Design
Misty is reported to have optical and radar stealth characteristics, making it difficult for adversaries to detect (and thus predict the times it would fly overhead).
Almost everything about the program is classified information—but one clue about satellite camouflage has been found in the patent literature. Patent #US 5345238 describes an inflatable balloon that can be made rigid on exposure to ultraviolet radiation that can serve to lower the radar and optical signature of the satellite. Once deployed, the cone-shaped balloon could be steered to deflect incoming laser and microwave radar energy by sending it off into outer space. Whether or not these stealthy ideas are actually used in the Misty satellite series is not publicly known.
Read more about this topic: Misty (satellite)
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life ... for fear that I should get some of his good done to me,—some of its virus mingled with my blood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What but design of darkness to appall?—
If design govern in a thing so small.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)