Secret spy satellite abandoned by US

The US has given up on one of its most high-tech spy satellites after it failed to respond to repeated attempts at contact.

The L-21, which was only launched in December, will be left to drop out of orbit and burn up in the earth's atmosphere, according to reports.

The loss is an expensive blow to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds and operates reconnaissance satellites for the US military and security services.

Costing hundreds of millions of dollars, the L-21 contained much experimental technology which will now have to be piggybacked onto other satellites.

src: inteldaily.com...

Doesn't sound like dire straits for the National Reconnaissance Office but there is some concern. Given the military's operating budget I would think a replacement would be inline much quicker though. Perhaps enemy birds took it out with newer and better technology.

brill

[edit on 5-8-2007 by brill]

[edit on 5-8-2007 by brill]

Don't think the link is working properly.

Unlucky for the US though, satellites are expensive toys.

*Conspiracy theory*
Maybe it didn't break, maybe it had advanced AI software on-board and it decided to ignore them and pursue its own agenda, so they blew it up. Or maybe its still up there, plotting...



[edit on 5/8/07 by Chupa101]

Sorry bout that. For whatever reason I can't seem to get the original link working, but its a valid address reference. I've modified the source to point to another referring site which will lead to the story.

brill

Maybe it's working just fine, and it's convenient to have people thinking it's dead.

Reading this gave me an idea.Many countries would and do kill to find out us secrets espeically military technology.

So would it be impossible for a chinese or Russian or whoever crew to take a shuttle up and "two" that mofo back to earth or take essential parts from the sattelite back to earth?Cool yes freaky thought.I mean if we can launch sattelites to use the gravity from other plantes to help re-aim it as it gos,they should be able to do something like this.Hell they go up to the space station all the time,it couldnt be much harder than that i imagine...

interesting hrmmmmmm

And i also think it is working fine.they go through check after check after check.It is possible things go wrong but i just dont think they,they even check their checks.

[edit on 5-8-2007 by Project_Silo]

A freaking spy sattellite set up by the most paranoid nation on the earth, maybe instead of constantly putting their country deeper into debt they should consider the following.

Instead of wasting more and more money polluting the earth and creating a giant ecodumpster that will eventually wipe us out if we dont wipe our selves out.

We should take all that money to build giant rockets and maybe 2 times a year launch them at either A) the sun or B)a course for the nearest Star other than the sun. Option A is very suitable since chances are the rocket containing garbage and nuclear wast would either A)burnup before impact or B)Burn up upon Impact we would be safe.

Then we could focus on using renewable energy like 1)the sun(Solar) 2)wind 3)water 4)Geothermal 5)Magnets 6)fire 7) Gravity and lastly if worst comes to worst 8)Electric eels!!!! if all of these ideas were put to use and everyone
stopped thinking about them selves then the world would be a better place.

I agree with the garbage idea, however in the terms of energy you forgetthat we have been using fire for thousands of years and it is the most non-renewable and polluting energy source. Maybe because you have to BURN things?

So would it be impossible for a chinese or Russian or whoever crew to take a shuttle up and "two" that mofo back to earth or take essential parts from the sattelite back to earth?

If you want to start WWIII. interfering with another countries spacecraft would be treated as a violation of another countries sovereign territory. We have treaties against this.

We should take all that money to build giant rockets and maybe 2 times a year launch them at either A) the sun or B)a course for the nearest Star other than the sun. Option A is very suitable since chances are the rocket containing garbage and nuclear wast would either A)burnup before impact or B)Burn up upon Impact we would be safe.

We have treaties against this too. No trash dumping in or beyond orbit.

the most paranoid nation on the earth

It isnt paranoia if they are really out to get you. There are always people around who resent success in others. Some resentful people will expend effort to put others down that would be better spent building themselves up.

Well how would we know they ever touched the sattelite.Plus look at all the chinese poepel getting caught sending nuke information and sub information to china.This did not start WW3...................

im not saying to let the garbage just float in space like it already is, considering everyday 3 tons of space junk ie, dust, rocks and debris falls to earth, so whats wrong with giving a bit back!? besides that like I said, set a course for the sun, all it needs is initial propulsion, once it gets going then its good as gone. It begins the journey to the sun's corona! then upon reaching the sun's gravity feild the pull will do the rest burning everything upon impact! Kablam, were safe, the suns safe, the garbage is gone and everyone can quit whining about pollution! seems like a win win win to me

Originally posted by parry noid
We should take all that money to build giant rockets and maybe 2 times a year launch them at either A) the sun or B)a course for the nearest Star other than the sun. Option A is very suitable since chances are the rocket containing garbage and nuclear wast would either A)burnup before impact or B)Burn up upon Impact we would be safe.

So what happens if that rocket containing all the nuclear waste blows up in the atmosphere? I don't think this will ever be an option. Garbage, yes. Nuclear, no.


I also think there is numerous benefits for a spy satellite to no longer exist "officially". Kind of like how area 51 didn't exist a few years ago. Convenient eh?

well i dont see why because the satelite is not responding it should be destroyed instead of burning it up they should send people up there to manually fix it. sure would cost less that way then build a new one.

Just a thought, China lost a satellite a while back and blamed US sat. killers for its mysterious demise. Perhaps they just finished testing similar toys. . .

[edit on 6-8-2007 by clay2 baraka]

Clay2baraka here's a link for others as well on that incident:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I agree with you that there may be a lot more going on in orbit than we'll know about. Still I don't believe there is any large scale, orbital "star wars" type events given that common astronomers/star gazers would pick up on it. The technologies must be quite remarkable and we do know that the US has tried to stake claim to 'space'.

brill

[edit on 6-8-2007 by brill]

NORAD. Cheyenne Mountain. Phased Array Over-The-Horizon RADAR.

We track space debris. The orbits of objects the size of a nickel are known to the Nth degree. When you hear aout launch windows for spacecraft, this is one reason. You have to put the spacecraft into a gap in the debris fields. I wouldn't worry about other nations sneaking up on our satellites.

@ PlausibleDeniability, I completely understand what you are saying, I guess when I write I don' fully explain the idea how I am thinking it.

Think of Loading the nuclear waste inside something similar to a black box, indestructable, but will melt, so think tungsten alloy.... Tungsten has a very very high melting point, Im sure there is some combination of another metal... ie Titanium for strength, that way it will not be destroyed upon explosion however will be melted upon reaching the sun...

If thats not good enough, I remember reading somewhere they are planning on building a elevator type contraption(I say this cause its not quite a elevator) into space, so it could be hauled up safely via this method then lauched from here....

Just an idea, but still the garbage is worth a shot... try it once, when the potential is realized then maybe it will the norm, instead of putting your garbage to the curb every friday for the Garbage truck to come you will be sending it to the dump to be blasted away once a month.... Hell maybe it can even increase the life of the sun....

As well I guess I should mention, we dont have to shoot it directly at the sun, we could aim past the sun then have a second booster rocket to slow it down and force a directional change so it hits the backside of the sun.