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Re: [APML] OT: Satellite orbital taxonomy
At 08:38 PM 5/23/2002 -0500, Paul M. Rybski wrote:
> If you wanted to look down on an enemy's installations 24/7 but didn't want him to successfully detect you by diffuse reflection off of satellite surfaces or by Kelvin retroreflection off of your solid state detectors when he painted you with a pulsed laser and looked for reflections synchronously at the time of the expected return pulse, what would you hide the satellite behind? (Hint: What would make you invisible most of the time but glint brightly at only one orientation with respect to you and to the Sun?) (Another hint: This object was the brightest infrared source in the sky -- after the Sun, of course -- at 10 microns. How could it be so bright in the IR but nearly invisible in the visible?)
Use highly reflective flat surfaces. A cube shape would do it. You must keep the faces from pointing straight down to Earth. The satellite is bright at 10 microns because there is a 10 micron background glow in every direction.
--
Matt BenDaniel
matt@starmatt.com
http://starmatt.com
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