Disappearing satellites

Allen Thomson (thomsona@netcom.com)
Mon, 20 May 1996 10:18:43 -0700

   Before leaving on a business trip (to Russia, most interesting) ten days
ago, I posted the following message to a couple of space and intelligence
newsgroups.  It isn't exactly on-charter for Seesat, but since it draws 
heavily on amateur satellite observers' work I thought it might be 
appropriate to post it here anyway, particularly in light of the current 
interest in USA 86/116 and NOSS 2-3.

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   One of the interesting themes in the recently released House 
intelligence community study, IC21, is that foreign "denial and 
deception" (D&D) activities are on the increase and need to be 
countered.  This reminds me of a puzzle which first came up in 
connection with the "Where is AFP-731?" thread last winter.   
Namely, that the US, mostly meaning the NRO, has taken a series 
of actions over the past decade and more which must have 
stimulated potentially hostile countries to broaden and improve 
their D&D programs against reconnaissance satellites.  Since 
it's difficult to imagine that this was an intended consequence, 
we may be seeing an organization's enthusiasm for technology and 
secrecy outstripping its ability to foresee results. (Actually, 
the overall irrationality of the NRO's system design process is 
another major theme of IC21.  More on that in a later posting.) 

   The first action came in 1983, when the US stopped releasing 
current orbital elements for its spysats and became ever more 
tardy in reporting their launches and initial orbital elements 
to the UN, as required by treaty. (Jim Oberg has apparently 
written an article on this.)  Presumably this didn't bother the 
Soviets much, as they had an independent space tracking 
capability.  Other countries, however,  may have been using the 
elements to some extent to keep track of the satellites, and 
would have had to reconsider their D&D practices or otherwise 
compensate for the lost information.  For example, countries 
such as Iran and China might have been stimulated to duplicate 
the optical tracking capabilities of the amateur satellite 
observers (who were tracking the spysats all along). 

   Next, starting in 1990, there have been at least four 
"disappearing" satellites which have been reported or suspected 
to be large imaging satellites. (A few others have also 
disappeared, but no rumors or circumstances linking them to 
imaging satellites have surfaced.)  The first of these that I 
know of was AFP-731 (aka USA 53, 1990-019 B) itself, followed by 
the two primary objects accompanying the NOSS-2 putative ELINT 
triplets (USA 59, 1990-50 A,  and USA 72, 1991-076 A).  The 
analytical situation regarding these satellites in the amateur 
community is well summarized in the notes accompanying Ted 
Molczan's weekly orbital element list; I've appended the 
relevant sections to this message.  Since the Molczan notes have 
been available on the Canadian Space Society bulletin board for 
several years and are mirrored on a number of Internet sites, 
one has to assume that foreign intelligence services are aware 
of the situation from that source, if not from their own space 
surveillance and espionage activities. 

   Most recently, the satellite USA 86, assessed to be a 
photoreconnaissance satellite, was apparently (based on booster 
configuration and launch time and azimuth) replaced by USA 116 
after only three years in orbit.  Considering the length of time 
it takes to prepare and launch a big satellite on a Titan IV, 
the decision to launch USA 116 must have been made not much 
later than two and half years after the launch of USA 86.  Since 
US reconnaissance satellites seem to have normal lifetimes of at 
least five years, we're either looking at a failure on orbit 
followed by deorbiting after the replacement was launched, or 
another "disappearance".  Of course, it can't be ruled out that 
the single object now in the orbit consistent with the last 
amateur observations of USA 86 in 1995 is, in fact, USA 86.  In 
that case, it's USA 116 that's disappeared. 

   Whether the Russians, who continue to operate the USSR's 
formidable space surveillance system, consider these objects to 
be "disappeared" is unknown.  It's reasonable, however, to think 
that some countries of interest, such as North Korea and Iran, 
may not have much better space surveillance capabilities than 
the international amateur satellite observers' community does.  
These are the folks who must be wondering what's going on, and 
what to do about it. 

   While one could write down a list of candidate explanations 
for the disappearances -- one possibility that's been suggested 
is that the satellites were boosted into considerably higher 
orbits to improve area coverage and dwell time -- it doesn't 
really matter what the truth of the matter is.  It could even be 
that they were simply deorbited or weren't imaging spysats in 
the first place.  The important thing is the possibility that 
they might have been spysats together with the the unusual 
circumstances of their disappearances, because it's the 
resultant uncertainty and suspicion that must drive the D&D 
planning process in other countries.  Previously -- at least up 
to the cut-off of official orbital elements in 1983 and possibly 
up to 1990 if the country had some indigenous space surveillance 
capability -- such a program could predict spysat overflights 
and schedule nefarious outdoor activities for times when there 
were no eyes in the sky.  (There's a scene in a Tom Clancy movie 
illustrating this: terrorists training at a desert camp look 
innocent when a reconnaissance satellite is scheduled to come 
over.) 

   In the present situation, however, the nefarious actors must 
take into account the possibility that there are spysats lurking 
somewhere unknown in the depths of space, and that possibility 
must be factored into the D&D plan -- in other words, scheduling 
sensitive activities around satellite passes is no longer a 
workable concealment option.  D&D in under such conditions 
requires different measures than when scheduled concealment can 
be employed but in general should be fairly feasible and 
straightforward, though perhaps requiring some additional 
trouble and expense.  It would be interesting to get an 
historical assessment of the nature of Nth country D&D programs 
and see whether there have been noticeable changes in the 
direction of full-time concealment.  The IC21 language implies 
that that might indeed be the case 

   Finally, I don't really think this is going to matter much in 
a few years.  Although the NRO may have been a bit thoughtless in 
providing the stimuli for more comprehensive Nth country D&D 
efforts, the increasing number of high-resolution commercial and 
military satellites is going to produce the same effect.  Even 
if orbits are known, overflights will eventually occur so often 
that scheduled concealment will become impossibly burdensome, 
and anyone one who cares will have to assume the essentially 
constant presence of overhead reconnaissance. 


   Here are the excerpts from Ted Molczan's file.  A copy of the 
entire thing is in 

ftp://kilroy.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/space/elements/molczan/new_molc.Z 

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These elements are provided as a service to visual observers.  
They are uploaded weekly to the Canadian Space Society's BBS in 
Toronto, Canada. This is a free BBS, operating 24 h/d, <=2400 B,  
8N1, phone 905-458-5907. 

The Saga of USA 53 - Found, Lost, Found Again and Lost Again

   Satellite sleuths will recall space shuttle mission STS 36,  
which deployed a secret CIA/Air Force satellite named USA 53  
(90019B, 20516) on March 1, 1990.  Aviation Week reported it to  
be a large digital imaging reconnaissance satellite.  Members of  
an observation network which I organized, observed the satellite  
between the 2nd and 4th of March.  It was deployed into a 62 deg  
inclination, 254 km altitude orbit.  Early on March 3rd, it  
manoeuvred to a 271 km altitude. 
 
   Observers noted that the object was extremely bright, 
reaching a  visual magnitude of -1 under favourable conditions.  
Its  brightness was similar to that of the very large KH-9 and 
KH- 11 imaging reconnaissance satellites.  On March 16th, the 
Soviet news media reported that several large  pieces of debris 
from the satellite had been detected in  orbit on March 7th, and 
suggested that it had exploded.  In  response to Western media 
inquiries, the Pentagon stated that "hardware elements from the 
successful mission of STS 36 would  decay over the next six 
weeks".  As expected, the Air Force  statement was vague about 
the status of USA 53.  The debris  could have been from a break-
up of the satellite, or simply  incidental debris.  Only five 
pieces of debris were ever  catalogued.  An intensive search by 
observers in late March  failed to locate the satellite.  Six 
months later, the mystery  of USA 53 was solved, through the 
efforts of three European observers. 

   On October 19th, 1990, I received a message from Russell  
Eberst, stating that he, along with Pierre Neirinck and Daniel  
Karcher had found an object in a 65 deg inclination, 811 km  
altitude orbit, which did not match the orbit of any known  
payload, rocket body or piece of debris.  He suspected that the  
object could be a secret U.S. payload, and asked me to try and 
identify it. 

   There are many secret U.S. objects in orbit, however, initial  
orbital elements, released in accordance with a United Nations  
treaty, are available for most of them.  Most objects could be  
easily ruled out on the basis of orbital inclination.  There  
remained three recent high inclination launches for which the  
U.N. had not yet received elements, and three satellites in near  
65 deg inc orbits which had been tracked for a short time by  
observers, then lost after they manoeuvred.  I found an  
excellent match with one of the latter, USA 53.  There were no  
close matches with any of the other objects.  My analysis 
revealed that the orbital plane of the mystery  object was 
almost exactly coplanar with USA 53 on March 7, 1990,  the same 
date that the Soviets found debris from USA 53 in  orbit!  This 
is a strong indication that the object in question  actually is 
USA 53, now in a new orbit.  The debris may have  been connected 
with the manoeuvres to the new orbit. 

   USA 53 was successfully tracked by observers until early  
November 1990, when it manoeuvred once more.  The orbit was  
raised slightly on or about Nov 2nd, which is reflected in the  
most current elements.  Bad weather prevented further  
observation attempts until 7 November, by which time, the object  
had made a much more significant manoeuvre, and could no longer  
be found.  So far, all attempts to once again locate USA 53 have  
failed. The following are its last known elements: 

 USA 53    18.0  4.0  0.0  4.1
 1 20516U 90019  B 90309.99079700 -.00002298  00000-0 -95528-3 0  03
 2 20516  65.0200 194.0588 0009734 214.9671 144.9440 14.26241038  04


 Second Generation NOSS

   A Titan 4 rocket, launched on 8 June 1990 from Florida, 
carried  four payloads into orbit, three of which were 
discovered by  Russell Eberst to belong to a new, apparently 
second generation,  NOSS cluster.  The satellites are about two 
magnitudes brighter  than older NOSS satellites; also, there 
appears to be no fourth  "main" NOSS satellite. The new cluster, 
90050B-D, is in the same orbit as the eighth first generation 
cluster, 87043. 
 
   The orbit of the fourth Titan 4 payload, 90050A (20641) is  
unknown. Originally, it was in a 61 deg inclination, 455 km  
altitude orbit, but it manoeuvred on the night of 19-20 June  
1990, and has not been seen since.  It probably deployed the  
NOSS cluster in its 63.43 deg inclination, 1116 km altitude  
orbit, before manoeuvring to its final orbit.  There has been  
some informed speculation by news reporters that 90050A is  
mainly an imaging reconsat, and that the NOSS cluster was only  
a secondary payload. 

USA 72 Launch Carried NOSS 2-2 Cluster

   Russell Eberst and Pierre Neirinck have discovered that the 
USA  72 launch also carried the second cluster of the second  
generation NOSS satellites.  Element sets for 91076C, D and E  
(NORAD #s 21799, 21808, 21809) are in the above listing.  Their  
orbital plane is about 120 deg west of the NOSS 2-1 cluster.  
This discovery proves conclusively that this was not the launch  
of Lacrosse 3. It probably carried the same type of payload as  
the Titan 4 launch that placed USA 59 and the first cluster of  
the second generation NOSS into orbit last year.  The big  
unresolved question is the mission and orbital location of  the 
main payloads, USA 59 and USA 72.