ChrispenEvan said:

captain_spalding said:

Michael V said:

Ta.

A few blunders and omissions.

The battery signals gave the Russians warning of the resumption of movement by X-36, so they were ready to get under way and follow it, or to bring in another satellite to trail it.

And Stellar Exploration coincidentally reduced the percentage of its ownership by Americans below that where DoD audits were obligatory.

All in all, Elon is pretty popular right now in both Moscow and Tehran.

I don’t think they can just stop a satellite in LEO, or any orbit.

No, but they can leave it in the orbit it has, and not vary it at all, either to cover newly-specified objectives, or to avoid approach/interception by ‘unfriendly’ satellites (which X-36 has done before).

‘Freezing’ it means that, rather than risk destruction through collision, it’ll stay in the orbit it’s in at that time. A nice orbit that can be plotted, and predicted, and which can be expected to be maintained while you wiggle your own satellite up close, because you know that the collision alert is bullshit.