10 May 2007

Molniya



Apogee and Perigee are terms are most commonly used in literature to describe high and low points, exhilaration and despair, respectively, but those that deal with orbital mechanics and the properties of space vehicles know they are just the high and low points in a recurring circle around the earth.

Tony Blair, for example, is having a perigee this morning, with the announcement of his departure as Prime Minister. By sheer force of will he his attempting to turn it into an apogee. He may succeed, to a degree, but of course he flew a lot higher and sunk a lot lower than most of my friends. Certainly in a more public manner.

>From a personal perspective, I could not describe the full events of the last two weeks, which included both. I wish I could tell you about them, but some are none of my business, and others are none of yours. If I tried to recount them, in file, edited to accommodate everyone's privacy, it would sound like isolated incidents of lunacy.

It is actually an integrated tapestry, but parts of it are a blur.

Suffice it to say that the story is fantastic enough that I could not make the story up, and I am having a hard time putting them down so I can wander around my elliptical orbit here in town.

One of the latest tid-bits are the staff decisions at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Director McConnell has been largely on his own in the two months since he assumed office.

He has had no Deputy, General Mike Hayden having decamped for CIA a year ago. He has also had no one in charge of acquisition, a position in which he has placed great stock. The Intelligence Community has never performed very well in that area. The expertise required to design and launch space surveillance vehicles, the most expensive of the national toys, has largely gone to industry. Those that remained in government did not know how to manage the contractors who build and fly the orbital birds, and cost overruns and underperformance were rampant.

This morning they are saying that Don Kerr, Director of the National Reconnaissance Office is coming to be McConnell's deputy, and an industry executive named Al Munson will join as the Deputy Director for Acquisition.

That will take a little pressure off the DNI, and enable him to concentrate on a smaller set of issues. It is interesting and significant that both the new guys are coming from the Space Tribe of the intelligence community. It used to be one of the primary battlegrounds of the Cold War, and one of the most expensive.

The Soviets used to have a wild pattern for some of their space vehicles. They called it the “Molniya orbit,” which is the Russian word for “lightning.” It referred to the gigantic oval racetrack around the earth, inclined at 60 degrees from the equator.

Done correctly, the oval permitted the satellite to proceed deep into space on the outward and return legs, keeping North America within the field of view, and then passing close to the earth on the other, rushing like lightning over the low-interest areas of the southern hemisphere.

Making a revolution every twelve hours, the satellite would appear to hover in the sky for most of the revolution. Communications satellites were the first application, but orbital spookery followed in short order, since the practical application of the Molniya was to keep a designated sector of the earth in view for an extended period of time.

The Molniya orbit was optimized for surveillance in high-latitude areas of the Northern Hemisphere, and thus the orbit of choice for both sides of the Cold War to utilize it for missile warning satellites and other sensitive purposes.

I have no idea of the purpose of the orbit I am currently following. I feel I am hovering for extended periods, with a relatively clear field of view. The period between apogee and perigee seems to vary wildly, which violates the ordinary laws of physics. Sometimes I feel the ground below me flashing by with lighting speed, then a curious weightless feeling as home comes in view.

It diminishes in size, but not attraction, on the way to apogee again. It is that attraction that calls me back, tugging. But the fall is so long, and the speed so great when the earth is close, that it seems quite impossible to do a thing about it.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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