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Rumors Swirl That Secret Zuma Satellite Launched By SpaceX Was Lost (scientificamerican.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the top-secret dept.

Many media outlets are reporting that the U.S. government's top-secret Zuma satellite may have run into some serious problems during or shortly after its Sunday launch. Zuma was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Sunday evening -- a launch that also featured a successful landing back on Earth by the booster's first stage. While everything seemed fine at the time, rumors began swirling within the spaceflight community that something had happened to Zuma. "According to one source, the payload fell back to Earth along with the spent upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket," Ars Technica's Eric Berger wrote. Scientific American reports: To be clear: There is no official word of any bad news, just some rumblings to that effect. And the rocket apparently did its job properly, SpaceX representatives said. "We do not comment on missions of this nature, but as of right now, reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally," company spokesman James Gleeson told Space.com via email. Space.com also reached out to representatives of aerospace company Northrop Grumman, which built Zuma for the U.S. government. "This is a classified mission. We cannot comment on classified missions," Northrop Grumman spokesman Lon Rains said via email. All we know about the satellite itself is that it was destined for a low-Earth orbit and built for the U.S. government. We will update this story if we hear anything else about Zuma's status.

4 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. It may be lost .. it may be not by sTERNKERN · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I was a secret agency with an agenda and everybody watched my satellite being sent up into space I'd claim it was lost, too.

    1. Re:It may be lost .. it may be not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If I was the head of a secret agency with an agenda that just watched my multi-billion dollar spy satellite burn up in orbit due to my own agency's extreme incompetence I'd proudly declare that it was a complete loss and instruct my mockingbird CIA puppets in the media to call anyone who said otherwise a conspiracy theorist.
      Then I'd go have a drink and give myself a raise.

    2. Re:It may be lost .. it may be not by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Insightful

      AC if it was a 100% gov/mil project then its cool to just try again. Nobody would know.

      The problem now is the private sector wants to claim its been successful for their role.
      So other projects have faith in their ability to put their things into space without fall apart.
      It got into space at the right location and time. The private sector did everything correct and then something after it moved away and became a gov/mil project?

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:It may be lost .. it may be not by Arzaboa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You are right, and its terrible.

      We live in a society where people have been convinced that they do talk about this stuff. They think yelling at each other about news headlines is equal to putting two and two together. They think holding people to the fire is a tweet-mob. People re-enforce that all of the time, because "They're too tired to think about it right now." How do you convince a group of people that their effort isn't much of one at all, when they are exhausted from trying?

      --
      It's all in the wrist