Re: One More Thought About OTV-5 and OTV-4 Sub-Satellites

From: Charles Phillips via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 16:41:41 -0600 (MDT)
All -

Is it too late to add to my notes? 

My main point with my notes was that the Air Force is normally very reliable about cataloging all objects that they can track. They have very good
reasons for doing that - that is the normal way that the operators of those small satellites can get TLEs to communicate with their satellites. For the
OTV-4 launch there were 10 sub-satellites - all were cataloged right away (even though the TLEs are not available from Space-Track.org). We have seen
where some small satellites have things like burn wires which retain solar panels, antenna, etc - the operators are very highly motivated to send
commands to their satellites to have those burn wires operate! 

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3364/1

The Air Force could have deployed satellites from OTV-5 but kept them as "analyst" satellites, much like our 9x,xxx satellites. But after 700
days, might they have proved their point and officially cataloged those objects? 

The satellite catalog still shows just two objects from that OTV-5 launch - a number of us have tracked the OTV-5, did anyone see any small
objects near it? I know that I have (briefly) looked for small satellites myself but have not seen them, they are hard to see optically. 

Certainly with OTV-4 I should have caught the fact that the upper stage was indeed the source of the sub-satellites. 


Charles Phillips
Spaceflight Research, LLC
Houston, Texas
713-882-4578
sites.google.com/site/spaceflightresearchprojects/

> On October 28, 2019 at 2:59 PM Charles Phillips <charles_at_spaceflightresearch.net> wrote:
> 
>     All -
> 
>     The satellite numbers for the OTV-4 sub-satellites indicate that they were deployed and cataloged right after OTV-4 was cataloged.
>     Those satellites also have never had TLEs available from Space-Track.org
> 
>     Might this indicate that they rode into orbit on the upper stage? Or that they were deployed shortly after the payload bay
>     doors were opened? That doesn't mean that OTV-5 would operate that way of course.
> 
>     When I worked Shuttle payloads we deployed GAS Can payloads - and normally deployed as soon as the crew could get to them. 
> 
>     Still, after over 700 days no sub-satellites have appeared in the satellite catalog. 
> 
> 
>     Charles Phillips
>     Spaceflight Research, LLC
>     Houston, Texas
>     713-882-4578
>     sites.google.com/site/spaceflightresearchprojects/
> 


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