re: KH 11-8, USA 86, 116
John Pike (johnpike@fas.org)
Tue, 04 Jun 1996 16:28:52 -0400
>Does IMINT mean IMaging INTelligence spacecraft?
How did you guess?????
>This table is drawn in significant part from Mike McCants' QSMG9604.ZIP
>and Rainer Kracht's message, SeeSat-L #1220, both available from the
>SeeSat-L archive:
>
> preferred
> vulgar
> name McCants Eberst std
>cat # cospar USA KH status abs mag Kracht mag ld
>15423 84-122 A 6 11-6 out of orbit 3. 4.09 +/- .06 339
>18441 87- 90 A 27 11-7 out of orbit?? ?? 4.20 +/- .16 299
Yeah, this one is definitely down.
>19625 88- 99 A 33 11-8 in orbit 3. 3.98 +/- .07 311
>22251 92- 83 A 86 11-9 ?? ?? 5.05 +/- .10 333
> or 12-1??
I would certainly designate this one as a "KH-12" although Jeff Richelson
insists on good authority that such a designation is in fact not used. But
it is pretty clear that these are entirely different spacecraft than the
KH-11, and so I think that they should be designated just about anything
*OTHER* than KH-11, just to keep things clear, and since my software sorts
alphanumerically, I keep on calling them KH-12 for lack of a better term.
>23728 95- 66 A 116 11-10, ?? ?? ?? 339
> 12-1
> or 12-2??
Ditto for this one.
>These are the only KH elsets in Ted Molczan's file last week:
>KH 9-17 ELINT
>How can an ELINT be a KH?? Are we talking CCD here?
These are small ELINT subsatellites launched along with the primary KH-9
IMINT bird.
____________________________
John Pike
Director, Space Policy & CyberStrategy Projects
Federation of American Scientists
307 Massachusetts Ave. NE
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