Military Weather Satellite

i'm sure that they have more than two, since you would need a lot more than just two to cover the world.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
i'm sure that they have more than two, since you would need a lot more than just two to cover the world.

Correct, I think what Westpoint saw was the two different types. I don't know how many DMSP sattelites are on orbit - but there are quite a few...

After reading the press release, the sattelite in question was the 16th DMSP sattelite launched - I don't know how many are still on orbit ...

[edit on 8-7-2004 by Starwars50]

How many satellites does the military have up there 24 GPS 16+ weather god knows how many spy satellites plus countless other s for communication damn its crowded up there.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
How many satellites does the military have up there 24 GPS 16+ weather god knows how many spy satellites plus countless other s for communication damn its crowded up there.

There are thousads of artificial objects in orbit around the earth. And there is still plenty of room in most orbital belts..... The US keeps a register of every item that orbited (starting with sputnik). I don't know what the current number is - but I think around 16,000 objects have been tracked (many have re-entered).

If you are putting something new up you do have to be a little carefull - but it's not that bad.

I think that number will increase tremendously when the air force completes its plan to weaponize space, laser satellite the rods form god and many other weapon systems.

hey

maybe you know this already...

but this is very interesting: CLICK!

If your interseted in satellites in orbit heres a cool NASA site called J-track that lets you see the positions of all public satellites even the space station and their paths so you can see when there going to be flying overhead.It can be udated in almost real time its pretty sweet. I really like J-track 3D it really shows how much stuff is flying around up there.


J-Track

Cool lonk ShadowXIX,

I'fe got it now in a corner of my monitor. I feel like
i'm in a NORAD facility or something......;-)

Yea its a real interesting program I love it. If you speed up the update and time options and zoom in you really get a good sense of just how fast they cruise up there. I also used it to find the right time to watch them fly over J-Pass is great for this just enter your zipcode if you live in the US. Ive seen the space station a couple of times with it.

ilrs.gsfc.nasa.gov...

This is a nasa list of 'official' satellites.
I've read mentions on sites like "howstuffworks" and other that we total about 26000 usefull artificial satellites around our planet.

Dunno how many 'official' military satellites are in there. But seeing the official count, I can imagine the unofficial count being quite awing.

science.howstuffworks.com...

and if you don't want to download anything you can always go to this website: www.heavens-above.com...

When I was in the USAF (1976-1984) I had a friend that grew up with me,
and we went into the A/F together (buddy plan ) after our fist enlistment was up he had an offer to take a test for electronics( out of all the people
taken it that cycle he scored in the top ten,so the A/F offered him $ 20,000
to re-up (that kind of re-enlistment money was unherd of in 1980..So off he
went to school to learn his new job (he and I at that time had Top-Secret clerence...He could not tell me were he was going to lern his new job,and his new AFFC was crypto secret (and he worked on all the hardware at Patrick AFB. that controlled all of the USAF Satellites) He could never tell me this untill late 90's after he got out .But he told me that they had a way of repositioning most of there Satellites,and also destroying them when there life was up ,they would never just let one decay in orbit. But he also told me that they had Weapon types , Intell types ,Weather types,then they had what he called John Doe types (that they were never told anything about these) except to monitor vitals on them ..But he said they could be moved around in different orbits at great speed ...He told me that the 16 years that he was at Patrick AFB ,1980-96 he said they destroyed 42 Satellites,and put up in orbit (USAF) 63 very sophisticated ,highly maneuverable Satellites..just thought i'd tell ya that .

With all those up there we gonna have to put traffic signals for the UFO`s before there`s a satcrash incident

This is nothing surprising REALLY. Ofcourse they would hae weather sattelites in space...the military would have almost any type of sattelite in space...lol.

MOC if they would addmit to having weapon satellites and still feel the need to have another type of satellite simple called john doe.If by weapon they mean a armed satellite and not for some guidance or whatever for a weapon system on earth. Makes you wonder what would be more important then weapon satellites

He told me that there was alot of speculation(within he's ranks) what they were used for ? (and a new story ot tale would pop up ,typical rumor mill)
he could never in all those years talk about anything at all concerning his job.But he always thought they were CIA,or a part of the goverment besides the USAF that had control over them .USAF put them up there ,but then he said they pretty much washed there hands of them . The only way he new anything at all is they had telemetry to them ,and new when there orbits would change(he's job was to mantain all of the Hardware ,not Software ,that changed the USAF satellites geosynchronous orbits. He never thought they were some sort of a weapon ,cause he said that they (USAF) had already changed out the first batch of the Reagan era satellites
before he got out in 96 .

Interseting stuff MOC the CIA to me has always seem to want thier own toys when it comes to spy tech not wanting to share with the USAF. As was the case with the SR-71 which was developed for the CIA. These satelites might be a similar type of situation.

At the moment 84% of the traffic going through commercial satelites in the middle east is being used by the millitarylink from to global security info

kool link shadowi knew there was a lot of stuff u there bt not this much anyway thanks fo all of the info