A TRAIN OF CLASSIFIED SATELLITES

When SpaceX launched the Globalstar communications satellite on June 19th, analysts knew something was not quite right. The Globalstar was not big enough to fill the Falcon 9 rocket. Something else must be inside. Marco Langbroek of Leiden, the Netherlands, just photographed the secret contents, a train of four new classified satellites:

"These objects (USA 328 - 331) were covertly launched with Globalstar FM15 on June 19, 2022," says Langbroek. "The second object in the 'train', USA 329, is slowly varying in brightness, which might indicate it is tumbling. It varies between about magnitude +5 and +10 with a period of around half a minute. The other payloads are steady in brightness, at about magnitude +7/+8."

A much brighter 5th object following the train is a piece of debris from the Falcon 9 rocket that carried the satellites to space. "The Falcon 9 debris piece is about mag +4.5 to +5," says Langbroek.

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