Didn't you link something a while back where they did this trick of "losing" a satellite only for it to show up in a completely different orbit? Tell everyone it crashed then either boost the orbit, change the inclination, etc. We also know that they have worked on stealth tech to make it harder for the bored amateurs to track their birds down. Kick something off the back to reenter, say the boost package. The more I think about this the more trivial it would be to disappear a satellite, at least for a little while.
The problem is, that any effort to "hide" a satellite in orbit is ultimately doomed. Turns out there is this universe-wide background of these bright dots called "stars", and these basic principles like MATH and PHYSICS. There are only certain places satellites can be. Watching those spaces to see if anything dark passes in between Earth and the distant starfield is what a LOT of amateurs spend their spare time doing. (And foreign intelligence agencies do it as well, with better tools and equipment.) So things get launched "secretly", but are quickly (1 week to 18 months later) discovered, mapped, and linked to specific launches, countries, radio frequency transmissions, etc. Space is like Kansas... big, wide open, and doesn't contain much. But there are certain people who are very interested in it, know the landscape in detail, and know when even something small changes.
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?
