Re: Official TLEs of Helios and Essaim satellites no longer available

From: Allen Thomson (thomsona@flash.net)
Date: Mon Dec 21 2009 - 14:23:19 UTC

  • Next message: Ted Molczan: "RE: Official TLEs of Helios and Essaim satellites no longer available"

    > USSTRATCOM ceased issuing 2-line
    > elements of France's Helios and Essaim
    > satellites after 2009 Dec 08 UTC (day 342):
    
    This cessation may have been adumbrated in 2007:
    
    
    
    http://www.space.com/news/060707_graves_web.html
    
    French Say 'Non' to U.S. Disclosure of Secret Satellites
    By PETER B. de SELDING
    Space News Staff Writer
    posted: 08 June 2007
    09:58 am ET
    
    BROYE-LES-PESMES, France - A French space-surveillance radar has detected 20-30 satellites in low Earth orbit that do not figure in the U.S. Defense Department's published catalogue, a discovery that French officials say they will use to pressure U.S. authorities to stop publishing the whereabouts of French reconnaissance and military communications satellites.
    
    After 16 months of operations of their Graves radar system, which can locate satellites in orbits up to 1,000 kilometers in altitude and even higher in certain cases, the French Defense Ministry says it has gathered just about enough information to negotiate an agreement with the United States.
    
    [snip]
    
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