On May 7, 5:29*pm, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:
"Jack Linthicum" wrote in message

...

Back when 'those were the days' the Soviets though nothing of putting
up stuff weekly, even if it had to be replaced in a few months due to
low orbits. Would even launch recon sats just for an exercise. Overfly
this battle group or whatnot.

Way different than how the US did it. But, our stuff was like the
Energizer bunny, kept going and going and going....
cost real money too. No wonder the had a black budget.
Difference between communications from orbit and the Soviet
requirement to land the bird to get the film out.

Incorrect, the RORSAT's were not optical but radar devices and
the data was sent back to base via telemetery. The problem for the
RORSAT was that because the strength of the return signal from
radar is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the distance.
This meant they had to be in a very low orbit that decayed rapidly.
To avoid radioactive contamination the reactor core was supposed
to be ejected and boosted into a high orbit at the end of a service life
that was typically around 3 months.

This is a very different mission profile to an optical reconnaissance
satellite.

Keith

Yeah but what we had was never told. What they had was replaceable.
Often. Obviously lots of Workers of the Soviet Union making boosters
that worked. Sometimes they didn't get core or other stuff either in
ocean or into higher orbit. Got Canadians mad at least once. Late 70s,
I seem to remember, 78? Something like that. Some bits and pieces were
picked up.

God knows what they were doing for safety issues. Don't know if they
had tree huggers demonstrating like we did once.

Soviets had some really bizarre stuff up there. Optical, RADAR.

Lots more launches that we ever did.