US Launches Largest Spy Satellite Ever

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Space.com reports that over the weekend, a giant booster – a Delta 4 Heavy rocket — carrying a secret new spy satellite for the US National Reconnaissance Office roared into space to deliver into orbit what one reconnaissance official has touted as 'the largest satellite in the world.' The Delta 4 Heavy rocket is the biggest unmanned rocket currently in service and has 2 million pounds of thrust, capable of launching payloads of up to 24 tons to low-Earth orbit and 11 tons toward the geosynchronous orbits used by communications satellites. The mammoth vehicle is created by taking three Common Booster Cores — the liquid hydrogen-fueled motor that forms a Delta 4-Medium's first stage — and strapping them together to form a triple-barrel rocket, and then adding an upper stage. The exact purpose of the new spy satellite NROL-32 is secret, but is widely believed to be an essential eavesdropping spacecraft that requires the powerful lift provided by the Delta 4-Heavy to reach its listening post. 'I believe the payload is the fifth in the series of what we call Mentor spacecraft, a.k.a. Advanced Orion, which gather signals intelligence from inclined geosynchronous orbits,' says Ted Molczan, a respected sky-watcher who keeps tabs on orbiting spacecraft. Earlier models of the series included an unfurling dish structure about 255 feet in diameter with a total spacecraft mass of about 5,953.5 pounds, costing about $750 million and designed to monitor specific points or objects of interest such as ballistic missile flight test telemetry."

Comments

We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[dmomo]

That's no Moon.

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[davester666]

...that's my stash of CHEESE!

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)

Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[MonsterTrimble]

Article Posted by Soulskill on Monday November 22, @01:33PM.
Death Star quote posted by dmomo on Monday November 22, @01:35PM.

Two minutes? We're slipping.

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[Tablizer]

... Moon.

Well then you forgot to paint it a stealth color. It stands out like a silvery sore thumb on dreamy, steamy, romantic nights.

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[mcgrew]

Your bizarre parody (and yes, I loved it) falls down on two major points -- the moon is in fact mentioned in texts older than fifty years (one, the Bible is about 5,000 years old), and my parents were both alive during the Great Depression. Had the oon suddenly appeared then, somebody would have noticed.

Nice parody anyway.

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Ha! In Soviet Russia, Satellite Launches YOU!

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[grcumb]

No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.

Apocryphal story, but worth telling:

Back in the 1800s, a dignitary once asked a prominent Huron chief, "Do you know why the sun never sets on the British Empire?"

The chief thought for a moment, then replied, "Because God doesn't trust your Queen in the dark."

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[apoc.famine]

Actually, the moon is pretty much a stealth color - it's as reflective as well-worn pavement. The real issue is that it's just too big to hide.

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Occam's razor necessitates a time machine involved.

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

You had me with you there for a moment. I thought you were serious until you started using the commie unit of measurement... the kilometer. You're going to have to do better to fool me you damned liberal Nazi, unAmerican scum.

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[roc97007]

Obviously there was a massive rewrite of history and some mind-altering drugs involved.

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[IPAQ2000]

It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)

Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.

can you give me the phone of your dealer ? i want to buy the drugs you are taking too

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

my parents were both alive during the Great Depression. Had the oon suddenly appeared then, somebody would have noticed.

They lied about Santa, what makes you think they wouldn't lie about the moon?

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

can you give me the phone of your dealer ? i want to buy the drugs you are taking too

1-888-369-4762

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[Opie812]

and a reverse vampire. Don't forget about the reverse vampires.

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[quenda]

"Do you know why the sun never sets on the British Empire?"

I never understood that expression. It was the greatest empire ever, but all you need is a couple of miserable rocks settled to make that claim.
One small colony or protectorate each in the East and West Indies for example, if you start in Europe.

Re:We launched a larger one EONS ago.

[Santana]

About your signature, let me recommend you Ars Technica.

Dear Slashdot Editors

[Anonymous Coward]

Please dispense with the ever. It is REDUNDANT.

Thanks for nothing.

Yours In Osh,
Philboyd Studge.

Re:Dear Slashdot Editors

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect.

Re:Dear Slashdot Editors

[Toe, The]

Not really. If a headline read: "US Launches Largest Spy Satellite," wouldn't you wonder, "largest compared to what?"

The "ever" tells you that it is compared to all other satellites previously launched. Though, sure, "to date" would have sounded more sophisticated." :)

Re:Dear Slashdot Editors

[istartedi]

Please dispense "ever". It redundant.

FTFY.

Re:Dear Slashdot Editors

[Martin Blank]

Had it said, "US Launches Largest Spy Satellite," I would have wondered if the Soviets/Russians had previously launched a larger spy satellite. It's a reasonable guess -- the Soviets were tossing some pretty big chunks of metal skyward, including the Gorizont series that massed over 2000kg and the early Proton series of satellites, at least one of which massed over 11,000kg. Gorizonts were for communications and the early Proton satellites were for scientific research, but I'm sure Moscow had/has some pretty large spy satellites up there, too.

Re:Dear Slashdot Editors

[Anonymous Coward]

nEVER.

Re:Dear Slashdot Editors

[SETIGuy]

Well, both the ISS and the moon are satellites. With dish unfurled, this may be bigger than the ISS. But certainly not more massive.

Re:Dear Slashdot Editors

[Martin Blank]

Of course not, but your mention of the ISS further strengthens the point: the Zvezda and Zarya modules each mass in at over 19,000kg. They're in LEO, of course, which is a lot easier to do, but still an example of how much Soviet/Russian technology can lift.

Oops

[rakuen]

The new secret spy satellite isn't much of a secret anymore...

Re:Oops

[LWATCDR]

Well it is hard to keep something 300 meters across in space a secret. Simple truth is that just about everybody that cared knew what type of satellite it was from the launch point and the launch vehicle. A friend of mine works on the Centaur and I saw him on Sunday. I asked how work was and he told me about the upcoming launch.
It went like this.
"Yeah it is going up on a Delta 4 heavy."
"Really DOD?"
"No NRO".

If it is a Delta 4 heavy with a Centaur from the Cape you can bet money it is a sigint bird.
The capabilities are what is secret. But it can probably pick up a cell phone or wifi for geosync.

Re:Oops

[Idiomatick]

Even more confusing is why they are bragging that it is big. It is a piece of electronics!

That be like a programmer bragging "I made a printer driver that was 4 GIGS, biggest print driver EVER!". Seriously, bragging about the size is retarded. Then they go on to brag at how awesome of a launch system they needed just to get it into space. Something like "The driver was so bloated people had to buy new computers just to install the driver!"

On a related note, the city of Tokyo is REALLY big. It is such a big spy satellite that we currently have no launch vehicle remotely near being able to lift all of Tokyo into space! It weighs trillions of tons and completely dwarfs the American built satellite. It even has a few million occupants! Amazing compared to the drab unmanned spy satellite that the US has.

Re:Oops

[An Ominous Cow Erred]

Don't worry, they'll get around to it eventually:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megazone_23

Re:Oops

[Bobakitoo]

It a spy satellite, that mean watch down the earth surface. It's basically telescope that look down! As for the Hubble space telescope, bigger is better. Contrary to your printer driver, it make sence to brag about how big it is.

Re:Oops

[mcgrew]

Its existance isn't a secret, but its purpose and workings are.

Re:Oops

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

This is NOTHING!

In old Soviet Union, we had five-year plan. Succeeded to build world's largest microchip! An achievement that stands yet, today and never it has been exceeded.

Re:Oops

[grcumb]

That be like a programmer bragging "I made a printer driver that was 4 GIGS, biggest print driver EVER!".

A 4 Gigabyte printer driver? Really? Please have your friend contact me immediately!

Snidely Earnest
HR Manager
- Hewlett Packard

Re:Oops

[Anonymous Coward]

Even more confusing is why they are bragging that it is big. It is a piece of electronics!

That be like a programmer bragging "I made a printer driver that was 4 GIGS, biggest print driver EVER!". Seriously, bragging about the size is retarded. Then they go on to brag at how awesome of a launch system they needed just to get it into space. Something like "The driver was so bloated people had to buy new computers just to install the driver!"

It's not a piece of electronics.

It's a big-ass antenna or a big-ass camera (I can't be bothered to RTFA to find out which.) The bigger the lens/dish, the higher the quality of interception. Making it bigger makes it work better, mmkay?

Re:Oops

[rtb61]

Hard to tell with the professionally paranoid, how do you know this one isn't designed to look out rather than in, something they are not likely to admit any time soon.

Re:Oops

[Caerdwyn]

And the Hubble is based on a KH12 spy satellite, just pointed in the opposite direction. In fact, it's so close in design that it shared the same optical flaw as an early KH12 design. The NSA and NRO (who knew about the defect because they'd already had problems with it with their own satellites) debated on whether to tell NASA; if they did they'd be essentially publishing the specs of the KH12 to the world (NASA is incapable of keeping a secret), but if they didn't then NASA would have a defective instrument. They chose the latter, and were thoroughly roasted for it (the repairs to the Hubble were a billion-dollar proposition and a public embarrassment), though of course revealing exact intelligence-gathering capability is never a good idea.

Repurposing and shared-mission SIGINT satellites for scientific use is as old as space flight itself.

Re:Oops

[Anonymous Coward]

so true, so sad...

Re:Oops

[s0lar]

... A friend of mine works on the Centaur and I saw him on Sunday. I asked how work was and he told me about the upcoming launch.

...and Taco is already on the phone with NSA giving them whatever is present in your profile. Next step, you'll have to explain your relationship to this friend :)

Re:Oops

[timeOday]

But there are physical constraints on antennae and telescopes, relating to the wavelength of the signal and the directional accuracy required, that DO dictate specific size constraints.

Ever wonder why cellphone cameras haven't displaced SLRs yet? It really does come down to the size of the sensor, and the size of the lens needed to gather energy for that sensor.

Re:Oops

[k6mfw]

>The capabilities are what is secret. But it can probably pick up a cell phone or wifi for geosync

but will they get sued by the MPAA or RIAA? If so, such secrets will be revealed during court trials? Doesn't seem like a good idea to tap wifi, you''ll get sued by the MAFIAA.

Re:Oops

[sznupi]

Repurposing and shared-mission SIGINT satellites for scientific use is as old as space flight itself.

And it goes much further than that. R-7 family of rockets is probably the most striking example - a rocket which launched the first satellite and first human in space; which launches to this day Soyuz & Progress spacecraft and many other payloads.

It was also the first operational ICBM, R-7 Semyorka (not a very good ICBM, not very practical - but turned out to be a fabulous launcher, the most reliable and most frequently used launch vehicle in the world, and that's coming from, basically, its competitor)

Re:Oops

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on why it's so big. If it's heavy because it's unfurling a bigger radio dish than has ever been in orbit before, that's a good thing - more like bragging about the size of your monitor, than about the size of your printer driver.

Re:Oops

[Jeremy Erwin]

The IBM Power7 (567 square millimeters, 1.2 billion transistors) is ten times larger than the Soviet K1801VM3 microprocessor (52.6 square milimeters, 200 thousand transistors.)

Re:Oops

[Jeremy Erwin]

It's not a piece of electronics, it's a spacecraft. We have different expectations for spacecraft, although they tend to be based on mass rather than volume.

Re:Oops

[Rich0]

With a dish the size of a football field I wouldn't be surprised if it could read the scan line on a CRT. Think about that...

Re:Oops

[DigiShaman]

I really *hate* HP Officejet driver packages. Biggest pile-of-shit bloatware I've ever spent installing and troubleshooting. And the real killer, after having their TSR program suck up RAM? It's that they installed a fuckin Yahoo toolbar in IE without giving me an deselect option. DAMN YOU!!!

Re:Oops

[Brucelet]

Because a space telescope would be a NASA launch instead of NRO. Unless you're talking about aliens in which case I'm not sure you're qualified to call other people professionally paranoid.

Re:Oops

[Brucelet]

The ESA is preparing to launch Soyuz rockets from Guiana, so I'm not sure competitor is the right word. That said, the R-7 is an incredible rocket.

Re:Oops

[Jeremy Erwin]

The NSA and NRO (who knew about the defect because they'd already had problems with it with their own satellites) debated on whether to tell NASA; if they did they'd be essentially publishing the specs of the KH12 to the world (NASA is incapable of keeping a secret), but if they didn't then NASA would have a defective instrument. They chose the latter, and were thoroughly roasted for it (the repairs to the Hubble were a billion-dollar proposition and a public embarrassment), though of course revealing exact intelligence-gathering capability is never a good idea.

That story sounds "too good to check". Source?

Re:Oops

[cusco]

it shared the same optical flaw as an early KH12 design.

I've always been curious as to why the manufacturer didn't tell NASA that there was a problem with the mirror. There's almost no way that they wouldn't have known as they did their quality control measurements.

Re:Oops

[sznupi]

It was much closer to the right word when that page was written, almost 7 years ago; basically. Plus - choosing, in the meantime, to cooperate on R-7, instead of using own tech, does look like admission of something...

Re:Oops

[Kagura]

I really doubt the story. It has some holes.

Re:Oops

[Anpheus]

Which way it's pointed.

Re:Oops

[Morty]

The US announces launches of big rockets to the international space community. This community includes both our friends and (historically) our enemies, i.e. the USSR back in the cold war. There is a rather simple reason for this: to a missile defense system, a launch to orbit initially looks a lot like an ICBM launch. Our government doesn't want someone, especially an enemy, thinking we've just launched an ICBM. That could lead to nuclear war. So we loudly announce the launch of spy satellites.

Re:Oops

[rtb61]

Professionally paranoid is an accurate job description for intelligence agencies, they have to imagine very possible threat and then defend against them, they obviously can not wait for successful incursions, say whoops and then defend against them in future, hence professional paranoid is an accurately and tongue in cheek description.

I am also interested upon what basis you declare a universe of galaxies void of intelligent life other than short hair, crested, rock throwing, cranky monkeys, I would hope not from some silly text that declares those often delusional monkeys second only in intelligence to the supreme being of the universe, gees arrogant much ;D.

Re:Oops

[SETIGuy]

Actually, it's pretty easy to figure out the max it could be capable of just from the dish diameter. Angular FWHM and antenna gain pop out just from that. Assume a receiver at liquid nitrogen temps (A closed cycle refrigerator probably). Figure out what the footprint of the beam would be on the ground to see whether you'll have confusion problems in a city or suburb. Anyhow they aren't pointing this at the U.S. A van is a whole lot cheaper for that.

Once you've figured out the gain you need and have a receiver design, the big impediment to design is the unfurling dish antenna. Second design issue pointing something that big in a stable manner such that you can keep terrestrial coordinates in the beam. Third would be data recording and processing (onboard vs simple limited band relay). Full design of such a craft are left as exercises for the reader.

Re:Oops

[SETIGuy]

Hard to tell with the professionally paranoid, how do you know this one isn't designed to look out rather than in, something they are not likely to admit any time soon.

Because there are dishes on the ground perfectly capable of doing that job that don't cost nearly as much.

Re:Oops

[thenextstevejobs]

Can't put truck balls on a printer driver.

Satellites, however...

Re:Oops

[SETIGuy]

Got tired of all the speculation. The resolution of a 100m dish at geosynchronous orbit to 1GHz is 107km. At 10GHz it would be 10.7km. Both those numbers are significantly larger than a scan line. They are also large compared to the distance between cell phones and wifi stations in a suburb. They might be able to get the cell tower half of a conversation, or intercept long distance microwave links.

Re:Oops

[Idiomatick]

Exactly! And CRTs were fucking terribly inconvenient.

Re:Oops

[LWATCDR]

Not really since it was all public knowledge. What is funny is I did have clearance back when I was in college. I got a job with a contractor. After I was out of clearance I developed the habit of using the names of some of projects I helped launch as passwords.
It was fun because another guy I worked for was just out of the military and would freak out every time I told him a password!
He was still in clearance and he literally could not say them in public but I could.

Re:Oops

[Anonymous Coward]

whoosh?

Re:Oops

[BraksDad]

hard to hide a rocket launch! You can see them easily from little tiny spy devices called eyeballs.

Re:Oops

[Jeremy Erwin]

GET OFF MY LAWN

Re:Oops

[Ernesto Alvarez]

Because there are dishes on the ground perfectly capable of doing that job that don't cost nearly as much.

Actually, there are not many antennas bigger than that one. It is roughly the size of one of these puppies. The only bigger antenna I know of would be the one at the Arecibo observatory.

On the other hand, you're probably right, as the space agencies would now use arrays of little antennas to look out into space.

(That monster must be sensitive as hell, those 70 metre antennas have been used to communicate with far away probes that had problems with their high gain antennas, imagine the sensitivity of one of those just 20000 KM away)

Re:Oops

[ooshna]

Because this is America and in America the only aliens we worry about are the ones crossing the borders to take our jerbs.

Re:Oops

[Brucelet]

I don't deny the potential existence of alien life. I just don't believe the idea that the government is in any way engaged with them. Thus any surveillance the NRO performs I assume to be fully terrestrial.

Re:Oops

[Anonymous Coward]

The NSA and NRO (who knew about the defect because they'd already had problems with it with their own satellites) debated on whether to tell NASA; if they did they'd be essentially publishing the specs of the KH12 to the world (NASA is incapable of keeping a secret), but if they didn't then NASA would have a defective instrument. They chose the latter, and were thoroughly roasted for it (the repairs to the Hubble were a billion-dollar proposition and a public embarrassment), though of course revealing exact intelligence-gathering capability is never a good idea.

That story sounds "too good to check". Source?

It is. The problem with Hubble was a one-off manufacturing error. Yes the Hubble shares lineage with the KH series, but the story is ridiculous. For one, Hubble launched before the KH-12 series. Second, the similarity is because many of the same contractors who built the NRO sats worked on Hubble. For that same reason, any design flaws in the earlier birds would have been known by the Hubble folks anyway.

Source: I work for NASA, although not long enough to have been around back then.

Re:Oops

[qubezz]

Maybe the focusing problem was that the optical design was developed to focus on objects 35,000km below it instead of objects 13 million light years above it...?

Ten things you don't know about Hubble

Spying on a Hubble Telescope Look-Alike (Keyhole 11)

Re:Oops

[Rich0]

I would think that gain would matter more than resolution. Granted, resolution would matter for scan lines since monitors would generally all use the same frequencies.

For cell phones, as long as the resolution covered only a few towers you could probably intercept both halves of conversations. The whole idea of phones is that within any given area only one phone/station is transmitting on any frequency at any time. So, you don't need horizontal resolution beyond the range of a few cells, and if you're willing to lose some data you can probably tolerate more overlap.

Re:Oops

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a high clearance then? Being out of a clearance is not a free ticket to spout out everything you know that's classified, that's still considered illegal. Most clearances also include a quite long NDA. That he wasn't able to say them may have been a hint as to if you really should have been doing so.

Re:Oops

[LWATCDR]

No not at all. And the names I used had been published. The name he freaked out over was one that I had nothing to do with but had been published in Aviation Week.

Re:Oops

[evilviper]

In fact, it's so close in design that it shared the same optical flaw as an early KH12 design.

umm... what? You're suggesting the CIA somehow knew that Perkin-Elmer had incorrectly assembled their primary null corrector, and foolishly ignored the results of two others indicating the simple error in manufacturing the mirror?

It wasn't a design flaw... the prototype was manufactured correctly, and the backup mirror made by Eastman-Kodak was flawless as well. No design issue was involved, and their use of a similar design wouldn't have given them any magical insight into a random manufacturing flaw.

Re:Oops

[Anonymous Coward]

Predator recalled.

Re:Oops

[LWATCDR]

Funny but truth is that in the real world security folks are not as dumb as TSA people. The names I used where out of context and in no way risked security. I doubt that anything I knew then is of any value now.

Re:Oops

[SETIGuy]

For a dish antenna the gain is inversely proportional to the square of the resolution (or in other words its proportional to the area of the dish)

(IIRC) Cell phone frequencies are all less than 2GHz, so were talking a 53km resolution or a reception area of 2300 km^2. A typical cell phone cell is 25 km^2, so you've got a minimum of 90 cells in your beam. Typically a phone operates on one of 395 channels (which sets a maximum for the number of active phones per cell). What I don't know is the average occupancy of a cell. If it's 3 phones per cell then there's a good chance your frequency can be monitored. If it's 395 per cell then there are 90 phones on the same channel as yours.

The largest satellite in the world...

[tompaulco]

...until it was successfully launched.

Re:The largest satellite in the world...

[jeffmeden]

I hope that's not a verbatim quote. He also overlooked the fact that Earth's Moon is a satellite and most likely larger than the spy satellite they launched (The ISS is also likely to be larger, and it too is a satellite.)

Re:The largest satellite in the world...

[sznupi]

Somewhat the other way around - it seems what the official talks about is the physical size of the antenna, deployed after launch (apparently around 100m). When it comes to mass it's apparently quite average, and nowhere near the top - that title certainly goes to the ISS... (yes, yes, "modular" - well, just one major ISS module launched by Proton or Shuttle, or ATV launched by Ariane (to use some examples related to ISS; there are other) is ~2x more)

Also, heavy version of Atlas V is the biggest, for some values of "currently in service" (it never flew yet, maybe never will)

Re:The largest satellite in the world...

[RealGrouchy]

In response, the Russians have announced their response--a satellite so big, they plan to launch the Earth off of it.

- RG>

more expense

[He who knows]

yet another nearly redundant cold war era satelite is now in orbit.

Re:more expense

[electrostatic]

I'm am American who is proud of our technological superiority over the rest of the world. Meanwhile, every electronic or mechanical device with three or more parts that I own is made in China.

Re:more expense

[Anonymous Coward]

"I love the smell of freedom in the morning... It smells like, futility."

Re:more expense

[c0lo]

I'm am American who is proud of our technological superiority over the rest of the world.

Was the pun intended?

Re:more expense

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course, that satellite is more likely aimed at you, as an American citizen, than China, NK, or any other nation.

Re:more expense

[sznupi]

Well, this one will be placed at 44 degrees E, so it's probably not aimed at you - more at Russia, Caucasus, Middle East, perhaps Somalia.

(that said, the one being "replaced" by this launch was moved just to the west of Europe; so between the two of them there's probably a nice view of the EU)

Re:more expense

[Shakrai]

I'm am American who is proud of our technological superiority over the rest of the world.

I'm an American who is proud of our technological ability but not naive enough to believe we have superiority. Sure, we do a lot of things really well (aerospace, computers, medicine) but other countries are ahead of us in certain areas. Russia builds some really amazing rockets and missiles that don't compare to anything in the West. There is no Western equivalent of Russia's supersonic anti-ship missiles. Or their 200 knot torpedoes.

Anybody that doesn't think our enemies wouldn't have a few rude surprises in store for us if the shit really hit the fan is kidding themselves.

Re:more expense

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the general people understand that the ideology of "free" market is just another euphemism now synonym for corrupt market and exploitation of legal loopholes labeled under the "free(dom)" and placing apropriate tarifs/taxes for imports comming from countries with lower monetary value, when done properly, those products will eventually have "made in the USA", unenployement will decrease and the economy will stabilize with a healthy future ahead.

Import only resources you lack instead of usual importing for being cheaper while contributing for the demise of the local/national economy, the result of getting richer by greed at the cost of country population.

Re:more expense

[Truth is life]

Well, there's a good reason for that; the United States doesn't need 200 knot torpedoes or supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles because it's enemies hardly even have navies worthy of the name, let alone the sophisticated anti-cruise missile defenses the US has (because of those supersonic AShMs), or our very quiet submarines (because of those torpedoes). Those kinds of weapons are only really useful for anti-ship warfare, and since other countries need to conduct that type of warfare in a hypothetical "war with US" scenario than we do, we invest much less in them than we do in other technologies that we get more use out of. For example, we have excellent smart bombs and stealth technology because we heavily rely on air power as a force multiplier and the countries with the fast torpedoes and AShMs have good air defense systems.

Re:more expense

[metrix007]

Hey, you have a phone call, the 50's miss you wand want to know if you'll be home in time for supper?

Re:more expense

[RivenAleem]

I'm am American who is proud of our technological superiority over the rest of the world..

How are you liking your fully body scanners?

In the world?

[pulski]

I do believe that being a satellite means that it is not "in" the world, now doesn't it?

I like big boosters!

[slowhand]

I like big boosters and I can not lie
You other brothers can't deny
That when a rocket flys in with an itty bitty thruster
And a round thing in your face
You get sprung, wanna pull out your tough
'Cause you notice that booster was stuffed
Deep in the propellant she's wearing
I'm hooked and I can't stop staring
Oh baby, I wanna get with you
And take your picture
My homeboys tried to warn me
But that booster you got makes me so horny
Ooh, Rump-o'-smooth-skin
You say you wanna get in my Benz?
Well, use me, use me
'Cause you ain't that average groupie
I've seen them dancin'
To hell with romancin'
She's sweat, wet,
Got it goin' like a turbo 'Vette
I'm tired of magazines
Sayin' flat boosters are the thing
Take the average black man and ask him that
She gotta pack much back
So, fellas! (Yeah!) Fellas! (Yeah!)
Has your spacefriend got the booster? (Hell yeah!)
Tell 'em to shake it! (Shake it!) Shake it! (Shake it!)
Shake that healthy booster!
Baby got back!

Swweeet

[Anonymous Coward]

Freakin lasers.... finally

Houston, we have multiple problems

[digitaldc]

"We bought most of our satellites for three, five, or eight years, and we're keeping them on orbit for ten, twelve, and up to twenty years."

Hmmm....I wonder what the human consequences of aging spy satellites providing erroneous information could be?

And, does anyone know John Connor?

Re:Houston, we have multiple problems

[Brett Buck]

None. It either works, or it doesn't.

Re:Houston, we have multiple problems

[Wyatt Earp]

The problem isn't erroneous information, its that the fuel runs low so they can't be retasked or have orbits boosted (in the case of LEO satellites) as often, power levels drop as the solar panels get older and they enter safe modes more often than they were designed for.

The follow on satellite designs and programs were delayed and costs overran, thats why they are being used longer and longer.

Re:Houston, we have multiple problems

[Anonymous Coward]

"power levels drop as the solar panels get older"

WHAT!? I was assured by Space Nutters that putting solar panels in space solves every energy problem on Earth forever. How is this possible?

Re:Houston, we have multiple problems

[sznupi]

Also at GEO mere stationkeeping makes the fuel run low.

Re:Houston, we have multiple problems

[Anonymous Coward]

John Connor?

John Galt?

Re:Houston, we have multiple problems

[Wyatt Earp]

They get holes, radiation over time degrades them.

They have the same issues on ISS and had them on Mir with older panels.

Re:Houston, we have multiple problems

[lgw]

Older spy sats would expend lots of delta-v to fly in close to observe then adjust back to an orbit high enough to be stabile. I assume the recent ones simply correct for atmospheric turbulance and get perfect pictures from GEO (couple of technologies for that these days), so they don't eat all their fuel in 3 years.

Re:Houston, we have multiple problems

[Anonymous Coward]

None. It either works, or it doesn't.

Only Sith Lords and Republicans deal in absolutes.

Top Secret payload

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this is a vice-presidential bunker project that was started during the bush administration.

crappy site

[callmebill]

Crappy TFA site sports pernicious popups.

Re:crappy site

[ColdWetDog]

Crappy TFA site sports pernicious popups.

It does? You must be doing it wrong.

Re:crappy site

[callmebill]

Your mom doesn't seem to think so.

Re:crappy site

[ColdWetDog]

Whatever floats your boat, dude. I mean, really, knock yourself out.

Re:Commendation

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I visit you at your house?

Secret, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

How long will we ever be able to keep this under wraps?

Re:Commendation

[Pojut]

Want to learn how to make money selling books? All you have to do is buy my book!

awesome until proven useless

[alphatel]

March 14, 2011: NASA confirmed today that it's launching a new Discovery mission headed for the failed NROL-32. Once hailed as the largest satellite ever, with an unknown purpose, it has since been branded the 'largest scrap in space' with no known usefulness. National Reconnaissance confirmed earlier this week that the NROL wasn't even a spy satellite, instead its purpose was to collect packets from personal wifi networks and save them for future analysis. "We still think this is important work to be done" an spokesperson stated.

Re:awesome until proven useless

[ColdWetDog]

Cool. They've managed to get the Shuttle up to geosynchronous orbit. Did they put Bruce Willis aboard?

Re:awesome until proven useless

[Idiomatick]

It was a Google van? Should have guessed :/

Re:Commendation

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're so successful, why the fuck are you linking people to Facebook instead of a proper website?

Fehkoff, cock-gobbler.

Will it..

[gilesjuk]

But will it find Bin Laden?

Of course even if they did find him it wouldn't stop the terrorism.

Re:Will it..

[Anonymous Coward]

But will it find Bin Laden?

No. It is intended to spy on US citizens. Have you been following American news for the past few years? Don't worry though. If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

Re:Will it..

[LWATCDR]

Actually it might. This is a sigint/comint bird. Not really much of leak since it is a big honking satellite on a Delta 4 heavy with a Centaur upper stage launched from the Cape.
Really that was a given. This can pick up just about any wireless communication so yes it may find Bin Laden and it may stop a terrorist attack. It may do a lot of things.
Sigint/Commint is has been very useful for a very long time.

In fact looking at your email address you may want to look up your own nation's history. A good part of the reason that you are not speaking German is because of commint.

Re:Will it..

[Muad'Dave]

Actually it might. This is a sigint/comint bird.

You can keep tabs what orbital slot it ends up in by watching the seesat-l mailing list that Ted Molczan contributes to.

Re:Will it..

[dpilot]

commint? .uk email address?

That's a total Enigma to me.

Re:Will it..

[icebraining]

"Wrong" may or may not include the following activities: breathing, eating or sleeping.

Re:Will it..

[Anonymous Coward]

> But will it find Bin Laden?

That's kind of like asking if the cure for cancer will prevent car crashes, or if a nifty linux kernal patch will stop pdf exploits in windows. Surprisingly, there is no one single threat, and no one single solution.

> Of course even if they did find him it wouldn't stop the terrorism.

Well, it would stop HIS part. Other parts might need to be stopped by other means. If you are faced with five problems, do you reject every proposed solution because that solution won't solve all five at once?

Re:Will it..

[mcgrew]

When Seven of Nine's husband Jack was running against Barack Obama for the Illinois US Senate seat, he was caught up in a sex scandal and the Republicans searched for a replacement. They found a guy from Maryland, a black fellow who'd never set foot in Illinois before.

A comedian said (and sorry, I've forgotten the guy's name), "Those Republicans! First they can't find Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, then they couldn't find WMDs in Iraq, and now thay can't even find a black man in Chicago!"

Re:Will it..

[LWATCDR]

I know I was making a Colossus assumption.

Re:Will it..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wrong" may or may not include the following activities: breathing, eating or sleeping.

Breathing produces CO2, which is classified as a pollutant, and thus 'wrong'.
Eating eventually results in shitting, which is also a pollutant, and thus 'wrong'.
Sleeping is time you could have been working or spending money, and is therefore detrimental to the economy, so it's wrong too.

Anyone found to be committing such wrongdoings will be reported to the authorities and summarily "screened" by the TSA. Vaseline will NOT be supplied, bit it WILL be required.

Re:Will it..

[Anonymous Coward]

what you sheeple need to do is point that cannon at your government, if they have nothing to hide, they should not have any difficulty with that.at all, correct? If you have nothing to to hide, the government has no business looking. They ARE controlling you through fear and manipulation., you have given them the tools to destroy your children. The Nazis who now control the American government are clearly trying to destroy society. They have eliminated your RIGHTS and FREEDOMS, with your permission. Now, try to get back your Rights and Freedoms. It just may take an armed uprising, or simply permit the industrial military complex invented in America to flounder and bankrupt itself.

How big is thing thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "total spacecraft mass of about 5,953.5 pounds"? What is this in kilograms? I know at sea level 1 pound is about 2.2. kg - but in low earth orbit? How much mass is needed for that type of force? Or did somebody rewrite the science books?

Re:How big is thing thing?

[NotBornYesterday]

First, 2.2lbs = 1 kg. Second, don't confuse weight with mass.

Re:How big is thing thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

First, 2.2lbs = 1 kg. Second, don't confuse weight with mass.

don't mix lb and kg!
lb = a measure of force or weight
kg = a measure of mass

Re:How big is thing thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

First, 2.2lbs = 1 kg. Second, don't confuse weight with mass.

He's not, but you are:

kg = mass
lbs = weight

In zero G, a 1kg object has no weight, it's only at 1G that 2.2lbs = 1 kg.

Isn't the largest satellite...

[OfficialReverendStev]

... you know... the moon...?

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[Abstrackt]

Well, this is actually the "largest spy satellite ever", so unless the man in the moon is tapping your phone lines they're separate categories.

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[Stargoat]

I was thinking Jupiter might be the largest known satellite, but I suspect most of the stars in the Milky Way orbiting the central black hole (or whatever it is) are probably larger.

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[RealGrouchy]

You're right; they should have said "largest known spy satellite".

- RG>

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[Nimey]

That's be Jupiter. Except the Sun is a satellite of the galaxy's core, and there are whole dwarf galaxies orbiting ours...

Don't be pedantic, lest someone else out-pedant you.

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[swanzilla]

That's be Jupiter. Except the Sun is a satellite of the galaxy's core, and there are whole dwarf galaxies orbiting ours...

Don't be pedantic, lest someone else out-pedant you.

That'd be "That'd" be Jupiter.

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had *one* camera on the moon pointing back to Earth... I'd say then the moon would be the largest spy satellite ever.

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[mcgrew]

I was going to say the biggest satellite ON EARTH, but then I remember how the moon was formed -- it actually was on Earth; or at least, splashed from here when a Mars-sized rock smashed the Earth.

I think the ISS may be bigger, too.

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[Anonymous Coward]

Summary says "Largest Spy Satellite" which is accurate, even taking into account the moon, unless you know something that you're not sharing.

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[lennier]

and there are whole dwarf galaxies orbiting ours...

Slaves to Armok III: Dwarf Galaxy?

Now *that* would be a sandbox game.

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[Anonymous Coward]

touted as 'the largest satellite in the world.

In their defense, the moon hasn't been in the world in a long time.

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[warGod3]

That's no moon, it's a space station!

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[antdude]

"That's no moon."

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[RivenAleem]

How can can you say "Biggest satellite ON EARTH"? It's one or the other, not both.

Re:Isn't the largest satellite...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mods look like retards when they mark this troll because you have to be literally retarded to sign your posts.

Let me google that for you...

[Anonymous Coward]

9 million Newtons thrust
10 thousand kilograms

so big

[Anonymous Coward]

It's so big, it's out of this world!

Re:Commendation

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused. Is he learning how to make money selling books, or am I?

TSA satellite of love

[Junior J. Junior III]

Now we can see your junk from orbit.

Re:TSA satellite of love

[Anonymous Coward]

And I can't see it without a mirror...

so much for secrecy

[alienzed]

I guess the best hiding place is right out in public.

Re:so much for secrecy

[mcgrew]

Nathaniel hawthorne knew that in 1850.

why must "spy" satellites alway be "secret"

[craftycoder]

These stories invariably describe the space craft as "secret". Of course they never are because everyone who cares to look can see it go up and then watch it in orbit. What audience are they talking to when they say it's "secret" when it by definition is not based on the fact that they are telling us about it.

Re:why must "spy" satellites alway be "secret"

[Anonymous Coward]

So how much do we really know about it? Not a whole lot.

Re:why must "spy" satellites alway be "secret"

[MobyDisk]

It is secret in the same way that Area 51 and the Pentagon are secret. Everyone who cares can hop in a car and see them. They are secret in that we don't know exactly what they do.

Re:why must "spy" satellites alway be "secret"

[ceejayoz]

The fact that it has been launched isn't the secret. Its capabilities and purpose are. Those tend not to be precisely determinable at a distance.

Re:why must "spy" satellites alway be "secret"

[NotBornYesterday]

Its existence is not secret. Its function, and how it accomplishes that, are.

Re:why must "spy" satellites alway be "secret"

[cusco]

The Pentagon's purpose is pretty easy to figure out, at least since the early '80s. Line up a graph of the US deficit and the Pentagram budget and you'll be surprised how closely they match. Well, until the Wall Street bailout anyway.

Oh come on, get real...

[Frosty Piss]

If you're so successful, why the fuck are you linking people to Facebook instead of a proper website? Fehkoff, cock-gobbler.

It's probably not the real "Donald Brownlie Fleming" that posted here at Slashdot, just some asshat who wants to make trouble for the guy.

Re:Commendation

[Anonymous Coward]

Donald Brownlie Fleming

Wow, even your middle NAME says you're full of bullshit. Nice. Are you a FUCKING POKEMON too?

Mammoth launcher

[Foundling]

Article says it's a mammoth launcher. Unmanned, yes, but the astronaut is clearly a mammoth. Presumably, this could easily be adapted for elephants, too. //I'll be watching another Delta 4 Heavy launch in January from my balcony. Haven't asked who the pilot is, yet.

The Metric system troll

[geirlk]

I thought we all agreed to keep it metric after the last little 'mishap' with the Mars orbiter.

Imperial units are sooo 2 centuries too old!

Maybe you didn't get the memo?

If I'm reading it on Slashdot, it ain't secret...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

a Delta 4 Heavy rocket — carrying a secret new spy satellite for the US National Reconnaissance Office roared into space to deliver into orbit what one reconnaissance official has touted as 'the largest satellite in the world.' The Delta 4 Heavy rocket is the biggest unmanned rocket currently in service and has 2 million pounds of thrust, capable of launching payloads of up to 24 tons to low-Earth orbit and 11 tons toward the geosynchronous orbits used by communications satellites

Anything else that you can tell us about the secret satellite?

The mammoth vehicle is created by taking three Common Booster Cores — the liquid hydrogen-fueled motor that forms a Delta 4-Medium's first stage — and strapping them together to form a triple-barrel rocket, and then adding an upper stage. The exact purpose of the new spy satellite NROL-32 is secret, but is widely believed to be an essential eavesdropping spacecraft that requires the powerful lift provided by the Delta 4-Heavy to reach its listening post. 'I believe the payload is the fifth in the series of what we call Mentor spacecraft, a.k.a. Advanced Orion, which gather signals intelligence from inclined geosynchronous orbits,' says Ted Molczan, a respected sky-watcher who keeps tabs on orbiting spacecraft. Earlier models of the series included an unfurling dish structure about 255 feet in diameter with a total spacecraft mass of about 5,953.5 pounds, costing about $750 million and designed to monitor specific points or objects of interest such as ballistic missile flight test telemetry."

M'kay . . . can you send me the password to will cause that mother-fucker crash down?

The really super secret satellites . . . well, we don't hear anything about them . . . and we shouldn't, either.

Re:If I'm reading it on Slashdot, it ain't secret.

[geirlk]

The really super secret satellites . . . well, we don't hear anything about them . . . and we shouldn't, either.

My guess is they're hidden stowaways with proper launches. So this 'spy' satellite might have a little brother =)

255-foot dish?

[amicusNYCL]

Earlier models of the series included an unfurling dish structure about 255 feet in diameter with a total spacecraft mass of about 5,953.5 pounds

The whosit whatnow?

The MAGNUM-ORION 1-3 spacecraft introduced the third larger unfurling dish structures "wrap-rib" large deployable bleached white gold colored mesh covered receiving dish antenna design of about 255 feet in diameter with a total spacecraft mass of about 5,953.5 pounds.

Oh. Of course, the old unfurling dish structures "wrap-rib" large deployable bleached white gold colored mesh covered receiving dish antenna design.

Sort of heavy

[ivoras]

Hmmm, how heavy? Like in "heavy metal" heavy? Like Uranium-heavy? No, couldn't be.... right?

bet it has a tag on it

[topham]

Bet it has a tag on it that says 'Made in China'.

Re:bet it has a tag on it

[Anonymous Coward]

No it says: Google Bathroom View

Re:If I'm reading it on Slashdot, it ain't secret.

[Bucky24]

That would make a lot of sense. Considering that ANY launch into space is probably gonna be noticed, it would be a lot easier just to piggyback satellites than try to make a secret unnoticed launch. Maybe that's why it's really so big? Instead of launching one massive satellite they could be launching two or three smaller ones.

We have come along way

[kurt555gs]

And to think only 45 years ago, all we could manage was 135 tons to low earth orbit on the Saturn V.

Wow, what progress.

Re:We have come along way

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we could have had the Ares V, which would have lifted 200 tons to LEO, but Obama canceled it. Of course, since Obama is the anointed one, we all have to pretend this is a good thing and spout rhetoric like, "Ares was expensive"

1/10th of the DOD budget would have more than paid for it.

Re:We have come along way

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, we should cut DOD budget as well.

Re:We have come along way

[sznupi]

Almost mass-produced, medium-sized, modular launchers are probably the better way (this Delta does show some of those aspects - and, say, Angara will be very nicely scalable, from 1 to 7 identical core modules) than some huge, rarely launched rocket & the infrastructure required by it.

Especially since we're quite good, for a long time now, at autonomous docking and on-orbit assembly.

Re:We have come along way

[Jeremy Erwin]

You're crazy. The DOD doesn't need to be cut. NASA doesn't need to be cut. Taxes need to be cut.

Re:We have come along way

[khallow]

Well, we could have had the Ares V, which would have lifted 200 tons to LEO, but Obama canceled it. Of course, since Obama is the anointed one, we all have to pretend this is a good thing and spout rhetoric like, "Ares was expensive"

The Ares V was a bait-and-switch. You spend the big bucks for the Ares V and you get... the Ares I. There were numerous deep problems with the program, but this was one of the biggest. You didn't actually get development towards an Ares V until many years into development.

Second, the Ares I is a redundant rocket (which duplicates the Delta IV Heavy and near future Atlas V Heavy). This was the reason I opposed the Ares program almost from the day it was announced. NASA has a terrible record (mainly from the 70s through 90s) of killing competition when it's allowed to interfere or compete with commercial companies. It would be extremely unhealthy to allow NASA to compete with the 20-25 ton launch vehicles that we currently have. IMHO, the first competitive victim was the separate Delta and Atlas launch groups which were merged into the United Launch Alliance (ULA) at the end of 2006. If NASA had announced it were aggressively using the Delta IV and Atlas V for manned missions, then it is my belief that this merger wouldn't have occurred. As a final remark on this point, supposed through the beginning of 2010, NASA spent $9 billion on the Constellation program. That money would have been enough to pay for roughly 20 Delta IV Heavy launches. Of course, NASA would have needed to spend money on a crew vehicle and "man-rating" the Delta IV Heavy (my understanding is that they'd be about a billion dollars each to do), but they could have been a hell of a lot further along in a real space program, if they had chosen the Delta IV Heavy as the manned vehicle. The Atlas V Heavy was that far off either. They probably could have had two manned vehicles in the Ares I range by now for the money spent on Constellation development.

Third, the choice of the ATK (a brand of Alliant Techsystems) solid rocket motor (SRM) for the first stage led to numerous very serious engineering problems. First, there was the problem of thrust oscillation. The rocket had an oscillation mode close to the frequency of eddies in the rocket chamber in the SRM. The Shuttle also had to worry about this mode, but it had a clever mechanism (the way the solid rocket boosters were attached to the rest of the Shuttle "stack") that damped those vibrations. The Ares I couldn't use that mechanism because the SRM was in line with the rest of the rocket rather than attached tenuously on the side. The program was fixable, but only by adding mass to the rocket and cutting into the performance of the overall system.

There was also the problem of no room to expand. The first stage was made as large as it possibly could. There was no way to make it longer or wider (the length was structurally as far as they could push it, the width was limited by how wide the booster could be and still squeeze through a particular train tunnel). These two issues, plus the inability to develop a cheap, disposable Space Shuttle main engine (SSME) meant that the rocket was over successive revisions experiencing a gradual decline in designed performance. This led to numerous redesigns of the Orion capsule. A big culprit of these redesigns was bad management. The Apollo program also had problems with people not meeting their specifications. They put it together seamlessly because the various managers and designers (particularly, Wernher von Braun and the Marshal Space Flight Center team) anticipated these problems and had the freedom to overengineer their systems. This chapter describes a key choice:

Rosen apparently took the lead in pressing for the fifth engine, consistent with his obstinate push for a "big rocket." The MSFC contingent during the meetings included Wi

Re:We have come along way

[T.E.D.]

Ack. I have mod points, but I can't decide if I should mod this "funny", and there's no "-1 scary".

Re:We have come along way

[Richard_at_work]

You get what you pay for - at $43.5Billion in todays money for 13 launches, Saturn V was not cheap. The Delta 4 however has an average cost of $210Million with 14 launches, so is considerably cheaper.

Re:We have come along way

[Jeremy Erwin]

The "+1 Insightful" scared me.

Re:We have come along way

[T.E.D.]

Yeah, that's what I was looking at when I wrote that.

In retrospect, I guess I should have gone with the funny, but the thought of someone else modding it up as insightful and it forever sitting around at +5 Insightful was just too ugly to contemplate...

Secrets

[Anonymous Coward]

Patrick Leahy, in one of his frequent news interviews, stated that if any foreign country uncovered any of the details about this satellite (detailed schematics available online from his web site), then National Security would be in serious trouble. For national security reasons, the names of the developers, such as William Hammerhead, Martin Gooseburg, and John Tailbiter, need to be kept secret so foreign elements will not capture them to force them into developing competing systems. He also recommends to the reporters that the satellites orbit (see his web page for current position) be kept top secret. Also, if any countries need financial help in developing their competing systems, a small donation to the DNC could loosen enormous support from his party.

Mum's the word . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Considering that ANY launch into space is probably gonna be noticed, it would be a lot easier just to piggyback satellites than try to make a secret unnoticed launch.

Quiet! You didn't hear it here first!

Mum's the word

Meaning

Keep quiet - say nothing.

Origin

Mum; not mother but 'mmmmm', the humming sound made with a closed mouth. Used by Shakespeare in Henry VI, Part 2, 1592:

"Seal up your lips and give no words but mum."

... and I thought that all that time reading Shakespeare in High School was a waste of time . ..

When propaganda calls it a spy satellite...

[Joshua Fan]

...that means it's really a weapons platform. Just like all "communications satellites" are spy satellites.

in the world?

[nilbog]

How is it the largest satellite in the world if it's not ... uhh... in the world?

Let me slug you over that.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The "total spacecraft mass of about 5,953.5 pounds"? What is this in kilograms? I know at sea level 1 pound is about 2.2. kg - but in low earth orbit?

Sorry, AC. "Slugs" (mass that weighs one pound under one standard g) never caught on in general American English usage. A one-standard-g field is assumed when the context says you're talking about mass and the unit is given as force (weight). The distinction is reserved for discussions among practitioners, teachers, and students of specialized fields (such as physics), who are often dealing with situations where it does matter.

The Toledo Scale motto would be "No Springs, Honest Mass!" if not for this convention. (They're a mass-balance mechanism and not affected by the magnitude of local gravitation, provided it's sufficient for them to operate properly and not high enough to damage the internal components.)

broadcast

[Anonymous Coward]

This may mean a taste of the airport scanner technology for the rest of us.

Uh oh...

[Mephistro]

This thing has the right size and lift capability for deploying "rods from God". Scary, isn't it?

Semantics

[necro81]

What shall we consider the when we talk about a satellite being "largest?" As we all know, physical size doesn't matter all that much in space. Weight (or rather, mass) in orbit is probably a greater achievement. The ISS probably takes the cake by both measures, though definitions and semantics make for a tricky comparison.

The Shuttle, empty and floating in orbit, has a mass of roughly 2000 metric tons. Perhaps, for semantics, we won't consider that a satellite, either.

For more conventional satellites (i.e., hunks of unmanned electronics that do some useful purpose for years on end), I think the heaviest ever was the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory at 17 metric tons, which was sent aloft using the Shuttle, because it was too heavy for any rocket at the time.

Cassini-Huygens had a launch weight of nearly 6 metric tons, and also used a Titan 4 Heavy. Considering they launched it all the way to fucking Saturn, that also seems a bigger achievement than this latest spy satellite.

Just wait until we have a solar sail testbed out there with a 1-km span, but with a mass of just 10 kg.

Re:Semantics

[sznupi]

The Shuttle has a bit over 100 tonnes... (it's not a single stage to orbit after all - and we probably won't really have this for some time - considering how fabulous an ordinary rocket ends up, if using technology comparable to what is required to make SSTO even barely possible)

That gamma observatory certainly wasn't the heaviest - few years older Almaz-T was ~18.5t, Proton satellites from the 1960s already ~17t, so I guess there were quite a few heavier ones, on both sides (also, wasn't Titan IV already available during launch of Compton Observatory? Then there was Proton, and Energia was still operational - so hardly "too heavy for any rocket at the time" ;p )

can't find Ossama to the B Laden!

[Thud457]

Up here in space
I'm looking down on you.
My lasers trace
Everything you do.
You think you've private lives
Think nothing of the kind.
There is no true escape
I'm watching all the time.
I'm made of metal
My circuits gleam.
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean.
I'm elected electric spy
I'm protected electric eye.
Always in focus
You can't feel my stare.
I zoom into you
You don't know I'm there.
I take a pride in probing all your secret moves
My tearless retina takes pictures that can prove.
I'm made of metal
My circuits gleam.
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean.
I'm elected electric spy
I'm protected electric eye.
Electric eye, in the sky
Feel my stare, always there
There's nothing you can do about it.
Develop and expose
I feed upon your every thought
And so my power grows.
I'm made of metal
My circuits gleam.
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean.
I'm elected electric spy
I'm protected electric eye.
I'm elected electric spy
I'm elected. Protected. Detective. Electric eye.

Re:can't find Ossama to the B Laden!

[Gusfm]

haha perfect song for this

Let me slug myself now...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

"Slugs" (mass that weighs one pound under one standard g) never caught on in general American English usage.

Oops. Meant pound-mass (lb-sub-m lbm ), not slug. A slug is about 32.17405 lb-mass, the mass which accelerates by one foot per second squared under a force of one pound.

Illustration of the antenna is misleading.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

One of the linked articles shows a rough illustration of the antenna: A big parabolic umbrella with a forest of feed "horns" (Actually log-periodic crossed YAGIs) on one end of the main satellite at the focus. This maps the feed horns' patterns into an equivalent hexagonal array of slightly overlapping regions on the Earth's surface.

However the illustration also has each feed horn illuminated by a patch on a similar hexagonal array laid out on the surface of the mirror umbrella. That's bogus. In such an antenna the whole reflector illuminates each of the horns.

It's equivalent to a camera lens or a reflector telescope - where light for each pixel on the film is collected by the whole lens/main mirror, but each pixel is illuminated by light arriving from a different direction. The bigger the lens/mirror, the more light that's collected for each pixel, and the tighter the focus, i.e. the larger the number of pixels and the smaller the area each one covers. This is the same game with the "film" consisting of an array of antennas, rather than silver grains or photosensitive spots on a retina chip.

Encrypted, If it is worth keeping secret.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why collect data if it can't be used.
It also has to be useful in near real time.
Consumer grade encryption must have been broken.
In the math or in the CPU it is broken satellites like this are proof.

Re:Encrypted, If it is worth keeping secret.

[AHuxley]

Consumer grade encryption must have been broken....
They are hunting voice prints, known numbers/calls, locations and anything from consumer grade junk.
The raw data is bounced around to a safe location with a lot of cpu power for sorting and finally encrypted back to the USA.
Satellites just collect and pass on the info with location data.
Depending on the location expect a black ops team or a drone if your voice print is known.
Any state sponsor or government trained consultant should be telling their clients about the joys of not using many types of electronics.

5900 lbs into orbit

[kalpol]

If I ever get filthy rich, I'm going to buy a new car. Then, I'm going to buy a Delta 4 rocket and launch my old Mercedes into high orbit. Why? because it would be awesome.

Re:5900 lbs into orbit

[Gerafix]

Oh come on, surely you mean a 1960 Corvette! Which you would then reenter the atmosphere playing Radar Rider by Riggs.

255 feet

[FishOuttaWater]

That's 0xff in native units for for you slashdotters.

Not spying on the US (Re:Will it...)

[Dr La]

Actually, all Mentor's previous to this one were and are positioned at longitudes covering West Asia and Africa. They do not cover US territory so far. We have reasons to believe this new one will not either.

Re:Not spying on the US (Re:Will it...)

[sznupi]

Whole of Asia, basically. And one was moved to a place apparently suited to covering western part of the EU, hm...

Nice to know...

[linuxhansl]

that my tax money is used to launch secret surveillance technology. And of course it is "in my best interest".

Used to live in Cape Canaveral . . .

[CG_Man]

Last really big spy satellite I took notice of was one carried on board a Titan IV in 1998 that didn't get very far before before exploding and/or being destroyed by range safety personnel. We usually enjoyed rocket launches (and plenty of mixed drinks) from a friend's condo on the south side of the harbor entrance channel that had a great view of the various launch pads (or at least the rockets after they got a few feet up in the air). For this one, I was on board my ship in port. Someone made a pipe (announcement) that a rocket was going up. Good time for a break. Went up to the foc'sle with my coffee and watched as $1.3 billion of our U.S. tax dollars got blown into tiny little bits. Ughhh. Wondered briefly if pieces were going to land on the ship -- not too likely. Went back below to my stateroom and back to work. Glad this one got further along.

largest?

[dilvish_the_damned]

Though I did not see any numbers specific to NROL-32, I saw where other satellites in the series were near 6000lbs. There are commercial satellites in operation now with nearly three times that mass, so being "the largest satellite in the world" either means the other stated "largest spy satellite" or more likely the one with the "biggest penis" or "dish" for the layman.

US Launches Largest Spy Satellite Ever...

[Anonymous Coward]

to further spy on its citizens. Truth.

Why Does It Have To Be A Spy Sat?

[IonOtter]

Why not a weapon?

Largest in the world?

[meyekul]

..roared into space to deliver into orbit what one reconnaissance official has touted as 'the largest satellite in the world.' ?

At this point, wouldn't it cease to be the largest satellite in the world?

KGultrg7l0I

[Anonymous Coward]

Second stage is cut
Were now in orbit
Stabilizers up
Runnning perfect
Starting to collect
Requested data
What will it affect
when all is done?
Thinks Major Tom