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[smjjames]

Because it is impossible to put something in orbit without everyone knowing.
Both because there aren't that many people that put things in orbit and because anyone can look up.
The current mehod for stealth spacecraft is to send it to orbit and blow it up, scratch it off publicly as an accident and have the payload be obscured from view by the explosion debris.

That is the current consensus, and there are some "failures" that are suspected to be working currently.

I feel like that gets into conspiracy theory territory without any coherent proof, but okay. Also, who exactly is it the current consensus of?

Not to mention that those debris only add to the problem of debris up there.

[andrea]

This is by far the most secretive payload SpaceX has launched. I doubt we will ever know more than what we do now, be it a real or fake failure.
However, we know that SpaceX claims the launcher operated nominally, they were praised for a job well done and they are continuing their schedule without alterations. All this would seem to indicate that the booster did, in fact, perform well and therefore the failure shouldn't have any significant impact on SpaceX.

One interesting theory floating around is that Zuma wasn't an actual payload, but a test to determine the ability of SpaceX to keep a super secret launch under wraps (much to the frustration of space enthusiasts everywhere, it seems they are very good at it). However, I think the noise has grown perhaps a bit too much for it being just that.

[Magistrum]

Oh, of course, sorry if it sounded like I was affirming that it was indeed a spy satellite, I meant to say that that was the currently known method by which that happens, providing a motive for such a bad pr move.

I believe it is widely accepted that spy satellites work by hiding in debris. There were some stories by small newspapers back in ~2008 about backyard astronomers identifying objects as such, but wasn't a big deal, because they were just hobbyists.

In 2015 Oleg Maidanovich affirmed to have identified foreign spy satellites working over Russia, and that they were hiding inoperant amid documented space debris.

Since he is the head of the Russian Space Command it was taken very seriously, but he did not disclose to which nation it belonged. If I remember correctly he also said there were no plans to take them down.

There wasn't much disbelief about spy satellites due to Misty and RH-11 already being widely known at the time.

All of this does not mean that this is a secret satellite, however.
And yes, it does add to our ongoing high speed space trash problem.

[smjjames]

Government contracts would be pretty lucrative, so, they'd be hard pressed not to do some if they don't have a policy of not working with the government.

Hiding among debris or a bunch of stuff certainly makes sense, it's literally one of the oldest tricks in the book. Hopefully they add something to de-orbit the debris, which would mitigate the growing space junk problem.

[Starver]

Spy satellites of the photo-reconnaissance type have been designed to orbit at 75 to 100 miles altitude. LEO is 'below 1200 miles' and atmospheric drag acts greatly upon double-digit miles of altitude like the above types (not a problem for the early film-using spy satellites, they were going to have to send the film back down to be recovered anyway, as quickly as it was worthwhile to de-orbit the acquired images).  Some of the 'spy stuff' can work (and maybe even does it best) at geosynchronous/geostationary positions, but not really the less overt monitors, the kind you want zooming over enemy interesting territory trying to pick out small details in whatever part of the EM spectrum it is designed for.

With the Fog Of War around this launch (best I can find is that the payload is supposed to have unintentionally re-entered with the 2nd stage booster, if I have the right mission details in my independent search) I can't see where it was (theoretically) headed, though it seems like it was a GEO-capable stack. Could be anywhere. If it wasn't an intentional re-entry disgjised as an error (testing de-orbitting capabilities?)... With only military/advanced civilian trackers likely having the fuller details of what happened 'at the top end', and not likely to tell John Q Public (no matter if that's even Vasya Pupkin), it's really all up in the air and going to stay there for the foreseeable. Or above the air, but ditto.

[sluissa]

One of the things several countries have been working on (US, China and Russia at the very least) for the past few decades are actually remote spacecraft that can rendezvous with other satellites, either to observe, intercept communications or potentially sabotage. One recently launched craft was actually observed by amateurs to move close to the ISS (within 4 miles at one point, EXTREMELY close by space standards) during one of their docking/undocking procedures. Thought by some to be a test of its capabilities.

If there is a "stealth" satellite, there's a decent probability it'd have a mission like this rather than your typical "take pictures of the ground" sat that while "secret" nobody really tries to hide all that hard.

There was also speculation about the specific orbit it was put in, ~50 degree inclination, which specifically covers all the oceans other than the far north arctic. But that doesn't really prove anything because that also covers basically all relevant land as well.

Given the news though, and the relevant statements by government officials, I'd say it's more likely that it did fail in some manner. It might still be in orbit, perhaps temporarily. It might still be functional in some regard, perhaps temporarily. But I'd say likelihood of it either already, or soon being in the ocean is pretty high.

[Culise]

So, a bit of a non-news bump: Google has withdrawn the Lunar X Prize, citing as a reason that none of the contestants will be able to make the necessary Lunar launch by the end of March in spite of repeated extensions.

[hops]

Sad but not very surprising. Hey, at least we have SpaceX now!

[Reelya]

39 Light Years away, there's a start with 7 watery Earth-sized planets, and 4 of them are in it's Goldilocks zone. And by "watery" i mean that 5 of said planets consists of 5% water (which is much more than Earth percentage-wise). Since there are so many of these planets in one location, and it's so close to us, scientists are obviously excited about this as a potential place to observe for life signs.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/trappist-1-planets-found-to-be-rich-with-water-boosting-chances-for-life/news-story/22388838fa0e85e8c86876d30509be95

[Starver]

Shhhh...  That's Kamino. The orders are to wipe that star entirely from the databases while our Clone Army is flash-grown.

[Madman198237]

No clue why it hasn't been mentioned in the SPACE thread yet (Come on guys, show some enthusiasm), but the Falcon Heavy MIGHT launch today. Might.

[smjjames]

You know, if one of the outer planets has the amount of water they say it does and it's covered by ice, there is a very real possibility of a subsurface liquid water existing from a combination of pressure and internal heat.

Though I have no idea if Europas (or any of the other moons found to have a subsurface ocean) moonwide subsurface ocean would scale to planet sized or if you need a gas giant tugging on it for that to exist. Even then, it would be even harsher for life if there is no guarantee of the water staying liquid.

I've also read that one of them, probably d or e, could be a literal ocean planet, with little, if any, land sticking above the waves. The current theory of the origins of life is in hot springs with periodic wet/dry cycles, which wouldn't neccesarily work on a literal ocean planet, but there could very well be more than one way of arriving at life. Especially given how long lived red dwarf stars are.

Also, the article says that five of them are watery, not all seven.

No clue why it hasn't been mentioned in the SPACE thread yet (Come on guys, show some enthusiasm), but the Falcon Heavy MIGHT launch today. Might.

No clue either.

[Starver]

No clue why it hasn't been mentioned in the SPACE thread yet (Come on guys, show some enthusiasm), but the Falcon Heavy MIGHT launch today. Might.

No clue either.

Ixnay on the inxjay?

[Wolfhunter107]

Falcon Heavy is about 13 mintes out from launch now. Looks like they're going to do it.

[Guardian G.I.]

Falcon Heavy was successfully launched; Musk's car is in space.