it would be almost impossible to steal a sattelite and have it go unnoticed. the point of sattelites is to send info from space to earth, so that means that people on earth must be monitoring the info. when no info is coming…then they know that the satellite is gone.
In all the years they have had satellites you don’t think any one of them has stopped working or they lost contact with one.
Lets say the Russians or some other country has a satellite that is not working…IM sure we can tell if its sending signals or not. Shuttle goes up and exchanges dummy satellite (something about the same size) for non working satellite. IM not saying that has happened but I think its possible. Everything up there is moving at the same speed, so I would think speed is not an issue.
How would they prove it has been stolen :?: 8)
Point any halfway decent telescope at it? Plenty of tricks went on (for instance the “if you can read this your cameras are as good as ours”) sign somewhere in Washington DC, but that sounds like rather too easy to rumble for a major downside (not sure here, but stealing a satellite could even be construed as an act of war).
Mike, an active satellite capt and send signals. As a country could note that satellite wasn’t working, the country owner from the satellite would know if the satellite is emiting signals again… they would know the satellite which was unoperable is now working, and they would want the satellite back, or simply, they could destroy it, do you understand what I mean?
And the sat would have to be broken in order to fit it in to the shuttle.
Once expanded sats do not close down again.