Author Topic: PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.  (Read 14895 times)

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #20 on: 09/01/2017 01:26 pm »
That works for one segment of the belt visible from your location.  A network circling the globe would be needed for full coverage -- large oceanic regions particularly difficult.  Not a 500 Euro problem.
Any given ground station should cover about 1/3 of the belt. Telescopes in Australia and Hawaii would provide good coverage of Indian and Pacific Ocean part of the belt.
« Last Edit: 09/01/2017 01:27 pm by kevin-rf »
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Offline Star One

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PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #21 on: 09/01/2017 01:57 pm »
Where do they get footage like this? Is the entire geostationary belt under constant surveillance for incidents like this?

I wondered the same. But after thinking a bit about it, its not that complicated. They just need a relatively cheap telescope and a web cam without optics, a tripod and clear skies. Would think equipment way below 500 Euro. They can tile the relevant part of the sky with a few of these. Given that these are GEO sats, they dont even need tracking. Just setup once. Constant monitoring of these birds would be a very easy setup to do and probably pays quite well with governments and other organizations that dont have their own monitoring system.

I imagine who they are allowed to sell this data is heavily restricted by government licensing, this kind of data isn't going to be allowed to be sold in some kind of free for all considering its national security interest.

"National security interest"? You can't be serious.
Everyone with a reasonably clear view of the equatorial belt and a good telescope can do these kind of observations. Heck, there are loads of amateur sat-observers who do this all the time. Courtesy of them comsats having a relative fixed position in the sky.
LEO sats and SSO sats are also tracked by amateurs regularly. It is not a forbidden practice and it is allowed to publish the footage.
Once a satellite gets up there it is for all to see. Just check YouTube for several hundreds of examples.

Here's one from my favourite satellite:


And how about this one? Observation of the ISS by the Public Observatory in Munich (Germany). You think the NSA is going to invade Germany over this one? Don't think so.


I am well aware that it's done, but I am sure you are aware of the argument of whether it should be done in the case of classified payloads? Or do you think orbits are just classified for no reason.
« Last Edit: 09/01/2017 02:00 pm by Star One »

Offline Thomas Dorman

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Re: PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #22 on: 09/04/2017 11:54 pm »
As to Satellite TLe's most of this information is available on the internet and most anyone can get their own clearance from Space Command to download the unclassified science and commercial satellites through Space-Track. Also you can fill out the  request to have permission to disseminate this data if you wish .The paper work isn't that hard to fill out The SeeSat- L satellite observing group pretty much cover the classified satellites which you can down load these from Mike McCant's site. If they shut down all access right now a small dedicated group  could pretty much keep up with the majority of active satellite and junk just by what is kept by none government groups. Hey at one time the U.S publish there classified satellite orbit information. It's not against the law to observe satellites or video tape them. Would be hard for the government to tell people they couldn't and enforce it. It would be a waste of time and money and just plain stupid, it would be like the government telling people they can't look at the sky!.
Regards
Thomas
« Last Edit: 09/04/2017 11:55 pm by Thomas Dorman »

Online woods170

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Re: PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #23 on: 09/05/2017 05:36 am »
I am well aware that it's done, but I am sure you are aware of the argument of whether it should be done in the case of classified payloads? Or do you think orbits are just classified for no reason.
Nowadays the amateurs have gotten extremely good at de-classifying orbits. Usually classified payloads are found in orbit within weeks (at most) with their orbits known in full detail shortly after. No payload that can be observed from the ground is "classified". Basically: the minute a payload is dropped-off in orbit it is up there for all to see. If one can resolve the orbit by just tracking a dot that is moving thru the skies than one is free to observe that dot in (much) greater detail.

These days the only way to keep a payload classified is to not launch it at all.

Offline Star One

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PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #24 on: 09/05/2017 07:35 am »
I am well aware that it's done, but I am sure you are aware of the argument of whether it should be done in the case of classified payloads? Or do you think orbits are just classified for no reason.
Nowadays the amateurs have gotten extremely good at de-classifying orbits. Usually classified payloads are found in orbit within weeks (at most) with their orbits known in full detail shortly after. No payload that can be observed from the ground is "classified". Basically: the minute a payload is dropped-off in orbit it is up there for all to see. If one can resolve the orbit by just tracking a dot that is moving thru the skies than one is free to observe that dot in (much) greater detail.

These days the only way to keep a payload classified is to not launch it at all.

Well the ORS-5 payload has just proved that argument incorrect in all cases as its orbit makes it unobservable to skilled amateurs.

http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2017/0123.html
« Last Edit: 09/05/2017 08:47 am by Star One »

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #25 on: 09/05/2017 02:24 pm »

Well the ORS-5 payload has just proved that argument incorrect in all cases as its orbit makes it unobservable to skilled amateurs.

http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Aug-2017/0123.html
Not much classified stuff of interest can be done from such a low inclination, low orbit.

(Not true of Astronomy, Science, and Environmental research, several missions have benefited from low inclination orbits)

In general clamping down on people publishing classified orbit's is not productive. A large number of these amateurs are not citizens, and not located in the US. Can you see someone from the NRO going to the Canadian embassy and saying we would have a little chat with Mr. Molczan?

btw. If you go through the SpaceWeather.com archives, you will see that the Iranian Astronomy comunittee is quite active in posting images. Funny thing about Iran, geographically it is in the ideal location for watching Vandenberg Centaur fuel dumps. No hiding those, they are naked eye jaw dropping.
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Offline hop

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Re: PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #26 on: 09/05/2017 08:53 pm »
Well the ORS-5 payload has just proved that argument incorrect in all cases as its orbit makes it unobservable to skilled amateurs.
The fact that the people who do this as a hobby happen to fall outside the ground track of this particular satellite is irrelevant. The point is that if it can be done by individuals on a hobby budget, pretty much every country in the world could do the same thing. Although most countries in the world probably don't exceed the capabilities of seesat-l, the operators of these satellites have to assume that every serious US adversary has or could obtain this level of capability, and that the more advanced ones share this information with others.

Offline Star One

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Re: PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #27 on: 09/06/2017 02:12 pm »
Well the ORS-5 payload has just proved that argument incorrect in all cases as its orbit makes it unobservable to skilled amateurs.
The fact that the people who do this as a hobby happen to fall outside the ground track of this particular satellite is irrelevant. The point is that if it can be done by individuals on a hobby budget, pretty much every country in the world could do the same thing. Although most countries in the world probably don't exceed the capabilities of seesat-l, the operators of these satellites have to assume that every serious US adversary has or could obtain this level of capability, and that the more advanced ones share this information with others.

Again that's not answering the question of why bother making the orbits of some satellites classified unless they thought there was some additional benefit to it, if there wasn't they would t do it.

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #28 on: 09/06/2017 02:44 pm »
Again that's not answering the question of why bother making the orbits of some satellites classified unless they thought there was some additional benefit to it, if there wasn't they would t do it.
Simple answer, it takes a while to track down a satellite that has recently adjusted it's orbit, even slightly, and depending on the orbit you have seasons (periods) when you have a hard time getting good visual data. Case in point, look at the current  US imaging satellites.  They are tough to spot during the winter in the northern hemisphere, and tough to spot during the summer in the southern hemisphere. (Or do I have that reversed) So several months can go by between sightings.
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Offline Star One

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Re: PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #29 on: 09/06/2017 02:48 pm »
Again that's not answering the question of why bother making the orbits of some satellites classified unless they thought there was some additional benefit to it, if there wasn't they would t do it.
Simple answer, it takes a while to track down a satellite that has recently adjusted it's orbit, even slightly, and depending on the orbit you have seasons (periods) when you have a hard time getting good visual data. Case in point, look at the current  US imaging satellites.  They are tough to spot during the winter in the northern hemisphere, and tough to spot during the summer in the southern hemisphere. (Or do I have that reversed) So several months can go by between sightings.

Fair points well argued.

Going back to the OP of the thread I wonder if it irritates the owners of these satellites when monitoring companies reveal these kind of incident publicly. Maybe it's just me but the press statements put out by them always seem to seek to play down such problems.

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Re: PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #30 on: 09/07/2017 07:46 am »
They are tough to spot during the winter in the northern hemisphere, and tough to spot during the summer in the southern hemisphere. (Or do I have that reversed)

Winter in the northern hemisphere is summer in the southern hemisphere. So that should be "They are tough to spot during the winter in the northern hemisphere, and tough to spot during the winter in the southern hemisphere (summer in the northern hemisphere)."
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline Hog

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Re: PT Telkom's Telkom-1 satellite may be breaking apart.
« Reply #31 on: 09/08/2017 03:59 pm »
Actually, if you dig through the Sky and Telescope archives, about mid 1990's (maybe early 2000's) when the techniques first became available to amateurs, they had a long article with very high res pictures of Mir (ISS) (taken with an 8" Schmidt if I remember) and an interview with the photographer. In it he mentions having some sort of interesting conversation with a government entity about it. Nothing as sinister as they came knocking on his door, but a conversation, and is probably the source of the "myth".

Besides, NSA is signals intelligence and not imaging....

I assume we are then talking about the en gee ehh ?  It certainly an alphabet soup of intel agencies.
Paul

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