Fifth European Conference on Space Debris

On Mar 26, 10:49*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
Stealth Pilot wrote:
just treat it like a non radio glider :-)

The thing that could really ruin your day is getting in the way of a
ICBM/SLBM MIRV warhead test:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...y_vehicles.jpg

Pat

Its at Kwajalein. There are better pictures around, guys that were
there had their own set of photos made from the photo lab, some were
pretty photogenic.

I don't recall if any SLBMs were launched there, mainly test shots
were ICBMs pulled from silos and launched from Vandenburg to ensure
the reliability of the ICBM force. Test reports for the launch were a
bear, took at least a year to get all the data together, things were
inches thick. And classified of course.

Late 80s or early 90s they renamed it Ronald Reagan Pacific Test Range
or something like that.

Used to be a cushy job. Just don't get in on the poker games.

frank wrote:
The thing that could really ruin your day is getting in the way of a
ICBM/SLBM MIRV warhead test:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...y_vehicles.jpg

Pat


Its at Kwajalein. There are better pictures around, guys that were
there had their own set of photos made from the photo lab, some were
pretty photogenic.




There are lots of differnt photos of tests at it out on the web; I just
thought that particular one was pretty photogenic.
I'm still trying to figure out if the RV's are glowing from the heat of
their speed from passage through the atmosphere during descent causing
them to glow, or if flares are attached to them to aid tracking.
To evade ABMs, it behooves one to have the RVs come in as fast as possible.
I don't know what speed they were going when they were photographed, but
when they hit the upper atmosphere they are going around 15,000 mph on a
full range ICBM mission.

Pat

On Mar 26, 11:38*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
frank wrote:
The thing that could really ruin your day is getting in the way of a
ICBM/SLBM MIRV warhead test:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...y_vehicles.jpg

Pat

Its at Kwajalein. There are better pictures around, guys that were
there had their own set of photos made from the photo lab, some were
pretty photogenic.

There are lots of differnt photos of tests at it out on the web; I just
thought that particular one was pretty photogenic.
I'm still trying to figure out if the RV's are glowing from the heat of
their speed from passage through the atmosphere during descent causing
them to glow, or if flares are attached to them to aid tracking.
To evade ABMs, it behooves one to have the RVs come in as fast as possible.
I don't know what speed they were going when they were photographed, but
when they hit the upper atmosphere they are going around 15,000 mph on a
full range ICBM mission.

Pat

No flares, just ablative coating burning off. Most are time exposures.
There were tons of sensors out there, RADAR, cameras, some SONAR
arrays to get where they hit as opposed to where they were supposed
to. Had a boss that had 2 Master's in engineering, he was SCUBA
certified, would go out and dive for pieces. Obviously that went into
the report. He said once they were on alert for a launch, they were on
the company clock until it went up and landed there. Not bad once you
hit time and a half for overtime waiting and part of that was sleeping
if it was an extended wait on some site.

I'm not sure who has the contract to run it now. Used to be Kentron,
they went public, got bought, changed hands a few times. It might be
Raytheon. RCA Services used to run the RADARs then they lost their
global contract, once everybody knew what the magic was to get RADARs
to run, sort of hard to keep getting high prices from the gov. It was
like how IBM used to be the only people running computer mainframe
shops if you're old enough to remember how it was way back when.

Interestingly, there was a branch of expertise in looking at re entry
plumes on RVs. Bunch of spooks somewhere divined all sorts of stuff
from it, probably used entrails and tea leaves also. I had enough fun
doing trajectory analysis. Some of the stuff they built for the Cold
War has been retired and scrapped. No doubt its missed with the North
Koreans acting up.

frank wrote:
There are lots of differnt photos of tests at it out on the web; I just
thought that particular one was pretty photogenic.
I'm still trying to figure out if the RV's are glowing from the heat of
their speed from passage through the atmosphere during descent causing
them to glow, or if flares are attached to them to aid tracking.
To evade ABMs, it behooves one to have the RVs come in as fast as possible.
I don't know what speed they were going when they were photographed, but
when they hit the upper atmosphere they are going around 15,000 mph on a
full range ICBM mission.

Pat


No flares, just ablative coating burning off.


I assumed that was the case, but wasn't sure... having screwed up
completly on several things I thought I was right on over the years in
regards to specific facts in several newsgroup postings, I thought it
might be time to learn from my mistakes and put my immense ego aside for
a moment in regards to what I thought I knew as a sure fact... that
might or not be true...and play it safe and humble for once.
Hopefully, forever. :-D

Pat

frank wrote:

Interestingly, there was a branch of expertise in looking at re entry
plumes on RVs.


Run the light emitted from the reentry plume through a spectroscope, and
you can tell what the chemical components that make up the ablative RV
heatshield are.
I'm not completly sure that that is the case, but it's my best, and most
humble, guess.
....okay...**** humbleness...that's _exactly_ why you would do that. :-D

Pat

Pat


Pat

frank wrote:
Interestingly, there was a branch of expertise in looking at re entry
plumes on RVs.


Run the light emitted from the reentry plume through a spectroscope, and
you can tell what the chemical components that make up the ablative RV
heatshield are.
I'm not completly sure that that is the case, but it's my best, and most
humble, guess.
....okay...**** humbleness...that's _exactly_ why you would do that.
I'm 100% sure about that. :-D

Pat