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kleinbl00  ·  2270 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Secret spy satellite may be lost after SpaceX launch

Yeah. That's MISTY.

Best part is NORAD used to publish flare data - if it burned up in the atmosphere and ionized something, NORAD made note of it and distributed it to anybody who wanted it - scientists, observers, whatever. They cooked that shit off about 18 months before the first flight of the X-37.

PROWLER was a mere 2900 lb. They coulda dumped 90% of the mass of that launch into the ocean and still launched a legit little payload. Fuckin' TEAL RUBY was 2000 lb. back in like '76. You think we've made some progress in electro-optical technology since '76?