ITT: We speculate about the purpose of the payload of SpaceX's recently successful ZUMA mission.
My theories are as such:
>Space prison cell for the South African leader called Zuma. The man currently governing S.A is a robot or puppet.
>A spy satellite with the sole purpose of monitoring moot and/or Veeky Forums users (as evident by that 4 leafed clover on SpaceX's official patch for the Zuma mission, pic related)
>Spy satellite for spying on North Korea and/or China?
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It's a special communications satellite designed to talk to the aliens that have been in LEO for the past 8 months.
The first stage had enough fuel to do a return landing, so we can assume that the payload was light. That rules out any kind of orbital weapon or space prison. The large fairing makes me want to believe that it needs room for larger solar arrays, so it must use a lot of power. (I'm basing that assumption off of Kerbal Space Program) 90% chance that its a spy satellite with a 9% chance its for communication. Remaining 1% chance is ayyliens.
nobody has any idea? came here hoping to at least find a decent sounding theory. South Florida here, I could see the launch in the distance from my window.
cool, howd it look? I remember some californians saw one and thought the world was ending.
im outside of west palm beach, so pretty far away, i can only see night launches from my house. launches from here kind of look like planes unless I grab binoculars, where I can see the rocket exhaust. There was an interesting burst of light tonight when the main engines cut out, im not sure if i've seen that before. Will certainly be driving north to get a better view when the falcon heavy launches.
SpaceX only manufactures one size of payload fairing. They even used it for the hilariously small Formosat-5, which only weighed 1047 pounds.
>nobody has any idea? came here hoping to at least find a decent sounding theory. South Florida here, I could see the launch in the distance from my window.
This is a really hard mission to guess at. No Government agency is claiming ownership of the satellite, the vehicle originally had a launch by date that slipped past its original November 30th date, reportedly for Payload Fairing reasons, and it was manufactured by Northrop Grumman, who subcontracted the launch to SpaceX. Beyond that, an unusual amount of secrecy surrounds this bird, and nobody knows what it is, who it belongs to, or where it went.
why waste a falcon-9 on a satellite that small? Elon should bring back the falcon-5 plans and corner the market on small-launches
>why waste a falcon-9 on a satellite that small?
Because the economics work out in such a way that building just one rocket for everything they possibly can is cheaper.
we know what direction it went, it's orbit puts it over scandinavia and close to north korea, so that pert seems pretty indicative. It's also flying very low based on the burn time, about as low as you can possibly launch a satellite and have it stay in orbit for any reasonable amount of time. Our mentor/orions already mop up all the microwave spectrum sigint from asia, and the keyholes are almost certainly being used to get visible spectrum images of dprk. what could an ultra low flying satellite get thats not microwave signals or visible spectrum? its not in geosynchronous so sigint in general is probably out of the question.
If it's serving a critical national security role, why would it go to a Falcon? The Air Force spends a great deal of money for launch on need capacity from United Launch Alliance.
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radar
>4 leafed clover on SpaceX's official patch
Probably a copy of China's quantum interference satellite
The ZUMA payload itself was contracted back in 2015; the timing suggests North Korea has nothing to do with it.
all spacex patches have 4 leaf clovers because it's their good luck charm from falcon 1
ULA is triple the cost, and their launch schedule is not as flexible. Elon has proven that he can launch on short notice and be flexible. Trump's cost cutting culture may explain the move to spacex. If the satellites cost and the cost of the launch are less than the difference of using the ULA, than theres no reason to think that using spacex indicates lesser importance.
gorgeous, coco beach?
The payload was given to SpaceX in 2015, and launch services were subcontracted by Northrop Grumman to SpaceX. This either speaks to their confidence in SpaceX, or that cost was a major driver. These don't sound like important criteria for important national security payloads. The inclusion of a launch-by date suggests a rendezvous of some sort.
yeah i think its going to the same orbit as an nro satellite. shits crazy, satellites docking with each other. maybe its just a refueling run?
it triggers me that photos this good are done by some 18 year old who has only been taking pics for a few years
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Adding to the mystery, ZUMA stage 2 was visually tracked until ~T+7:15, when it went out of sight with the launch vehicle still over the horizon (the vehicle was tracked by its engine burn). With the early staging, that loss of visual should have been well below orbital velocity, and visual contact was not reacquired.
Turns out the skies over Florida weren't all that clear today. The stage was probably just behind the clouds.
Holy shit how retarded are you
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