DISCLOSURE / FILE
GEIPAN case 2012-07-08299 (D1, unexplained): a witness at Montchaboud (Isère) saw a fast, silent, vaporous luminous ball with a trailing wake cross the sky south to north for 6 seconds on 26 July 2012 at 22h20; the attached technical annex is a Space Safety Magazine article on the uncontrolled reentry of Japanese spy satellite IGS-1B earlier that same day.
GEIPAN case 2012-07-08299 (D1, unexplained): a witness at Montchaboud (Isère) saw a fast, silent, vaporous luminous ball with a trailing wake cross the sky south to north for 6 seconds on 26 July 2012 at 22h20; the attached technical annex is a Space Safety Magazine article on the uncontrolled reentry of Japanese spy satellite IGS-1B earlier that same day.
The case file documents a 6-second observation on 26 July 2012 at 22h20 from a balcony in Montchaboud (38, Isère), in which the witness reported a faintly luminous, vaporous ball moving rapidly and silently on a straight south-to-north trajectory, with luminous points underneath and several small trail-jets behind. GEIPAN classified the case D1 (phénomène inexpliqué). The attached annex is a Ralf Vandebergh article from Space Safety Magazine, dated 25 October 2012, on the uncontrolled atmospheric reentry of the Japanese Information Gathering Satellite IGS-1B, which occurred on 26 July 2012 at 9:52 GMT over the Pacific Ocean about 1,300 km north-east of New Zealand. Vandebergh captured telescopic imagery of IGS-1B from a 10-inch reflector roughly 13 hours before reentry, when the satellite's altitude had dropped below 200 km.
The expected announcement of its upcoming uncontrolled atmospheric reentry finally happened on Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 9:52 GMT. Reentry was located over the Pacific Ocean, about 1,300 kilometers north-east of New Zealand.p.2
It is plausible that a considerable amount of fuel was still onboard during reentry of IGS-1B.p.2
IGS-1B is a Japanese Information Gathering Satellite that was launched on March 28, 2003 together with its companion IGS-1A on board a H2A rocket. Both satellites were de- livered into a 486 x 491 km orbit with an incli- nation of 97 degrees.p.2
That changed July 25, when I was able to capture IGS-1B just 13 hours before its reen- try in an almost overhead pass in favorable atmospheric conditions. The altitude of the satellite at that time had already dropped be- low 200 km.p.3
Ground-Based images of classified spacecraft are ex- tremely rare as most of these vehicles are in classified orbitsp.3
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Photograph of Spy Satellite IGS-1B Captured in Its Final Orbits By Ralf Vandebergh (http://www.spacesafety- magazine.com/author/ralf-vandebergh/) on October 25, 2012 in Featured (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /category/featured/), Media (http://www.spacesafety- magazine.com/category/media-entertainment/), Photo- graph (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/category /media-entertainment/photograph/) (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com) (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /2014/01/23/t- 9-minutes- counting-nasas- secret-shuttle- flight/) (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /2014/01 /21/aerospace- safety-advisory- panel- 2013-annual- report/) Photograph of Spy Satellite IGS-1B Captured in Its Final Orbits | Space... http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/10/25/igs-1b-satellite-short... 1 sur 9 04/02/2014 09:48
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() (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /2012/10/25/igs-1b-satellite-shortly-reentry /igs/) The only pictures available on the web showing the configuration of IGS-1A and 1B satellites appears to be this sketch IGS-1B is a Japanese Information Gathering Satellite that was launched on March 28, 2003 together with its companion IGS-1A on board a H2A rocket. Both satellites were de- livered into a 486 x 491 km orbit with an incli- nation of 97 degrees. The satellites orbited within 37 minutes of each other. In 2007 it was announced by officials that IGS-1B was malfunctioning due to a loss of power. Since that time the satellite’s orbit was observed to degrade. The expected announcement of its upcoming uncontrolled atmospheric reentry finally happened on Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 9:52 GMT. Reentry was located over the Pacific Ocean, about 1,300 kilometers north-east of New Zealand. It is plausible that a considerable amount of fuel was still onboard during reentry of IGS-1B. It’s com- panion IGS-1A is still in orbit. In the last years, I regularly pointed my camera to IGS-1A and IGS-1B without any spectacular results; the images revealed not much detail. (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /2014/01 /16/energy- resources-space- missions/) (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /2014/01 /30/future- food-mars/) search this w ebsite Photograph of Spy Satellite IGS-1B Captured in Its Final Orbits | Space... http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/10/25/igs-1b-satellite-short... 2 sur 9 04/02/2014 09:48
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(http://i1.wp.com /www2.picturepush.com/photo /a/8868245/img/Anonymous /IGS1B20120725set.jpg) Photograph of Spy Satellite IGS-1B Captured in Its Final Orbits | Space... http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/10/25/igs-1b-satellite-short... 4 sur 9
Concatenated page-by-page transcript. Born-digital pages came through pdf.js; scanned pages were transcribed by Claude vision OCR. Pages marked unreadable failed multiple OCR retries (heavy redaction, microfilm artifacts, or blank separators) and are kept in place for audit.
Photograph of Spy Satellite IGS-1B Captured in Its Final Orbits By Ralf Vandebergh (http://www.spacesafety- magazine.com/author/ralf-vandebergh/) on October 25, 2012 in Featured (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /category/featured/), Media (http://www.spacesafety- magazine.com/category/media-entertainment/), Photo- graph (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/category /media-entertainment/photograph/) (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com) (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /2014/01/23/t- 9-minutes- counting-nasas- secret-shuttle- flight/) (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /2014/01 /21/aerospace- safety-advisory- panel- 2013-annual- report/) Photograph of Spy Satellite IGS-1B Captured in Its Final Orbits | Space... http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/10/25/igs-1b-satellite-short... 1 sur 9 04/02/2014 09:48
() (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /2012/10/25/igs-1b-satellite-shortly-reentry /igs/) The only pictures available on the web showing the configuration of IGS-1A and 1B satellites appears to be this sketch IGS-1B is a Japanese Information Gathering Satellite that was launched on March 28, 2003 together with its companion IGS-1A on board a H2A rocket. Both satellites were de- livered into a 486 x 491 km orbit with an incli- nation of 97 degrees. The satellites orbited within 37 minutes of each other. In 2007 it was announced by officials that IGS-1B was malfunctioning due to a loss of power. Since that time the satellite’s orbit was observed to degrade. The expected announcement of its upcoming uncontrolled atmospheric reentry finally happened on Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 9:52 GMT. Reentry was located over the Pacific Ocean, about 1,300 kilometers north-east of New Zealand. It is plausible that a considerable amount of fuel was still onboard during reentry of IGS-1B. It’s com- panion IGS-1A is still in orbit. In the last years, I regularly pointed my camera to IGS-1A and IGS-1B without any spectacular results; the images revealed not much detail. (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /2014/01 /16/energy- resources-space- missions/) (http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com /2014/01 /30/future- food-mars/) search this w ebsite Photograph of Spy Satellite IGS-1B Captured in Its Final Orbits | Space... http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/10/25/igs-1b-satellite-short... 2 sur 9 04/02/2014 09:48
These satellites appeared to be reasonably difficult objects to capture in their original or- bits. That changed July 25, when I was able to capture IGS-1B just 13 hours before its reen- try in an almost overhead pass in favorable atmospheric conditions. The altitude of the satellite at that time had already dropped be- low 200 km. The upper set of images show original unprocessed color frames from my video-camera attached to a 10 inch aperture reflecting telescope. It was one of the ob- jects with the highest angular speed I have captured so far using my fully-manual track- ing method. We see clearly the typical golden color of the foil wrapped around the satellite. The stronger processing used in the grayscale images on the bottom show interesting detail. Beside the solar panels – which from this an- gle are seen only slightly illuminated by sun- light – we see some nice detail on the satel- lite-body appearing as some knots and ridges that are confirmed by the other im- ages of this frame-set. Searching the web for any pre-launch images of this satellite to compare with, I found out that there actually doesn’t exist published factory-images of IGS-1B or a comparable satellite of this type, only some sketches illustrating the approxi- mate configuration of the satellites (see illus- tration on top, left). As the website Space- flight 101 (http://www.spaceflight101.com /igs-1b-re-entry.html) puts it: ”Ground-Based images of classified spacecraft are ex- tremely rare as most of these vehicles are in classified orbits,” making the efforts put into obtaining telescopic photography of this type of satellites all the more worthwhile. search this w ebsite Photograph of Spy Satellite IGS-1B Captured in Its Final Orbits | Space... http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/10/25/igs-1b-satellite-short... 3 sur 9 04/02/2014 09:48
(http://i1.wp.com /www2.picturepush.com/photo /a/8868245/img/Anonymous /IGS1B20120725set.jpg) Photograph of Spy Satellite IGS-1B Captured in Its Final Orbits | Space... http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/10/25/igs-1b-satellite-short... 4 sur 9