henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (02/06/91)
In article <15325@celit.fps.com> dave@fps.com (Dave Smith) writes: >I saw a mention in Time of a satellite named "Magnum" which is supposed to >be used for electronic eavesdropping. The blurb said that it had an >antenna "the size of a baseball field." This sounds like a really large >structure to be deploying automatically. Does anyone have any info >on this beasty? What you've just said -- it's called "Magnum", it's an eavesdropping satellite, and it probably has a big deployable antenna -- is just about the sum total of unclassified knowledge about it. -- "Maybe we should tell the truth?" | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology "Surely we aren't that desperate yet." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
nickw@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Nick Watkins) (02/11/91)
From article <1991Feb5.162419.10194@zoo.toronto.edu>, by henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer): > In article <15325@celit.fps.com> dave@fps.com (Dave Smith) writes: >>antenna "the size of a baseball field." This sounds like a really large >>structure to be deploying automatically. Does anyone have any info > What you've just said -- it's called "Magnum", it's an eavesdropping > satellite, and it probably has a big deployable antenna -- is just about > the sum total of unclassified knowledge about it. And the best of the rest is in Des Ball's superb book, "Pine Gap" [ Allen and Unwin Australia]. One of 3 main ground stations is in Australia at eponymous Pine Gap. Includes a nice sketch of a Lockheed design for a deployable large antenna. Remember ATS 6 and imagine what you could do with another 10 years or so and a Shuttle payload bay (less IUS). Probably 2 in orbit, possibly even 3 if last military Shuttle was 28 degrees -> GEO not LEO (I don't know). Reportly it's follow on to the RHYOLITE/AQUACADE series of Atlas Agena D (sic) launches in the seventies. Nick --