https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Lyles
In the 2024 United States presidential election, Lyles endorsed Kamala Harris.[10]

He is still causing trouble:
https://spacenews.com/lyles-concerned-about-sweeping-changes-to-advisory-committees/

Instead of getting some civilian firm with folks in it you don’t know from Adam’s housecat–you need to get McNamara’s morons out of the Pentagon. I’d say more but I don’t want to violate a confidence.

Yes, we had spies like Johnny Walker Red—but civilian firms are just one more step away from “negative controls” as ICBM jockeys would call it.

Rickover had to personally vet you if you had your heart set on becoming a sub-mariner aboard an atomic powered sub.
I know some regard me as a relic–but I will take steely-eyed missile men over todays kids.

I trust very few civilian firms.

Could it be that the military does not update the orbital elements (the numbers that describe a satellite’s orbit and position within that orbit) often enough for the companies to be able to accurately predict collisions? The military’s use of the orbital elements are not for collision avoidance but for information such as the general tracking of which satellite is which and when it can be expected to overfly sensitive areas.

It is difficult to predict the position of an object in an elliptical orbit, and perturbations* do not help. Perturbations can be difficult to predict, making it much more difficult to predict a satellite in even a circular orbit. Timely updates to orbital elements help to predict the future location of satellites, reducing the unknowns of perturbations.

Currently, satellites are considered collision risks when they come within a kilometers-large “keep away” zone (an oblong bubble). This may seem adequate, but the 2009 collision between Iridium 33 the dead Kosmos 2251 had not been predicted, suggesting that the method of collision avoidance needed updating for better accuracy. We do not want to risk going back to this inadequate method.
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* In another thread, yesterday, I mentioned perturbations as being able to be used for an advantage, but there are still some perturbations, such as atmospheric drag, that make orbital prediction difficult.

This is just another accu-weather deal there, a private firm said that they can do things cheaper but in reality couldn’t–it is just NOAA this time.

Over at stormtrack.org is an individual who talks about how tornado warnings that should have been issued weren’t…Mike Smith at “Weather in the news.”

He has some real horror stories.

Also, you seem to know about the military tracking to say it is successful. What data is this based on? My gut says the hardware is old and clunky and understaffed. That we have so many uncorrelated targets is a sign that there is not enough analysts. Without transparency (which normally is the price of doing things through the military) it is hard to understand the problems or limits.

J Fincannon: In other words, the military tracking system has all the information required. It seems to me a simple matter for the White House to establish policies that allow the military’s system to be used more effectively for commercial purposes without threatening military security.

Moreover, are you suggesting the commercial system should be allowed to publish information about military classified satellites that might be useful to hostile foreign powers? This information is better controlled by the military.

Maybe because the military does not report some things. Like its own secret satellites.

“Uncorrelated targets” are another bugaboo. They only report things they can trace back to when and who launched it. How many such “targets” are there? A lot.

They used to list the radar cross-sectional area, no more starting a while back..

Also, orbital position accuracy is limited for national security purposes.