THE SECRET SPIES IN THE SKY - Imagery, Data Analysis, and Discussions relating to Military Space SatTrackCam Leiden (Cospar 4353) is a satellite tracking station located at Leiden, the Netherlands. The tracking focus is on classified objects - i.e. "spy satellites". With a camera, accurate positional measurements on satellites of interest are obtained in order to determine their orbits. Orbital behaviour is analysed. This blog analyses Missile tests too.
click map to enlarge On 24 July 2026 near 20:26 UTC (22:26 CEST), a defunct Starlink satellite, Starlink-1541, reentered over the North Sea, northern Netherlands and Germany . I observed the reentry myself (along with many, many other people). I was on a sailing holliday onboard the historic sailing vessel 'De Onderneming' at that time. We had sailed from Medemblik to Oudeschild on the island of…
The Vanguard 1 upper stage (1958-002A). Click image to enlarge The Space Age started almost 69 years ago, with the launch of Sputnik 1. Very little hardware representing that dawn of Space exploration is still on orbit. The oldest two pieces of Space Debris that are still orbiting Earth are Vanguard 1 (1958-002B) and the upper rocket stage (1958-002A) from this launch. Vanguard 1 was launched on…
Artemis II imaged with the TU Delft 41.5-cm MISO telescope on 8 April 2026 'track & stack' of 13 images on the Spacecraft movement. Artemis II is the dot in the yellow circle. I was only two years old when, in December of 1972, Apollo 17 left the Moon, so I don't remember it. But untill last week it was the last time in my lifetime that humans had entered and left the Lunarsphere . So for me, as a…
I recently was a guest in the Euronews podcast series Tech Talks , in an episode called " How to track a spy satellite ". In it, host Alice Carnevali and me chat about how I came to work in the field of SSA (despite originally having a completely different scientific background); how we track spy satellites and what we can learn from that; what is currently happening in Space (notably in terms of…
still from reentry movie. Click to enlarge. image (c) Robert H. McNaught, used with permission On 28 February 2026 near 18:40 UTC , a Chinese CZ-2C upper stage (catalogue nr 43521 , International Des. 2018-054D ) reentered over southeast Australia. Astronomer Robert H. McNaught filmed the early stage of the reentry from Coonabarabran (near Siding Spring Observatory), New South Wales. The event…
Falcon 9 upper stage. Image: SpaceX On 2 February 2026 , SpaceX launched Starlink 17-32 , with 25 new Starlink satellites, from Vandenberg SFB in California. The satellites successfully reached Low Earth Orbit, but something went wrong with the upper stage , and not for the first time. SpaceX stated on their website : During today’s launch, the second stage experienced an off-nominal condition…
Click map to enlarge ( The title of this blogpost is inspired by a similar titled post from several years ago ) The uncontrolled reentry of a large (assumed 7-8 ton weight) Chinese ZQ-3 (Zhuque-3) upper stage, 2025-282A (catnr. 66877), on 30 January 2026 for some reason created quite some public attention, especially in Europe. But the event became decidedly unusual when, nine hours after the US…
click map to enlarge On 9 December 2025 between 19:06 and 19:28 UTC, SpaceX will launch the classified mission NROL-77 for the NRO , from SLC-40 in Cape Canaveral. The NRO Press Kit is here . Navigational Warnings point to initial launch into a ~49 degree inclined coasting orbit . Upon passing the descending node of that parking orbit, about an hour after launch, the Falcon 9 upper stage with…
On 12 November 2025, the Netherlands' first military satellite , the 6U cubesat BRIK-II (2021-058F), reentered into the atmosphere after 4 years of service . I posted about the launch and the backgrounds of this experimental small satellite in 2021 . BRIK-II during construction. Photo: Dutch Ministry of Defense At TU Delft, we have been running a reentry model for BRIK-II in the open source TU…
click map to enlarge On 18 October 2025 near 14:00 local time (= 18 October ~6:00 UTC), a strange object was found on or near a dirtroad in the outback of the Pilbara region in Western Australia . The object, suspected to be space debris , was found some 30 km east of the small mining town of Newman , as reported by ABC . The object ( photo's in the ABC report ) resembles a COPV…
click to enlarge In the early local morning of 16 October 2025 around 1:56 UTC , a spectacular phenomena appeared in the sky over Tenerife in the Canary Islands . A bright, slow, fragmenting fireball moved from south to north over the sky. Sonic booms were heard and registered by several seismic stations on Tenerife. The event clearly was a reentry of artificial space debris . For footage, see…
frame stack of movie by SAC station Anasco, Puerto Rico click map to enlarge On 15 September 2025, Navigational Warnings appeared that pointed to an upcoming Trident-II D5 SLBM ( Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile ) unarmed test launch in the Atlantic between 17 and 22 September 2025 , from a submarine of either the US Navy or UK Royal Navy positioned some 400 km out of the coast of Florida (…
This morning (early 24 August 2025) weather finally cooperated and I managed to observe both of the USSF-36 payloads, two days after launch: the X-37B Spaceplane OTV 8 (2025-183A) and LIMASAT (2025-183B). Limasat was about half a minute in front of OTV 8. Above is footage from this pass, showing both objects. The footage was obtained from my home in Leiden, the Netherlands, using a WATEC 902H2…
OTV 8 imaged by Kevin Fetter 5 hours after launch. Image (c) Kevin Fetter, used with permission OTV 8 , the 8th mission of the US Space Force's X-37B Spaceplane , launched on 22 August 2025 at 03:50 UTC. It has been catalogued as 2025-183A (cat. nr. 65271) under the name of ' USA 555 ', along with a second payload, called LIMASAT (2025-183B, 65272). The latter has probably been dispensed from the…
Click map to enlarge Navigational Warnings have been published that point to a Hypersonic Missile Test (a repeat of the failed FT-3 from 2021) from the Pacific Space Port at Kodiak Island, Alaska , to the Ronald Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein, Marshall Islands , between August 22-26, 2025. The range is about 6350 km. Navigational Warning NAVAREA XII 520/25 defines three hazard zones (A, B and C in…
X-37B mission OTV 6 after landing (Image: US Air Force) Navigational Warnings have appeared for OTV 8 , the 8th launch of the secretive X-37B spaceplane by the US Space Force (launch USSF-36 ). The launch, on a SpaceX Falcon 9, will be from Cape Canaveral launch pad 39A. The window of the Navigational Warning runs from 22 to 28 August 2025 , with a time window of 08:30 - 10:30 UTC 03:40 - 08:03…
On 6 August 2005 , this blog saw its very first post . This means that the SatTrackCam blog is now 20 Years Old! Since that first post, we are now 20 years and over one-thousand blogposts further. To quote the Talking Heads : " And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here? " Originally it started out as a mere observers activities log, documenting my baby steps into satellite tracking. Most…
click image to enlarge Some 590 km above our heads, a complex series of multiple Rendezvous and Proximity Manoevers (RPO) by multiple Russian military spacecraft has been going on the past months, weeks and days. On 5 February 2025 , Russia launched three satellites from Plesetsk, into a 82 degree inclined orbit: Kosmos 2581, Kosmos 2582 and Kosmos 2583 (2025-026A, B and C). Kosmos 2581 was…
Object C (click image to enlarge) Kosmos 2558 (2022-089A, cat nr. 53323) is a Russian military satellite that was launched from Plesetsk three years ago , on 1 August 2022. It was launched into the orbital plane of an American ADVANCED CRYSTAL spy satellite, USA 326 . It is therefore believed to be a 'Nivelir' type 'inspection satellite' (see also this earlier discussion of several of such…
still from one of the fireball movies posted on Twitter by @Buggy__Bugler In the evening of 5 June 2025 around 22h local time (17h UTC), a slow profusely fragmenting fireball was seen and filmed from several cities in Kazachstan , including Astana , and Bishkek in neighbouring Kirgistan . It had all the well-known characteristics of a satellite or rocket stage reentry. Indeed, as it turns out,…
On 10 May 2025, an unusual object, the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft , had an uncontrolled reentry (see this earlier post ). With my TU Delft colleague Dominic Dirkx, I have written a ' post mortem ' for this reentry for The Space Review of 27 May 2025, titled: " Raiders of the Lost Venus Probe: a post-mortem of an interesting reentry and the confusion it left " It can be read here . (the Tudat script…
click image to enlarge Russia launched a new military satellite from Plesetsk today (23 May 2025), Kosmos 2588 (cat nr. 64095, COSPAR 2025-109A). It was placed in a 73-degree inclined, approximately 464 x 481 km orbit. As first noted by Bart Hendrickx , the orbital plane is very close to that of a US military optical reconnaissance satellite, USA 338 (2022-117A). This can be seen in the diagram…
Framestack (530 frames) showing variable brightness of Kosmos 2553. Click image to enlarge Over three years ago, on 5 February 2022, Russia launched a mysterious military satellite, Kosmos 2553 (2022-011A), into an unusual orbit at approximately 1995 km altitude, the outermost margin of Low Earth Orbit. Very few satellites orbit there. Early 2024, US Congressman Michael R. Turner, chairman of the…
Click diagram to enlarge Last update: 11 May 2025 10:15 UTC (this post is being periodically updated with new reentry forecasts/postcasts) * The last Tudat nominal forecast is reentry on 10 May 2025, 6:39 UTC ± 1.5 hr * * The Tudat nominal aftercast is reentry on 10 May 2025, 6:40 UTC ± 1.5 hr * In the second week of May 2025, an unusual object reentered . It concerns the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft…
Click image to enlarge The image above is a stack of twelve 4-second exposures taken with a Canon EOS 80D and EF 2.8/24 mm lens, and shows the Crew Dragon FRAM-2 passing over the domes of the historic Leiden Observatory in the evening of 2 April 2025. FRAM-2 is a commercial ("space tourist") mission using a SpaceX Crew Dragon launched into a 90.0-degree inclined Polar Orbit at approximately 430 km…