A bit OT but I find it curious that the NRO appear to have launched a tactical reconnaissance satellite today. Curious in that I thought they had farmed this particular mission out to the commercial sector.
Quote from: Star One on 05/01/2017 03:19 pmA bit OT but I find it curious that the NRO appear to have launched a tactical reconnaissance satellite today. Curious in that I thought they had farmed this particular mission out to the commercial sector.Maybe they thought it was better to buy one off the shelf compared to constantly paying Digital Globe, etal... Also, less chance of another snowden leaking a list of what images the NRO paid to acquire.That said, 50ish degrees is interesting when synced up with the sun correctly. In some areas, each day allows for two good nadir daylight passes, with multiple slant passes. Just saying... if done right, it would be good for multiple passes, multiple times a day over the Mid East or North Korea.
A bit OT but I find it curious that the NRO appear to have launched a tactical reconnaissance satellite today.
Quote from: Star One on 05/01/2017 03:19 pmA bit OT but I find it curious that the NRO appear to have launched a tactical reconnaissance satellite today. I wouldn't say that
Quote from: Jim on 05/01/2017 04:21 pmQuote from: Star One on 05/01/2017 03:19 pmA bit OT but I find it curious that the NRO appear to have launched a tactical reconnaissance satellite today. I wouldn't say thatAs posited above I suppose if they had a particular country (i.e. North Korea) they wanted to keep more of an eye on.Just waiting for the threats to shoot it down....
Quote from: Star One on 05/01/2017 04:23 pmQuote from: Jim on 05/01/2017 04:21 pmQuote from: Star One on 05/01/2017 03:19 pmA bit OT but I find it curious that the NRO appear to have launched a tactical reconnaissance satellite today. I wouldn't say thatAs posited above I suppose if they had a particular country (i.e. North Korea) they wanted to keep more of an eye on.Just waiting for the threats to shoot it down....A 51 degree orbit provides pretty good cover for most of the hot spots in the world today... The only major hotspot areas not well covered will be the Crimea and Eastern Europe.
Phil Pressel, who designed the KH-9 HEXAGON camera system, now has a blog:https://www.hexagonkh9.com/blog/2017/4/3/what-was-hexagon-kh-9
Apologies if this is the wrong place to post, but I think it is germane...ISTR years ago, perhaps in the 80s, noticing a descending size tribar pattern, on some kind of pavement, near a corner of Wright Field at Wright-Patterson AFB--maybe it was the southwest corner.
One Hexagon tribar image (mission 1205, Op 313, F026, Forward camera) shows maybe the first twelve tribars resolved (image reproduction in the released document is quite poor), which would correspond to a GRD of around 34 inches (3 ft).
Quote from: jcm on 10/02/2012 02:50 amQuote from: rguser on 10/02/2012 02:39 amI am sorry but I posted this message to the old Hexagon post so I reposted to the current post.The NRO has just released 100 new (a few are rereleased) documents related to the Hexagon program. The link to the new documents are under the "What's New" link on the NRO web page.I am looking forward to reviewing them in the next few days. Oh damn, there goes my free time for the next week...edit: well, Dwayne will enjoy these, lots of stuff about the war between USAF and CIA. Not much on the flight details that I'm more interested in, although doc 100 has the failure report for Hexagon 20, which also includes a mildly interesting program summary, with no new revelationsI beg to differ...The planned mission was apparently going to be 540 days--300 primary and 240 solo (something is then blacked out) pages 31-32. That would have been the longest mission by far--probably because of the earlier Titan 34D/KH-11 failure. By solo I assume they mean with no RVs--what capability did the Hexagon have WITHOUT any RVs left?
Quote from: rguser on 10/02/2012 02:39 amI am sorry but I posted this message to the old Hexagon post so I reposted to the current post.The NRO has just released 100 new (a few are rereleased) documents related to the Hexagon program. The link to the new documents are under the "What's New" link on the NRO web page.I am looking forward to reviewing them in the next few days. Oh damn, there goes my free time for the next week...edit: well, Dwayne will enjoy these, lots of stuff about the war between USAF and CIA. Not much on the flight details that I'm more interested in, although doc 100 has the failure report for Hexagon 20, which also includes a mildly interesting program summary, with no new revelations
I am sorry but I posted this message to the old Hexagon post so I reposted to the current post.The NRO has just released 100 new (a few are rereleased) documents related to the Hexagon program. The link to the new documents are under the "What's New" link on the NRO web page.I am looking forward to reviewing them in the next few days.
..Question: is there an illustration of the S3 (solid state sensor) camera system in any of the HEXAGON documents or histories? I vaguely remember seeing one, but it's not in either "The Hexagon Story" or the CIA history....
I got this. There's also a schematic of the S3 in Phil Pressel's book. And I've been talking to some people. Let's just say that there's a story...