click on the image for a larger version This shows the first 14 pieces of debris associated with Cosmos 2251 to be cataloged As I said before, it takes a while for NORAD to accumulate enough observations on separated debris before they can uniquely identify the same object over and over. Today, exactly when I …
When SSBNs Collide
by | 2009-02-16 | 40 Comments
Greetings from Chicago, where I am about to give a talk at the AAAS Annual Meeting on open source intelligence and blogging. This is embarrassing for the Royal and French Navies: Royal Navy nuclear submarine was involved in a collision with a French nuclear sub in the middle of the Atlantic, the MoD has confirmed. …
Safir Engine Component Contest
by | 2009-02-15 | 11 Comments
ACW readers love to analyze photographs and foreign missiles so I thought I would have a little contest: identifying components of the Safir second stage engine. I’ve been staring at a couple of images of the reverse side of the Safir second stage for a couple of days now trying to make sense of it …
Rethinking Freedom of Action in Orbit
by | 2009-02-12 | 12 Comments
Most of you have, by now, read the stories, including good ones by Bill Broad (who had it first) and Joel Achenbach, about the catastrophic (and possibly cascading) collision between an Iridium satellite and a defunct Russian Cosmos satellite. Geoff Forden here at Arms Control Wonk and Josh Pollack, newly installed at Total Wonkerr, are …
