- The Guardian, Wednesday August 20 2008
A paradox of spacewatching is that some of the most secret of satellites are also the brightest and easiest to see. This is true of the US Lacrosse craft, perhaps because they are thought to need huge solar panels to power radar dishes by which they map the ground.
Now they have been joined near the 700km height by Cosmos 2441, also conspicuous and believed to be the first in a new line of Russian spy satellites. The Soyuz-2-1b rocket that launched it on July 26 is brighter still and in a more eccentric orbit, its height varying between an apogee, or high point, of 672km and a perigee of only 199km.
Atmospheric drag at the perigee is causing the apogee to fall, currently at the rate of about 2km each day. Before long, perhaps in December, it will decay from orbit and burn up.
Our BST predictions show the rocket tracking northwards in our evening sky. Asterisks flag the directions in which it emerges from eclipse as it climbs through a height near 350km.
