Amateur Astronomer Catches Fleeting Glimpse of Secret Spy Satellite

An avid entity watcher from Austria photographed a apical concealed spacecraft launched by the Pentagon that’s similar nary different he’s seen before.

Astrophotographer Felix Schöfbänker utilized a 14-inch Dobsonian scope to seizure the representation of the satellite, which is known arsenic USA 290. He shares his images connected AstroBin, an representation hosting level for amateur astronomers.

Unlike different spy satellites he’s photographed before, this 1 caught Schöfbänker’s attraction due to the fact that it had a antithetic plan and follows a unsocial orbit, helium told Space.com. The outer launched successful 2019 connected committee a Delta IV rocket. It’s described arsenic “a apical concealed surveillance payload owned by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO),” according to NASA. USA 290, however, doesn’t look similar a KH-11, oregon the astir communal exemplary of spy satellites launched by the U.S.

A presumption of the classified spy satellite. Credit: Felix Schöfbänker

“My representation shows a antithetic benignant of design, which doesn’t look similar a emblematic KH-11. My representation shows a large, astir 5 metre agelong rectangular panel,” Schöfbänker told Space.com. The amateur astronomer besides noticed that, portion astir KH-11s are launched into a sun-synchronous orbit, successful which a outer passes implicit immoderate fixed spot connected Earth astatine the aforesaid section time, USA 290 follows a “strange orbit.”

The representation of USA 290 besides shows a 16-foot-long sheet (5 meters), different diagnostic that’s unsocial to this peculiar spy satellite. The operation could beryllium a star panel, though Schöfbänker noted that it’s fixed to the outer truthful it would necessitate the full spacecraft to determination to way the Sun. Other possibilities see a radiator to enactment arsenic a cooling system, oregon an array antenna for awesome intelligence, according to the amateur entity watcher, Space.com reported.

This isn’t Schöfbänker’s archetypal clip tracking things successful abstraction that were meant to enactment classified. Earlier past month, the astrophotographer caught a uncommon glimpse of China’s apical concealed spaceplane successful orbit. The reusable spacecraft launched connected December 14, 2023 connected a secretive ngo that lasted for 268 days earlier it wrapped up its 3rd formation connected September 5.

He’s besides not the lone 1 keeping a adjacent ticker connected the nighttime skies. Marco Langbroek, an astrodynamics lecturer astatine Delft Technical University successful the Netherlands, precocious captured images of the X-37 spaceplane successful orbit, the U.S. Space Force’s ain secretive trial vehicle. It’s intelligibly becoming harder to propulsion disconnected mysterious missions successful space, with respective telescopes pointed upwards astatine the nighttime skies, tracking adjacent the astir stealthy of spacecraft.