hoyme@SRC.Honeywell.COM (Ken Hoyme) (02/13/90)
I may be off-base on this observation (and I'm sure I will find out if I am), but I seem to recall that one of the reasons for leaving ambiguity in the launch time of a classified mission was to prevent the Soviets from being able to maneuver any surveillance satellites into position to be able to observe the *deployment* of the payload. If the exact time of the mission is announced too far ahead of time, they could perform the orbit calculations and move a satillite into position. A four hour ambiguity combined with the complexity of the calculations and the time it would take to modify the orbits of their spy satellites provides reasonable assurance that details of the deployment will be unobserved. However, if the satillite remains in low-earth orbit, they could observe it at any time in the future..so it is unclear what the ambiguity gets them in that case. Does anyone know whether the equipment on spy satellites (either low orbit or geosynch) has sufficient focus range to be able to shoot pictures of other satellites? one can only assume that this would be a desireable capability. Ken Hoyme Honeywell Systems and Research Center (612)782-7354 3660 Technology Dr., Minneapolis, MN 55418 Internet: hoyme@src.honeywell.com