Did the USSR ever develope any Spy planes?

eh i got a question, why don't USA and Russia use spy satellite instead of spy plane? Since spy satellite is alot safer ,easier, and cover any region they want? Is it because the operation using spy satellite is very costly?

why don't USA and Russia use spy satellite instead of spy plane? Since spy satellite is alot safer ,easier, and cover any region they want? Is it because the operation using spy satellite is very costly?

Because at the time the U2 and SR were flying satellites were primitive and not as capable as today. And cost was not an object during the cold war if it worked and made the U.S safer you built it.

Spy satellites cannot go anywhere... they are limited by onboard fuel and the physics of orbital trajectories.

Yeah and everyone knows what time they'll be overhead. Which is why overflights are much better.

Originally posted by DeltaNine
Yeah and everyone knows what time they'll be overhead. Which is why overflights are much better.

And of course noone can spot an aircraft like the U2 flying over head .... The real reason the US uses spy planes for a minority of its recon work is because as someone pointed out before, satellites are limited in their orbit. You can change a satellites orbit (called retasking) but it shortens a satellites life because you are using fuel on board it needs to stabalise its obit as normal, but it does mean you can get the satellite over an area before or after its schedule says its supposed to, or you can move it further north or south to cover a different area.

The vast majority of recon done today is done by satellites.

You must have super duper eyesight if you can see an aircraft flying at FL650.

Perhaps you should be enlisted straight away in the Air Force. No need for radar anymore- they'd have your AWESOME eyesight!

Originally posted by DeltaNine
You must have super duper eyesight if you can see an aircraft flying at FL650.

Perhaps you should be enlisted straight away in the Air Force. No need for radar anymore- they'd have your AWESOME eyesight!

Yes, unfortunately I dont have good eyesight :/ Now, if only someone could have invented a way of sending out radio waves, having them bounce off remote objects and detect the return, wouldnt that be a COOL way of detecting flying aircraft, especially ones that arent built to negate the effects of such a system, like say the U2? Hmmm, I wonder if google has anything on that?

Theres more than one way to spot an aircraft.

[edit on 8/4/2005 by RichardPrice]

I'm not even going to bother.

Originally posted by Element
That's what happened to the bears which attented to visit the USA

www.military.cz...

now if we could just get this site to have an english version

At the time the U2 could be spotted on radar but the thought was that it flies so high it cant be shot down so the ruskies would have to work fast to cover anything they didn't want seen. This idea worked until the U2 got shot down, hence we went into the satellite age.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
At the time the U2 could be spotted on radar but the thought was that it flies so high it cant be shot down so the ruskies would have to work fast to cover anything they didn't want seen. This idea worked until the U2 got shot down, hence we went into the satellite age.

It was origionally thought that the U2 could fly so high that it wouldnt be spotted on radar, but as you said, that was soon proved not to be the case.

Originally posted by bigx01

Originally posted by Element
That's what happened to the bears which attented to visit the USA

www.military.cz...

now if we could just get this site to have an english version

Do you want something to translate from military.cz? Just send me a link to page.

Originally posted by RichardPrice
You can change a satellites orbit (called retasking) but it shortens a satellites life because you are using fuel on board it needs to stabalise its obit as normal, but it does mean you can get the satellite over an area before or after its schedule says its supposed to, or you can move it further north or south to cover a different area.

Does anybody know, what type of fuel are current satelites using? Is it chemical fuel or they have ion thrusters? Because in the future there will be probablymuch more powerfull ion thrusters that don't need so much fuel.

[edit on 8-4-2005 by longbow]

This might help, longbow:

Breakdown of satellite parts:

Power systems - all convert one form of energy (food and muscles) to electricity; typically satellites use solar panels and batteries

Solar - solar cells collect energy from Sun in form of light (used in some calculators)

Nuclear - converts energy stored in radioactive material

Battery - stores electrical energy chemically (like rechargeable batteries)

Lesson 4: What Makes Up An Artificial Satellite?

And this:

What's Inside a Satellite?

Satellites have a great deal of equipment packed inside them. A satellite has seven subsystems, and each one has its own work to do.

1. The propulsion subsystem includes the electric or chemical motor that brings the spacecraft to its permanent position, as well as small thrusters (motors) that help keep the satellite in its assigned place in orbit. Satellites drift out of position because of solar wind or gravitational or magnetic forces. When that happens, the thrusters are fired to move the satellite back into the right position in its orbit.

2. The power subsystem generates electricity from the solar panels on the outside of the spacecraft. The solar panels also store electricity in storage batteries, which provide power when the sun isn't shining on the panels. The power is used to operate the communications subsystem. A Boeing 702 generates enough power at the end of its service life to operate two hundred 75-watt light bulbs.

What Is a Satellite?



seekerof

Thanks Seekeroff, but those links doesn't answer my question. I know the power for the satelites is gained from solar cells or radioactive isotopes, but what kind propulsion they use to stabilize or change the orbit (ion, chemical, pressurized gas etc.). I wonder if todays ion engines are powerfull enough andif they are used.

Longbow:

...but what kind propulsion they use to stabilize or change the orbit (ion, chemical, pressurized gas etc.).

Electric and/or chemical powered motors, Longbow.

1. The propulsion subsystem includes the electric or chemical motor that brings the spacecraft to its permanent position, as well as small thrusters (motors) that help keep the satellite in its assigned place in orbit.

And yes, the ion drives are powerful enough. They are used on several satellites, but sparingly. Here's one:
SMART-1's Ion Drive: From Fiction to Fact

They are mainly being looked at for deep space probes.
Ion Drives


Here is the ATS Google on past ATS topics mentioning ion drives





seekerof

[edit on 8-4-2005 by Seekerof]

Ion drives are not fast motors, it takes weeks or months to get an Ion drive to move something a substantial distance (take the recent EU moonshot, it took nearly a year to get there from launch, because it was using an ion drive). Basically, those subsystems are for getting the satellite on station to begin with, after that its kept there by the thrusters, the propulsion subsystems are probably never used again.

For angular changes, eg swinging around on the spot etc, quite a few satellites use gyroscopes, which are spun at a very fast rate, producing inerta which spins the craft around - cool eh? Propulsion from basically nothing! (gyroscopes are very very cool things, read up on them).

Originally posted by RichardPrice
Ion drives are not fast motors, it takes weeks or months to get an Ion drive to move something a substantial distance (take the recent EU moonshot, it took nearly a year to get there from launch, because it was using an ion drive). Basically, those subsystems are for getting the satellite on station to begin with, after that its kept there by the thrusters, the propulsion subsystems are probably never used again.

For angular changes, eg swinging around on the spot etc, quite a few satellites use gyroscopes, which are spun at a very fast rate, producing inerta which spins the craft around - cool eh? Propulsion from basically nothing! (gyroscopes are very very cool things, read up on them).

That's the problem with ion drives which puzzles me : I knew they wer used for space probes, but are they powerfull enough to make necessary rapid changes to the spy satelite orbit when in space? Also spy sats have much lower orbit (150km I think), so I wonder if ion drive perfomace is sufficient.

[edit on 8-4-2005 by longbow]

Originally posted by longbow

That's the problem with ion drives which puzzles me : I knew they wer used for space probes, but are they powerfull enough to make necessary rapid changes to the spy satelite orbit when in space? Also spy sats have much lower orbit (150km I think), so I wonder if ion drive perfomace is sufficient.

[edit on 8-4-2005 by longbow]

Bit of a twisted answer Im afraid.

They *are* powerful enough to change spy satellites orbits, but not rapidly. The whole point of an ion drive is 'slowly but surely, the tortoise wins the race' and because it relies on basically throwing charged atoms out the back, it can lose a massive portion of the weight that would normally be reserved for propulsion because all you would need is a source of electricity, a source of mass to charge and repell and the equipment to do the charging and repelling - all of which weight in a lot less than standard reaction motors.

Even in a Low Earth Orbit, like spy sats are, an Ion drive can still do its job very well.

Watching paint dry or grass grow is a better hobby than watching an ion drive do its stuff.

Originally posted by RichardPrice

Originally posted by Lampyridae
The MHD concept is quite an exciting one... however, it's a finicky system, and the simple matter of extracting power from the airflow and then using that power to again accelerate that same airflow is kind of like pulling yourself up with your own bootstraps. A certain amount of exhaust would lose energy, leaving less efficiency in accelerating it. My gut instinct is that it would require a secondary power source, possibly nuclear, chipping in. However, there's probably loads of juice in such an exhaust, so maybe accelerating it use electrical energy derived from the plasma to augment its kinetic energy would work. Question is: why don't conventional rockets use it? Where's the catch?

[edit on 7-4-2005 by Lampyridae]

Sounds like a Perpetual Motion machine to me, and thus is the reason I am *very* skeptical when these things are mentioned.

If it works as advertised on that site, then you have just solved humanities power problems, as you are CREATING energy from nothing according to that site.

Not from nothing. You must still use hydrogen or carbon fuel. Only principle is different. You can also extract energy from this.

I am adding some diagrams from my web. Mabye you will better understand...