[FPSPACE] Shargin photographs North America -- why?

[DwayneDay]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Oberg <joberg at houston.rr.com>
Sent: Oct 18, 2004 9:30 AM

Shargin photographs North America -- why?

>Does this activity possibly have anything to do with the recent severe shortage of Russian military reconnaissance capability (nine months without ANY reccesat in orbit, just recently alleviated)? I could be totally over-reacting here -- after all, Anatoliy Perminov, head of Russia's Federal Space Agency, promised that Shargin would not be doing any military-related activities on ISS, and since Perminov was until recently Shargin's boss (he's the former head of the Russian 'Space Forces', and a military officer himself), this also provides a certain level of credibility to the assertion.


I think you're overreaching.  The Russians currently have a Kobalt reconsat in orbit:

http://satobs.org/seesat/Oct-2004/0005.html

"Cosmos 2410 made its first manoeuvre a few hours ago, and it was typical of a
Kobal't spacecraft: both perigee and apogee were raised,"

Besides, if they want more recon pictures of the United States, they can call up Space Imaging or Orbimage and give them a credit card number.

Why "observe" North America for an environmental sciences experiment?  Probably nothing more sinister than a desire to maximize observing time--take pictures of all the illuminated landmass.  




DDAY