Wampum

The launch we observed from our secret hideout a few miles down range from Delta Space Launch Complex (SLC-2), aka "Slick 2" is in the news.

Update: at GS.O, via Le Monde of all places.

The launch report is here. What is missing is (a) the eventual inclination of the package, (b) the dry weight of the package, [note: these are related -- a launcher capable of boosting 32,000 pounds of payload out of Vandenberg into polar orbit is cabable of boosting 40,000 pounds of payload into a geosynchronous orbit.], (c) the fuel weight remaining, O(10⁴ lbs), and (d) the number of minutes after launch when control of the package was lost.

So for those who love minutea ... The launch vehicle was a Delta 7920, the perigee: 354 km (219 mi), the apogee: 376 km (233 mi), the inclination: 58.50 deg, and the period: 91.83 min. The COSPAR ident is 2006-057A. The USAF Sat Cat entry is 29651.

The ground track repeats nearly every 2 days (30.92 revs), enabling frequent revisit of targets of interest. The first four Lacrosse / Onyx behaved similarly (28.9 revs in 2 days). and Lacrosse 5 made 43.05 revs in 3 days. KH-11 (Keyhole) ground tracks repeat nearly every 4 days. Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) also have 4 day ground track repeat cycles.

Therefore it was LACROSS-6 / ONYX, on a Delta, rather than a Titan, a first for the SAR (imaging radar) series, and the mission cost was a billion dollars and change, or about two weeks of the cost of running the Iraq War.

Here's the pre-launch audio, an mp3 format recording.

Its not every day one sees 1bn in "national technical means", and the best in orbital look-down SAR technology, go kersplat. Naturally, the shoot-down was the work of Al-Qaeda-in-Low-Orbit-i-stan, using bottle rockets and fly paper, or Saddam's dastardly covert space weapons program, which fried Intelsat 804 and Intelsat Americas-7, using a directed energy weapon located somewhere in Iraq and dischared directly through the earth's core, previously disclosed by Judy Miller and Dick Cheney.

Hat tips: SatTrackCam Station Leiden, operated by Dr Marco Langbroek (NL), Astronautix, operated by Mark Wade (AT), Global Security operated by our friend John Pike in (occupied) WDC, Space Report, by Jonathan McDowell of Sommerville, plus some non-classified leakage from a variety of USAF and NRO websites.

Also posting on this is Dr Jeffrey Lewis (and friends) at Arms Control Wonk.