![\"Spy\"](\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/06\/spy.jpg?w=620\")
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The second week of June 2016, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office\u00a0launched NROL-37<\/a>, carrying its latest spy satellite into geosynchronous orbit via a Delta IV-Heavy rocket.<\/p>\n But it only took amateur space enthusiasts a few days to locate the mysterious new craft in the skies near Malaysia, over the Strait of Malacca.<\/p>\n While the contents and capabilities of the NROL-37 mission\u2019s payload are classified\u200a\u2014\u200athe satellite is innocuously labeled US-268\u200a\u2014\u200aits need to hitch a ride on the world\u2019s biggest rocket strongly suggests it is the seventh member of the Mentor\/Orion family, an extra-large class of signals intelligence satellites that helps provide eavesdropping capability to U.S. intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n Their large size also makes Mentor satellites the easiest to find and photograph. In a blog post<\/a>, Dr. Marco Langbroek detailed how he and two other amateur skygazers found the Mentor-7 satellite near 104 E longitude over the course of a few days using standard photographic equipment.<\/p>\n You can always spot a geosynchronous satellite by taking long exposures of the sky at night and noting which \u201cstars\u201d aren\u2019t moving.<\/p>\n In their observations, the satellite-tracking crew found that the spacecraft seems to be drifting west to its fixed geosynchronous position. Lanbroek speculates it will eventually stop near somewhere over Central Africa or Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason for the initial placement near 104 E is likely that in this position it is initially well placed for the Pine Gap<\/a> Joint Defense Facility ground station in central Australia\u200a\u2014\u200aone of two facilities dedicated to NRO SIGINT payloads\u200a\u2014\u200aduring the initial check-out phase,\u201d Langbroek wrote.<\/p>\n Previous NRO launches<\/a> have carried many other spy satellites, including NROL-39, which became infamous in 2013 for the ominous imagery on its mission patch\u200a\u2014\u200aan octopus strangling the world<\/a> above the phrase \u201cNothing Is Beyond Our Reach.\u201d<\/p>\n NROL-37 also has somewhat-eerie branding, sporting a black-garbed knight<\/a>with an eagle-claw sword hilt which, according to the NRO<\/a>, is meant to represent \u201cextreme reach with global coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n
![an octopus strangling the world<\/a> above the phrase \u201cNothing Is Beyond Our Reach.\u201d<\/p>\nNROL-37 also has somewhat-eerie branding, sporting a black-garbed knight<\/a>with an eagle-claw sword hilt which, according to the NRO<\/a>, is meant to represent \u201cextreme reach with global coverage.\u201d<\/p>\nRead the Original Article at Motherboard<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second week of June 2016, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office\u00a0launched NROL-37, carrying its latest spy satellite into geosynchronous orbit via a Delta IV-Heavy rocket. But it only took amateur space enthusiasts a few days to locate the mysterious new craft in the skies near Malaysia, over the Strait of Malacca. While the contents and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2908,1725,1286,6051,4880,3712],"tags":[2339,1815,12434,183,3656,12435,3125],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16619"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/5\/51\/Nrol-39.jpg\/800px-Nrol-39.jpg\"){kind=link}
![a black-garbed knight<\/a>with an eagle-claw sword hilt which,](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/vMYayDC.jpg\"){kind=link}