GGSE-4

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The Gravity Gradient Stabilization Experiment (GGSE-4) was a technology satellite launched in 1967. This was ostensibly the fourth in a series that developed designs and deployment techniques later applied to the NOSS/Whitecloud reconnaissance satellites.

GGSE-4 was launched by the U.S. Airforce from Vandenberg Air Force Base atop a Thor Agena-D rocket.[1] GGSE-4 remained operational from 1967 through 1972.[2]

It is alleged that the real name of GGSE-4 was POPPY 5B or POPPY 5b and that it was a U.S. National Reconnaissance Office satellite designed to collect signals intelligence;[3] POPPY 5B was part of a 7-satellite mission. A partial subset of information about POPPY was declassified in 2005.[4]

Other sources say that GGSE-4 weighed only 10 pounds but that it was attached to the much larger Poppy 5, which would have weighed 85 kg and featured an 18-meter boom.[5] It is further alleged that GGSE-4's mass is not at all like GGSE-1's mass and that GGSE'4 weighs 85 kg.[6]

2020 near-miss

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References

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