Launch News Zuma: SpaceX Top Secret Mission (8 p.m. ET, Sunday, Jan 7, 2018)

[Messierhunter]

Any chance you can give your set-up, or point me to previous posts on that?

Thanks, N.

Sure, I'm using an 8" Meade LX200 Classic with a Canon T5i and f/6.3 focal reducer. The software is a custom program called Teletrak that I wrote myself specifically for this purpose. It allows for manual joystick and automatic video tracking of fast moving objects like rockets.

For rocket tracking, I use a Samsung SDC-435 security camera with a 55mm lens mounted on top of the telescope's dovetail plate in combination with a video capture card to provide a video viewfinder I use to either automatically track the rocket or re-acquire it when the engines re-light for the various phases of a night time SpaceX launch. And due to how dynamic SpaceX launches are, I tend to use manual joystick control to avoid confusing the tracking algorithm during staging.

Here's a video with a link in the description to its release:

I need to do a demonstration video going over some of the features with my real telescope though.

 

[Notebook]

Marvellous, thanks a lot, N.

 

[Urwumpe]

Looks like the launch was a failure - Satellite failed to reach intended orbit because of a unspecified malfunction.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/09/technology/spacex-zuma-spacecraft-lost/index.html

Did somebody see USA-280 lately?

https://arstechnica.com/science/201...bout-zuma-spacex-thats-not-our-story-to-tell/

 

[ADSWNJ]

Looks like the launch was a failure ...

https://arstechnica.com/science/201...bout-zuma-spacex-thats-not-our-story-to-tell/

From the ArsTechnica article:

However there has been no on-the-record confirmation of success or loss from SpaceX, the US government (which paid for Zuma), or Northrop Grumman, which built the satellite, spacecraft, or whatever Zuma was.

That's the story. Nobody without clearance knows anything. I think that's all they want anyone to know.

My hunch - it's just fine, and doing a best impression to be a ninja satellite, hiding behind another one.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Or it's a prototype low-observable bird, and no one can really spot it because that's what it's supposed to do.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

Or it was suborbital to begin with.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Or it was suborbital to begin with.

If that were the case, I strongly suspect it would have been launched from Vandenburg.

 

[statickid]

Neat!!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.space.com/39338-spacex-zuma-rocket-sky-spiral-photos.html

Also:
[ame="https://twitter.com/Marco_Langbroek/status/950509102970621957"]https://twitter.com/Marco_Langbroek/status/950509102970621957[/ame]

[ame="https://twitter.com/Samcornwell/status/950499540666331136"]https://twitter.com/Samcornwell/status/950499540666331136[/ame]

 

[Urwumpe]

Yes, this looks like something was spinning while venting.

 

[statickid]

Yeah I'm not personally weirded out by this. Mostly I'm just jealous because I never see any cool spacecraft activity where I live!!! I need to move lol

 

[MaverickSawyer]

A strong argument in favor of Zuma actually being on orbit:

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...nd-well-doing-exactly-what-it-was-intended-to

TL;DR: The use of disinformation and/or muddying the waters regarding the success or failure of a low-observable payload has been done at least twice before, under the MISTY program (Launches in 1990 from the Shuttle and 1999 atop a Titan IV). The custom payload adaptor could even have carried "decoys" meant to confuse attempts at tracking Zuma.

And, as the gang at The War Zone put it...

Suffice it to say, working to develop a platform that can’t be easily tracked by enemy sensors would be a top priority of the Pentagon at this time. And this doesn't just relate to imaging platforms that benefit from the element of surprise, but other types of satellites as well. Even communications satellites that could “selectively” shroud their position when their services aren’t in use, making them far more survivable than their “sitting duck” counterparts, would be a highly attractive capability for the Pentagon to acquire.

With all of this in mind, it's really worth at least considering the possibility that Zuma actually did exactly what it was intended to do. With the help of just a sprinkling of non-official disinformation, it may have been able to start its mission under the best possible circumstances—disappearing into the darkness to go about its intended task from the shadows undetected.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, but if they declare it to be lost and space debris, they also open it up for other interests... nobody could complain if some nation decides to remove THIS space debris from orbit or at least investigate it.

 

[statickid]

As I understand it they could absolutely complain. I thought any spacecraft functioning or not, and even space debris remain the exclusive property of the nation that launched it.

 

[Artlav]

So we can use it as ASAT target practice, and the USA won't be able to complain?

 

[MaverickSawyer]

So we can use it as ASAT target practice, and the USA won't be able to complain?

Only if you won't complain if we use one of your guy's satellites as a test target, as well.

 

[DaveS]

So we can use it as ASAT target practice, and the USA won't be able to complain?

Debris doesn't equal finders/keepers, this includes debris of spacecraft/satellites. People found out this the hard way when Columbia was lost and they thought that they had been handed great shuttle souvenirs in the form of debris. Not so, NASA/US Government still owned it and they were ready to charge anyone that was found in possession of Columbia debris with theft of government property. Some did get charged, but most did hand in the debris that they had found and kept during a month-long amnesty period.

 

[Artlav]

Putin: *shoots down that piece of space junk*
Trump tweet: Those damn Russians shot down our satellite! It's an act of war!
DoD on TV: Our president is mistaken, there was no satellite there, just a piece of a booster.
Trump tweet: Fake news! It says right here in this top secret report that our stealth satellite was shot down!
Putin on TV: Our American colleagues were rather irresponsible in marking what appears to have been an operational satellite as orbital debris, resulting in the recent space janitor system accident.
Trump tweet: Treason! The nuclear launch codes they gave me were fake!

Close enough?

 

[Linguofreak]

Putin: *shoots down that piece of space junk*
Trump tweet: Those damn Russians shot down our satellite! It's an act of war!
MoD on TV: Our president is mistaken, there was no satellite there, just a piece of a booster.
Trump tweet: Fake news! It says right here in this top secret report that our stealth satellite was shot down!
Putin on TV: Our American colleagues were rather irresponsible in marking what appears to have been an operational satellite as orbital debris, resulting in the recent space janitor system accident.
Trump tweet: Treason! The nuclear launch codes they gave me were fake!

Close enough?

Well, if the minister of defense got on TV to say that Trump was mistaken, I'd be very worried, because we don't have an MoD, we have a DoD, which is headed by an SoD. For that to be replaced by minister and ministry of defense would imply that a coup or foreign takeover had happened while I want looking, or, at least, that there had been a monumental change in the structure of the government.

 

[Urwumpe]

As I understand it they could absolutely complain. I thought any spacecraft functioning or not, and even space debris remain the exclusive property of the nation that launched it.

Not quite - space debris is not a spacecraft. It remains the responsibility of the nation which launched it according to the Outer Space Treaty, but even that has some tough legal precedences in the past. Just think of the West Ford needles or the russian reactor coolant in space, which is pretty much treated like natural debris.

In case of Columbia, the law for that was not based on the Outer Space Treaty, but actually the regulations for aircraft accidents. There you have the same rules - would Columbia have crashed in another country, it might have been much harder getting the debris. In Germany for example, its some sort keepers/finders: When you find debris, the government can take it away from you for investigations, but you have to be compensated/rewarded for finding it, usually around 10% of its value. Similar for old buried treasures.

 

[statickid]

Not just responsibility but property. It doesn't matter if I have a junk car in my back 40 I can still tackle someone trying to steal the side mirrors then have them arrested for trespassing and theft.