. On a more typical day, it would be one- or twohundred per day at most.
Started in August 2005, this blog would grow over the next 15 years to become a much more mature, well established and apparently well-respected blog with a dedicated following of fellow satellite trackers from the SeeSat-L mailing list as well as an assorted lot of sundry general Space enthusiasts, Space Situational Awareness professionals, journalists, Missile geeks, and other people who somehow find their way to this blog.
And Spooks too. IP logs show that this blog has been visited by amongst others the CIA, the NSA and the North Koreans. It made me joke to my friends about black helicopters, unmarked SUV's, and I tongue-in-cheek asked them to send clean underwear to Gitmo in case I would suddenly vanish.... Another noteworthy, unexpected visit some years ago, was someone from the Executive Office of the US President (this was at the time that a malfunctioned Japanese spy satellite was about to come down).
Fifteen years ago, I'd never dreamt of such a wide audience. What originally was simply an on-line observing log (as reflected in the name), has by now become a well established military Space related OSINT blog.
Photography and data visualizations have been, and will continue to be, a very important part of what I write for this blog. While functional (astrometry), I always strife to make my imagery visually attractive as well.
My imagery inspired the artist and investigative journalist Trevor Paglen, so he told me, to create the chapter "The Other Night Sky" in his photobook Invisible. Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes.
With Trevor Paglen in Amsterdam in 2018
So how did it all start? During the Nineteen-nineties, previous to my interest in satellites (which came from an interest in satellite reentries), I was an active meteor observer within the Dutch Meteor Society. Back in 2005 I realised that the software we used to astrometrically measure meteor images, would be suitable for measuring positions on satellites in images too. Around that time I also discovered this weird but fascinating world of observers tracking classified satellites! So I started to experiment with that, and after a period of trial-and-error and discovering what was important (accurate timings and camera calibration!), I started to get usefull results. Soon, I became a regular contributor of positional measurements on classified satellites to the Seesat-L list.
Starting simply with a compact camera (a Canon IXUS gifted by a friend), the equipment has grown over the
years. A significant quality change came when I landed a post-doc, got some money and turned to using a DSLR (initially a Canon EOS 400D; currently a Canon EOS 80D) and an over time growing suit of suitable lenses (Canon EF 2.0/35 mm; Canon EF 2.5/50 mm, Samyang 1.4/85 mm; Samyang 2.0/135 mm; and in the past also a Zeiss 2.8/180 mm).
For Low Earth Orbit, I now preferably use a sensitive video camera (a WATEC 902H) with either a Canon 1.8/50mm or Samyang 1.4/85 mm lens, and a GPS time inserter, as timing remains the bottleneck of using a DSLR. The DSLR is now mainly used by me for astrometry on high altitude objects (HEO and GEO), and for obtaining pretty pictures of Low Earth Orbit objects.
Over the past few years, radio was also added as an observing tool (although mostly focussing on Human Spaceflight communications and capturing weather satellite imagery).
Click image to enlarge
As this blog matured, and I gained more insight into spaceflight dynamics (graciously helped along by people like Ted Molczan), the posts became more elaborate. The scope widened. I started to publish analysis, and these started to gather attention. A few years ago, my interest in the North Korean Space program expanded into an analytical interest into the North Korean missile program (which introduced me to the funny lot of people that populate the Missile Twitter community), and ICBM tests in general.
At one point, some of my analysis outgrew this blog, resulting in more formal articles written for The Space Review and The Diplomat (see links in the sidebar). Apart from my blog posts and articles, I also frequently present imagery and small preliminary analysis through my Twitter account.
Journalists increasingly found me, and I started to get quoted and interviewed by websites, printed news media, TV stations and radio stations in the Netherlands, Germany, the UK and the USA. I even appeared in a PBS documentary, being interviewed by Miles O'Brien about an analysis of North Korean launch imagery.
with Miles O'Brien for a PBS documentary, December 2017 (aired in February 2018)
When I started this blog 15 years ago, I never dreamt it would take off this way. It has been a surprising journey: starting as a rank amateur 15 years ago, I am now, partly thanks to this blog, actually employed as a Space Situational Awareness (SSA) consultant at Leiden University in a project with the Space Security Center of the Royal Dutch Air Force. It goes to show how things that start small and simple, over time can grow very serious.
The shift towards more professional SSA involvement was the result of a terrible tragedy. On 17 July 2014, a Malaysian Airlines airliner, flight MH17 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over Ukraine. 298 people lost their lives, including 192 Dutch. For me this tragedy was extra unnerving at the time, as my girlfriend and I were about to fly the same route with KLM/Malaysian only three days later...
I wrote a blog post about the tragedy (the first of several) detailing how Space-based data from the classified SBIRS satellite constellation and various SIGINT satellites might shed light on where, and by inference by whom, the missile was launched.
This blog-post was subsequently picked up by a Dutch Member of Parliament, Pieter Omtzigt, who then contacted me. He used the information I provided as a base for questions in a Parliamentary committee session in 2015, and next invited me to give expert testimony in a Hearing of the Permanent Committee of Foreign Affairs of Dutch Parliament on 22 January 2016. It was part of a large, a day long session that included Radar experts, hotshots from Air Traffic Control, the Intelligence Services, and experts in international Law. I had to write a position paper for it, and during the session, give a brief presentation and then answer questions by Parliament members.
Giving testimony at a Permanent Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on MH17, 22 January 2016
This caught the attention of the then brand new Space Security Center of the Royal Dutch Air Force, who contacted me a few days after the hearing. They were very interested in what I was doing, especially since they wanted to create their own tracking capacity. This led to several meetings and eventually two projects, one completed and one currently running. The astronomy department of Leiden University hired me as a consultant as part of these projects. What started as a hobby, turned professional (this has happened to me before by the way: with meteorite research. That started as a hobby too but led to a research job at the Dutch National Museum of Natural History, and a 30-page scientific paper in Meteoritics & Planetary Science).
Those who have followed this blog for several years, know that the content is ecclectic (mirroring my wide interests). Apart from imagery and analysis of classified satellites, it also features posts on missiles, and occasionally features more off-topic subjects such as meteoric fireballs, meteorites, comets and asteroids.
This reflects my wide and varied interests, which is apparent in much of what I do. I am a scientist with a PhD in Palaeolithic archaeology, but I have worked as a scientific researcher in totally different fields too, including Planetary Geology/Meteoritics and now also SSA.
So that is the story of how this blog came into being, and how it changed my life.
What were some of the highlights of those 15 years writing this blog and doing OSINT analysis on classified space and missiles? Among the more notable for me were:
The analysis of amateur observations of the SIGINT satellites PAN/NEMESIS 1 and MENTOR 4 in the context of leaked Snowden files, leading to a publication in The Space Review;
The analysis of a Trident-II SLBM test captured by chance on photograph by an amateur astronomer from La Palma, in the context of other Atlantic Trident tests;
The past week brought some clear skies. It also brougt me a new lens, a SamYang 2.0/135 mm ED UMC.
This lens had been on my wish-list for a while, as a potential replacement for the 1979-vintage Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180 mm I hitherto used for imaging faint Geosynchronous (GEO) and Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) objects, objects which are typically in the magnitude +10 to +14 range.
The 2.0/135 mm SamYang lens has gotten raving reviews on photography websites, several of these reviews noting that the optical quality of this lens is superior to that of a Canon 2.0/135L lens. And this while it retails at only half the price of an L-lens (it retails for about 460 to 500 Euro).
While I have the version with the Canon EF fitting, the SamYang lens is
also available with fittings for various other camera brands.
Focussing is very smooth and easy with this lens. Unlike a Canon-L lens, the SamYang lens is fully manual (both focus and
F-stop), but for astrophotography, manually focussing is mandatory
anyway. The general build of the lens is solid. It is made of a combination of metal and plastic.
While not particularly lightweight, the lens is lighter in weight than my 1979-vintage Zeiss (which is all-metal and built like a tank, in true DDR fashion). The SamYang has a somewhat larger aperture (6.75 cm) than the Zeiss (6.42 cm), meaning it can image fainter objects. It also has a notably wider field of view (9 x 7 degrees, while the Zeiss has 7 x 5 degrees).
So for me, this seemed to be the ideal lens for GEO and HEO.
And after two test nights I can confirm: this SamYang lens indeed is spectacularlysharp. The first test images, made on January 15 and 16, have truely impressed me. Even at full F2.0 aperture, it is sharp from the center all the way to the edges and corners of the image.
Here is a comparison of the image center and the upper right corner of an image, at true pixel level. There is hardly any difference in sharpness:
click to enlarge
The images below, taken with the SamYang on a Canon EOS 80D, are crops of larger images, all but one at true pixel level.
The first image is a test image from January 15, a nice clear evening.
It shows two objects in HEO: a Russian piece of space debris (a Breeze-M
tank), and the classified American SIGINT satellite TRUMPET 1 (1994-026A). Note how sharp the trails are (this is a crop at true pixel level):
Click image to enlarge
The next night, January 16, I imaged several geostationary objects (which at my 51 degree north latitude are low in the sky, generally (well) below 30 degrees elevation). While the sky was reasonably clear, there were lingering aircraft contrails in the sky, locally producing some haze. Geostationary objects showed up well however, better than they generally did in the Zeiss images in the past.
The image below, which is a crop of a larger image, is not true pixel size, but slightly reduced in size to
fit several objects in one image. It shows the Orion Nebula, several
unclassified commercial GEO-sats, the Russian military comsat KOSMOS
2538 (BLAGOVEST 14L), and the classified Italian military communications satellite SICRAL 1B (2009-020A):
Click image to enlarge
The images below are all crops at true pixel level. The first one shows the US classified SIGINT satellite PAN/NEMESIS I (2009-047A), shadowing the commercial satellite telephony satellite YAHSAT 1B. It also shows a number of other unclassified commercial GEO-sats.
PAN/NEMESIS 1 is an NSA operated satellite that eavesdrops on commercial satellite telephony (see my 2016 article in The Space Review).
Note that this image - just like the next images- was taken at very low elevation, and from a light-polluted town center.
click image to enlarge
The image below shows another US classified SIGINT satellite, Mentor 4 (2009-001A), an ADVANCED ORION satellite. It shadows the commercial satellite telephony satellite THURAYA 2 (more backgrounds on this in my 2016 article in The Space Review). At magnitude +8, it is one of the brightest geosynchronous objects in the sky (note how it is much brighter than THURAYA 2):
click to enlarge
The last image below again is a classified US military SIGINT satellite, MERCURY 2 (1996-026A). While 24 years old it is, together with its even slightly older sibling MERCURY 1 (which I also imaged but is not in this image), probably still operational:
Click image to enlarge
After these two test nights, I am very enthusiastic about the SamYang lens. It is incredibly sharp, also in the corners, easy to focus, goes deep (in terms of faint objects), and overall performs excellent. I also like the wide field of view (compared to the 180 mm Zeiss which I previously used to target GEO). Together with the equally well performing SamYang 1.4/85 mm, it might be the ideal lens for imaging GEO and HEO.
Astrometric data on the targetted satellites from these test images are here and here. The astrometric solutions on the star backgrounds in the images had a standard deviation of about 2".
Added 20 Jan 2020:
This last image (reduced in resolution to fit) was taken this evening (20 January) and shows Trumpet 1 (1994-026A) passing the Pleiades:
SpaceX's launch of the Zuma satellite on 8 January was interesting, and not just because of the ongoing saga of whether it failed or not (see a previous post).
The odd 50-degree orbital inclination is another element that made this launch interesting (see discussion in my pre-launch post here: sightings of the Falcon 9 Upper Stage over Sudan after launch later confirmed this orbital inclination).
New ideas started to form post-launch after the Falcon 9 sightings from Sudan made me realize that while it indeed was launched into a 50-degree inclined orbit, the orbital altitude (900-1000 km apogee) was higher than I initially expected, making a proposed link to USA 276 unlikely.
As @Cosmic_Penguin notes, the publication specifically discusses ~50-60 degree inclined, ~1000 km altitude orbits. And it is all about Space-based Radar.
The report pitted several radar sat constellation configurations against each other, but all of them assumes the satellites being in a 1000 km high, 53 degrees inclination orbit. That's very close to the current search estimation of ZUMA's orbit by @Marco_Langbroek. 🤔 (2/2)
I had just been looking into the coverage of the Zuma orbit, and it lines up with content in that report.
The map below is a ground coverage map of Zuma, would it have been alive and well. One of the uses of a ~50 degree inclined ~1000 km altitude Space Based Radar satellite mentioned in the report, is for shipping surveillance.
Indeed, a satellite in a Zuma-like orbit would basically cover all Ocean surfaces, except for the high Arctic and Antarctic, which are not that interesting for the purpose discussed below (moreover, the Arctic is extensively covered by groundbased and airborne radar).
click map to enlarge
A (Radar) satellite in this kind of orbit therefore would be very useful to keep track of illicit shipping movements on the High Seas.
Think stuff like embargo-runners, e.g. embargo-breaking shipments of coal and oil to for example North Korea, illegal weapons exports from North Korea, oil exports from Syria, illicit weapons transports to the Middle East, and human trafficking as well as drugs shipments.
Ships engaged in such illegal activities sometimes turn off their transponder, making it harder to track their whereabouts once out of sight of landbased shipping radar (see also the story about one particular embargo-breaking ship here). The classified US NOSS duo ELINT satellites and similar Chinese Yaogan triplets are meant to track ships from passive radiosignal crosslocation, but when a ship displays strict radio silence, these systems will not detect them either. But Space-Based Radar will.
Embargoes have become an important geopolitical tool when outright war is deemed not an alternative. We currently see embargoes enforced with regard to for example Syria and North Korea. Means to enforce embargoes including detecting and stopping potential embargo violations therefore have become important. Human trafficking and drugs trafficking are growing geopolitical problems as well.
So was Zuma meant to be an (experimental, i.e. a technology demonstrator) version of such a Space Based Radar for Ocean shipping surveillance? It is an option.
What might argue against it is the extreme secrecy surrounding the launch. Very few details were made public about the Zuma payload, the Agency operating it was not disclosed, and the launch was announced very late.
For all of this, explanations can be sought, but that admittedly all is "special pleading". For example, maybe the secrecy is there because the mission involves cutting edge experimental Radar technology. Or the secrecy could simply be the result of the "secrecy cult" in some parts of the US Government going over the top. Or it could point to operation by an Agency that wants to keep this operation on the down low - e.g. the CIA. And I can think of a few more - much more outlandish, which is why I won't mention them here - potential reasons.
We have seen this kind of secrecy before with PAN (and its later sister ship CLIO), with Prowler, and more recently with USA 276. All of these were experimental satellites doing unusual things: PAN roved between, snug up to and eavesdropped on commercial geostationary satellite telephony satellites. Prowler was an experiment for covertly inspecting other geostationary satellites on-orbit. And USA 276 remains mysterious but a series of very close encounters to the International Space Station suggest it might be a technology demonstrator for observing rendez-vous manoeuvres in space.
Zuma (the more so now it might have failed) also strongly brings the infamous USA 193 satellite to mind, although there we do know that it was a satellite for the NRO, and likely an experimental radar satellite [edit: see added note 2 below].
Nevermind what Zuma really was meant to be, and who was to operate it: the message to take home is that High Seas shipping surveillance is a potential and viable role to keep in mind for any future satellite launched in a ~1000 km altitude, ~50 degree inclined orbit.
Added note 1: Cosmic Penguin pointed out to me that this was also earlier brought up in a forum post by Ed Kyle.
Added note 2,12 January 2018: This article suggests Zuma might be an electro-optical/SAR hybrid and a follow-on to the infamous USA 193:
"Second, the Northrop Grumman satellite may be a follow-on to another failed satellite US 193. [...] ....,
a source with direct knowledge of the program told me it was a blend of
radar and electro-optical and would not provide any more detail than
that. A source with wide knowledge of classified space programs has told
me that the Northrop Grumman-built Zuma may be the next iteration of
this. Both were apparently experimental satellites, in that they were
not part of a large constellation of similar satellites."
Such a spacecraft would be well suited for the purpose indicated in this blog post.
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 click to enlarge
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 click to enlarge
Mentor 4 (USA 202), an Advanced ORION in GEO, 28 Nov 2016 click to enlarge
The images above and below are two small parts of one single image shot on May 2nd 2016, using a SamYang 1.4/85mm lens on a Canon EOS 60D with 30 seconds exposure (ISO 1000) under a very dark sky. These two image excerpts overlap in the corner: the upper right corner of the image excerpt above overlaps with the lower left corner of the image excerpt below.
Although both sub-images are only a few degrees wide, they show a bonanza of objects, including 3 classified objects.
In the image above, 11 objects including the classified SIGINT satellite PAN (2009-047A) are visible. PAN is parked next to the commercial communications satellite Yahsat 1B.
In the image below, 10 objects including two classified objects are visible: the two classified objects are the SIGINT satellite Mercury 1 (1994-054A), and the SIGINT satellite Mentor 4 (2009-001A), the latter parked next to the commercial communications satellite Thuraya 2.
The full 10 x 14 degree image, of which the images featured here are small excerpt parts, shows over 30 objects.
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 (click image to enlarge)
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 (click image to enlarge)
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 (click image to enlarge)
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 (click image to enlarge)
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 (click image to enlarge)
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.
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.
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.
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:
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:
