Israel working on air-launched microsats

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1145650.html
If developed, it will be interesting to see if they use a existing
aircraft as the carrier or develop some sort of dedicated launch
aircraft for them.
A F-15 with a added rocket engine could reach a very impressive altitude
in a zoom climb.

Pat

On Jan 29, 12:50*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1145650.html

If developed, it will be interesting to see if they use a existing
aircraft as the carrier or develop some sort of dedicated launch
aircraft for them.

A F-15 with a added rocket engine could reach a very impressive altitude
in a zoom climb.

I think that this violates the laws of physics.

Using an airplane as a launch platform for a space rocket is perfectly
sensible, and it also makes sense that since it is hard to design a
gigantic airplane, one would best be able to make use of existing
airplanes as launch platforms for small rockets and much smaller
payloads.

But the law of physics that's being violated is the one about the
diffraction of light. These microsatellites are being pitched as _spy_
satellites, not, say, research satellites for studying the Van Allen
belt or whatever. For that, you would want something the size of the
HST, although I suppose a 36-inch mirror might do; hardly "micro".

John Savard

Quadibloc wrote:
But the law of physics that's being violated is the one about the
diffraction of light. These microsatellites are being pitched as _spy_
satellites, not, say, research satellites for studying the Van Allen
belt or whatever. For that, you would want something the size of the
HST, although I suppose a 36-inch mirror might do; hardly "micro".


More than one type of reconsat; these could be designed to pick up enemy
radio signals for analysis (these are called "ferret" satellites). If
you have several flying in formation, you can use them to pinpoint where
a signal is coming from.

Pat

On Jan 31, 2:54*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Quadibloc wrote:
But the law of physics that's being violated is the one about the
diffraction of light. These microsatellites are being pitched as _spy_
satellites, not, say, research satellites for studying the Van Allen
belt or whatever. For that, you would want something the size of the
HST, although I suppose a 36-inch mirror might do; hardly "micro".

More than one type of reconsat; these could be designed to pick up enemy
radio signals for analysis (these are called "ferret" satellites). If
you have several flying in formation, you can use them to pinpoint where
a signal is coming from.

Pat

The US, in the person of AFRL, worked on air-launched satellites using
an F-15 or F-22 as the carrier aircraft. Israel's F-15's would likely
work. (After all, Project Pilot did it, albeit with very limited
success, with a Skyray fighter flying subsonic in 1958. In fact, AFRL
folks asked me for my Project Pilot / NOTSNIK files, which I of course
provided.) I don't know whether any active USAF interest continues
or if it was dropped when the idea was adopted for a now-canceled
DARPA RASCAL that would have used a large, purpose-built launch
aircraft. As Pat noted, you are not going to launch high-resolution
imaging satellites this way, but other types of reconsats can be very
useful.

Matt Bille
author, The First Space Race: Launching the Earth's FIrst Satellites
(Texas A&M, 2004)