Return lessons and KOOL complete

March 11th, 1956; Baikonur Kosmodrone.

Mission update regarding the Lunar return. It all went well, but Valentina’s manoeuvre somehow made her end up with an apoapsis of only just above 60 km, when we had planned for 90 – everyone were quite nervous, and the back-up computer core was dropped midway through the burn to shed weight.

It worked just fine though, and we’re now planning future return missions for around 70 km, as we assume that 90 may be too high – so all in all it turned out fine and lesson learned.

Next we come to the main part of this briefing, which is of interest to the Intelligence Service. Our previous press conference on the KOOL Network did in fact not report everything as it is. While the satellites can indeed take pictures of the cloud layer and maintain our orbital communications, we can now divulge the monitoring capability to the Intelligence Service as the final one is in orbit above the Illyriens main launch path.

KOOL Satellite monitoring the main Illyrien launch paths.

We are able to monitor launches at all times of the day with the multiple kameras – and with the telescope, we can zoom in far enough to determine their launch engines based on exhaust colours and plumes (determining their lunch menu will require our next generation telescopes).

The extend-able, EM boom is to monitor direct signals. While we can snoop on their omni-directional communications, the direct ones are not so easy. The EM boom is sensitive enough to measure direct links, and the Intelligence Service may be able to learn how to extract radio content out of them with the copy of the EM boom we have sent to their science division.

The plasma detector can detect launches instantly, and once the rocket nears space, it can likewise determine the exact type and amount of fuel used, allowing us to determine engine type and activity with unprecedented accuracy.

 

All in all, we now have not only a permanent global communication network – we also have global monitoring capability, able to determine exactly what the Illyriens (or any other aggressor nation) may be doing rocket-wise (we expect to be able to monitor jet planes as well, but as far as we know, the Illyriens are incapable of ordinary flight).

 

Signed,

Gene Kerman