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WorldsBestArtist t1_j1s6832 wrote

Reply to comment by mtechgroup in Meet the amateur astronomer who found a lost NASA satellite by jarvedttudd

Isn't that the one that people say wasn't really lost, but rather the US military wants other nations to believe it's lost? I seem to recall SpaceX disputing that it was ever lost, and then the story just mysteriously disappeared from major news outlets.

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putsonall t1_j1saj6q wrote

Basically spacex said their piece went perfectly, but Zuma didn't properly do its part after separation and it fell back through the atmosphere. According to reports.

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blueshirt21 t1_j1tca8k wrote

Yes, SpaceX lofted Zuma properly into the agreed upon orbit, and then the satellite likely failed to separate from the payload adaptor provided by Northrop. The satellite should have had it's orbit decay without the satellite being able to finish adjusting it's orbit and would have burnt up.

However, it is a perfect cover story for a satellite the NRO doesn't want people to know about-but Zuma should have been trackable and nobody found it, unless NRO has some super space stealth

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Shawnj2 t1_j1tbsdv wrote

Oh yeah that I think it’s hilarious that people think it’s more likely for it to be a coverup than for Northrop Grumman to be incompetent at designing the fairing adapter

Detecting things in orbit is trivially easy using a camera if you know the possible trajectories for an orbit for a rocket launched at a given launch site in a general direction.

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