Well I recall that when the Air Force was considering a shuttle
program of their own and building a launch
complex out at Vanderberg they had a abort base up in Alaska so if
something went wrong the shuttle could land
their after only one orbit or even abort to it if it could not make
orbit for some reason. There was a requirement that
it had to have about 200 miles of cross range min. so it could make
use of different fields not directly along its glidepath.
Those larger wings may even help it bank hard on reentry back and
forth to high AOA to bleed to bleed off its speed.

The 200 mile cross range was b/c thats roughly how far away one pt. on
Earth would be after a 90 minute orbit.

More like 100 and the earth rotates under it so it doesnt return to the
same spot. Any given location will be visited once a day or so.
The very detailed pictures that recon birds return paradoxically
makes searching the returned pictures for the carrier group
a painstaking job. Imagine using Google StreetView to scan a
medium sized town for a single vehicle.

Satellite orbits are predictable and minimising their overflight is
a tactic that any competent naval commander understands.

Yeah but dodging multiple sats.,,, and I seriously doubt
our intel would be studying photos of the ocean. More likely they
would
look at thermal and radar blimps the computer brought to their
attention. Its
likely the task force would not be using the shipping lanes so they
would further stand out.

JK