There have been questions in some quarters about why Globalstar satellites, given that they are fairly small and in 1400 km orbits, are as bright as they sometimes are (+4 to +5). In Mike McCants' recent RCS file, which includes 20 Globalstars, the average RCS of 19 of them is about 5 square meters. (For some reason #25651's RCS is 25, perhaps about equal to the area of the full face of the solar panels. The RCS of #25649 in the file is 9.3.) As best I can discover, each satellite is a box, with four rectangular sides and two trapezoidal sides (the "ends" of the box). The earth-facing side is largest, at 152 cm wide. They have two solar panels whose total span is 1075 cm. This page: http://www.globalstar.com/tech/system/satellite.htm#Desc has much of this information plus illustrations such as this: http://www.globalstar.com/img/system/satcon4.gif The length of the earth-facing side and width of the solar panels is not clear but may be about 150 cm. I don't know how much tolerance the satellites have in their attitude. The only way that's fairly clear to me as to them being brighter than might be expected is when they are between the Sun and the observer with the angle such that the observer gets a direct reflection from the earth-facing side. Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA