Mystery Tracking (?) Ship in Portland, ME

According to:

"http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/local/050423ship.shtml"

the ship, the "Sage", has been leased to Lockheed
Martin. Could it have anything to do with the
planned Titan IV launch? Or is it NSA/NRO related?
It has radomes on top of container-like vans. I've
read that NSA listening posts once used setups like
this - the radomes used simply to hide the antenna
arrays from view.

- Ed Kyle

"Ed Kyle" wrote:

the radomes used simply to hide the antenna
arrays from view.

The radomes also shield the antenna from weather and spray, they are
more-or-less common.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Ed Kyle" wrote in message
oups.com...
According to:

"http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/local/050423ship.shtml"

the ship, the "Sage", has been leased to Lockheed
Martin. Could it have anything to do with the
planned Titan IV launch?

As far back as February, the launch had been scheduled for the evening of
April 6. The article indicates that The Sage arrived about April 1, so it
may well be related.

Ted Molczan

Ted Molczan wrote:
"Ed Kyle" wrote in message
oups.com...
According to:

"http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/local/050423ship.shtml"

the ship, the "Sage", has been leased to Lockheed
Martin. Could it have anything to do with the
planned Titan IV launch?

As far back as February, the launch had been scheduled for the
evening of
April 6. The article indicates that The Sage arrived about April 1,
so it
may well be related.


Since this is an NRO launch, there's no way that
anyone would ever confirm anything about this,
but it is a bit funny when a local reporter
discovers what is probably equipment for a secret
operation. And the cover story floated about the
dock area and picked up by the reporter - that the
ship is going to track the shuttle launch - is
really, really funny. Next time, LockMart might
think about renting a bigger ship that could stay
over the horizon instead of parked at the end of
a local dock.

- Ed Kyle

Derek Lyons wrote:
"Ed Kyle" wrote:

the radomes used simply to hide the antenna
arrays from view.

The radomes also shield the antenna from weather and spray, they are
more-or-less common.


True - especially for steerable, directional
antennas that have moving parts to protect.
But the radomes aren't usually this big, and
steerable antennas are present on some ships
without any radome protection.

The stories I've read say that the spook
radomes are stuffed with all kinds of antenna
arrays - some of which are not even steerable -
and that the principal goal, in the sigint
world at least, is to hide them so as to
prevent analysts from determining what
frequency ranges the ship is picking up
(which can be discerned from the physical
dimensions of the antennas).

- Ed Kyle

Ed Kyle wrote:
According to:

"http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/local/050423ship.shtml"

the ship, the "Sage", has been leased to Lockheed
Martin. Could it have anything to do with the
planned Titan IV launch? Or is it NSA/NRO related?
It has radomes on top of container-like vans. I've
read that NSA listening posts once used setups like
this - the radomes used simply to hide the antenna
arrays from view.

- Ed Kyle

After some homework and thought, I've found that
there have been three Titan 4 launches that headed
north like this - in 1993, 95, and 97. They were
all believed to be Trumpet sigints that went into
12-hour Molniya orbits (roughly 1000 x 39000 km x
64.something degrees). But those three all used
Centaur upper stages, which this Titan will not
have. This payload, reportedly an NRO sigint,
surely must have its own upper stage motor -
either an existing solid motor or some new
classified transfer stage - to boost it from the
initial parking orbit. Cold War sigints usually
flew Molniya orbits because it provided good
"hang time" over and look angles into the USSR.
On the previous flights, the Centaur burn occured
over the Southern Hemisphere about halfway around
the first orbit.

Of course there's a pretty good possibility that
this sigint isn't targeted at the Russians.

One thing that might be happening here is that
this might be a payload designed to fly on the new
EELV boosters instead of Titan 4. So while this
may be an operational mission, it may also be serving
as a sort of test flight for a new payload/upper
stage combo - and especially for a new transfer
stage if one is on this flight. Another possibility
is that this is a special one-off flight being done
with bits and pieces of old hardware and with the
final Cape Titan IV. Clearly, the mission has some
unique aspects. This Titan was originally slated to
fly from Vandenberg AFB.

Either way, the Air Force set up a groundstation in
Newfoundland specifically to cover the earlier
Titan IV Molniya orbit launch downlink, but the site
might not provide the needed coverage for this new
flight profile. Thus the mystery rented shipwith
its com vans and radomes.

Maybe.

- Ed Kyle

"Ed Kyle" wrote:


Derek Lyons wrote:
"Ed Kyle" wrote:
the radomes used simply to hide the antenna
arrays from view.

The radomes also shield the antenna from weather and spray, they are
more-or-less common.

True - especially for steerable, directional
antennas that have moving parts to protect.
But the radomes aren't usually this big,

Nonsense. The Dutch have (had?) a frigate with one much larger, as
have several range tracking ships etc... And frankly those domes are
rather on the smallish side, about 12-18' in diameter for the big one.

and steerable antennas are present on some ships without any radome
protection.

And generally much higher off the waterline too...

The stories I've read say that the spook radomes are stuffed with all kinds
of antenna arrays - some of which are not even steerable - and that the
principal goal, in the sigint world at least, is to hide them so as to
prevent analysts from determining what frequency ranges the ship is picking
up which can be discerned from the physical dimensions of the antennas).

Even with a dome, you can make some pretty good guesses... only so
much antenna is going to fit under there.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Ed Kyle" wrote in message
ups.com...
Ed Kyle wrote:
According to:

"http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/local/050423ship.shtml"

the ship, the "Sage", has been leased to Lockheed
Martin. Could it have anything to do with the
planned Titan IV launch? Or is it NSA/NRO related?
It has radomes on top of container-like vans. I've
read that NSA listening posts once used setups like
this - the radomes used simply to hide the antenna
arrays from view.

- Ed Kyle

After some homework and thought, I've found that
there have been three Titan 4 launches that headed
north like this - in 1993, 95, and 97. They were
all believed to be Trumpet sigints that went into
12-hour Molniya orbits (roughly 1000 x 39000 km x
64.something degrees).

The first Trumpet went up in 1994.


But those three all used
Centaur upper stages, which this Titan will not
have. This payload, reportedly an NRO sigint,
surely must have its own upper stage motor -
either an existing solid motor or some new
classified transfer stage - to boost it from the
initial parking orbit.

There have been two Titan IV no-upper-stage launches
from CCAFS into high inclination orbits. The first,
in 1990 June, carried the first 2nd generation NOSS
and the SLDCOM (Satellite Launch Dispenser
Communications). The 2nd stage inserted into a low
61 deg parking orbit. The payloads manoeuvred to
their final orbits using the TLD (Titan Launch
Dispenser) upper stage. The NOSS ended up in their
usual 63.4 deg, 1100 km orbit; the SLDCOM remained
attached to the TLD, which manoeuvred to a 63.4 deg,
1200 km by 11600 km, 270 deg argument of perigee orbit
- sort of a sawed-off Molniya orbit, which repeats
its groundtrack every 6 revs.

The 2nd CCAFS high inclination NUS, launched in
1996 July, carried an SDS into a 55 deg, 300 km orbit,
from which it manoeuvred to a Molniya orbit about
7 days later.

Cold War sigints usually
flew Molniya orbits because it provided good
"hang time" over and look angles into the USSR.
On the previous flights, the Centaur burn occured
over the Southern Hemisphere about halfway around
the first orbit.

Of course there's a pretty good possibility that
this sigint isn't targeted at the Russians.

One thing that might be happening here is that
this might be a payload designed to fly on the new
EELV boosters instead of Titan 4. So while this
may be an operational mission, it may also be serving
as a sort of test flight for a new payload/upper
stage combo - and especially for a new transfer
stage if one is on this flight. Another possibility
is that this is a special one-off flight being done
with bits and pieces of old hardware and with the
final Cape Titan IV. Clearly, the mission has some
unique aspects. This Titan was originally slated to
fly from Vandenberg AFB.

Yes, and it has a 66 foot fairing, and the only
quasi 60 deg inclination payload launched from VAFB that
employed a 66 ft fairing was Lacrosse. Lacrosse launches
have alternated between 57 deg and 68 deg inclinations:

Spacecraft Year Vehicle Site Inc Present status
Lacrosse 1 1988 Shuttle CCAFS 57 deg de-orbited 1997
Lacrosse 2 1991 T-IVA VAFB 68 deg in orbit
Lacrosse 3 1997 T-IVA VAFB 57 deg in orbit
Lacrosse 4 2000 T-IVB VAFB 68 deg in orbit

So it would appear that if there is to be a 5th Lacrosse, it
would be targeted for 57 deg, which should be reachable
from CCAFS.

However, I am not discounting the possibility of some new
payload.

Ted Molczan

On 2005-04-23, Ed Kyle wrote:

Since this is an NRO launch, there's no way that
anyone would ever confirm anything about this,
but it is a bit funny when a local reporter
discovers what is probably equipment for a secret
operation. And the cover story floated about the
dock area and picked up by the reporter - that the
ship is going to track the shuttle launch - is
really, really funny.

Uh... perhaps the "radomes" are just covers for very good telescopes?

;-)

--
-Andrew Gray

Derek Lyons wrote:

Nonsense. The Dutch have (had?) a frigate with one much larger, as
have several range tracking ships etc... And frankly those domes are
rather on the smallish side, about 12-18' in diameter for the big
one.


I get a bit bigger for the large dome on the Sage, around 8 meters/
25 ft -- still far from huge as tracking antenna radomes go.