Osedacz thesis on fastwalkers (1989)

Osedacz thesis on fastwalkers (1989)

Title	"Orbit Determination of Sunlight Illuminated Objects Detected by Overhead Platforms"
Author	Capt. Richard P. Osedacz, USAF
Date	3 June 1989 (report AFIT/GA/ENY/89J-3)
Institution	Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB (MS, Astronautical Engineering)
Sponsor	Flight Performance Division (FTD/SQDF), Foreign Technology Division
Advisor	Prof. William E. Wiesel
Release	Unclassified; approved for public release, distribution unlimited
Testimony	Shellenberger testimony, pp. 103–104
Topics	Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Congress & law (topic), Bases & Area 51 (topic)
People	Richard Osedacz, J. Allen Hynek
Year	1989 in UFO history
Timeline	1989 on the UAP Timeline
Sources	8

The Osedacz thesis is a June 1989 master's thesis by U.S. Air Force Captain Richard P. Osedacz at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), titled "Orbit Determination of Sunlight Illuminated Objects Detected by Overhead Platforms". It develops a way to work out the orbits of "fastwalkers": objects that reflect sunlight into satellite sensors as they pass through their field of view.^[1] The thesis is unclassified and approved for public release. It is often cited in UFO literature as evidence that a military database of unidentified objects in orbit exists.^[2][8]

The thesis

• Osedacz submitted the thesis, report AFIT/GA/ENY/89J-3, dated 3 June 1989, for a Master of Science in astronautical engineering. It was sponsored by the Flight Performance Division (FTD/SQDF) of the Air Force Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson AFB, and advised by Professor William E. Wiesel.^[1]
• Its short biography says Osedacz graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in astronautical engineering in 1984. He then spent three years at the Foreign Technology Division's Directorate of MASINT Exploitation as a ballistic-missile performance engineer, and was deputy branch chief of its Powered Flight Performance Group before entering AFIT in May 1988.^[1]
• The problem. Because of the many objects in the geostationary belt, "overhead platforms are being saturated by reflected sunlight" from objects crossing their sensors' view. These fastwalkers created "a suspicion that some uncatalogued objects may exist or are being cross-tagged within the data base". NORAD tasked FTD/SQDF to analyse the 15- to 30-minute data tracks, determine each object's orbital elements and identify it.^[1]
• Objectives. The thesis set out to test whether an orbit could be determined from space-based angle measurements alone and, if so, to study a year of collected data for recurring objects. It suggested the work could be extended to warn sensor operators of the next pass, so they could protect the sensor from "damaging cell over-saturation".^[1]
• Assumptions. The targets were taken to be non-thrusting bodies within about 1,000 km of the sensor, moving at nearly the same orbital speed, because a track could last up to 30 minutes.^[1] Osedacz noted that most geosynchronous satellites are "spinners with despun shelves". An object's pattern of reflected light acts like a fingerprint, which helps analysts confirm they are tracking the same object on different passes.^[1]

Method and findings

• The technique used Gauss's method to get a first orbit estimate from angle data, then refined it with a batch weighted least-squares estimator. Test data were simulated with the Modularized Vehicle Simulation/Trajectory Reconstruction Program (MVS/TRP).^[1]
• Main result. "Fastwalker orbit determination cannot be performed with a single data set." Any range fitted one pass equally well. Determining the orbit needed simultaneous collections by different sensors, or another sighting by the same sensor on a different day.^[1]
• He presented results for two single-pass events and one case in which "the same object was tracked four consecutive days", which produced "favorable results".^[1]
• Background. Osedacz wrote that "the fastwalker data base goes back as far as 1972". The problem was most common with "a certain ballistic missile early warning satellite system" at geostationary locations. A 1985 Aerospace Corporation report by Lem Wong had concluded that the problem was unsolvable. "Some undocumented simulations" had been run in the Space Surveillance Center at NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain Complex, but had failed to single out a specific satellite.^[1]
• In his recommendations he wrote that the topic "has not been deeply investigated" and had only recently become important because of the growing number of geosynchronous satellites and the inability to track and catalogue them with ground-based sensors.^[1]
• The thesis treats fastwalkers as sunlit orbiting objects, mostly satellites. It does not mention UFOs.^[1] The early-warning system is not named, though the thesis's description matches the Defense Support Program.

In UFO literature

• The anonymous UAP timeline in Michael Shellenberger's 2024 congressional testimony presents the thesis as showing that "a database of UAP in near-Earth orbit exists and has existed since at least 1972", and that fastwalkers are "UAP events tracked by NORAD".^[8] The thesis itself calls the tracks fastwalkers and treats them as possibly uncatalogued or wrongly tagged objects in orbit, not as unidentified craft.^[1]
• John Greenewald of The Black Vault describes "Fastwalkers" as a NORAD term for UFOs that enter or leave the atmosphere at great speed and are sometimes caught by Defense Support Program satellites, with slower anomalous objects called "Slowwalkers". He says NORTHCOM told him in 2013 that all NORAD material on the terms was classified, and that the Space Force later called such documents exempt from disclosure.^[3] His archive also holds a 2008 AFIT thesis that develops similar orbit-determination methods for satellites seen from highly elliptical and geosynchronous orbits, to identify them against the Air Force Space Command catalogue.^[3] On the 1984 Defense Support Program detection, see DSP "fast walker" detection (1984).
• The timeline also notes that on 6 January 1967 Project Blue Book's scientific adviser J. Allen Hynek told an audience at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center that NORAD and SAC radar had tracked UAP. It adds that after 1957 every continental U.S. military radar case in Blue Book's files was a NORAD case, because Air Defense Command came under NORAD.^[8][6][7]
• NORAD fee. The earlier version of this article, following the timeline, said NORAD demanded a fee of about $294,000 in 1979 to search its records.^[8] The figure documented in letters is $155,455, quoted to the researcher Robert Todd in September 1978. The $294,157 figure has not been verified; see NORAD's $294,157 search fee, which sets out the letters.
• The earlier version also said most fastwalkers are expected to be debris, unannounced foreign satellites or sensor effects. The thesis's own framing is close to that: uncatalogued objects or database cross-tagging in a crowded geostationary belt.^[1]

People and topics

• U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
• Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
• Richard Osedacz — Air Force captain whose 1989 thesis described tracking uncatalogued space objects.
• Fastwalker — A nickname for fast-moving unknown objects detected by space sensors.
• Foreign Technology Division — The Air Force unit at Wright-Patterson that analysed foreign technology.
• NORAD — The U.S.–Canadian air defence command.
• J. Allen Hynek — Astronomer and Air Force UFO consultant from 1948 to 1969 who later founded the Center for UFO Studies.
• NASA — The U.S. civilian space agency, created in 1958.
• Strategic Air Command — The Air Force command that controlled U.S. nuclear bombers and missiles.
• Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.

On the Timeline

• Bob Lazar goes public (15 May 1989) — Bob Lazar goes public, claiming he worked on alien craft at S-4 near Area 51.
• Arthur Exon's Roswell statements (July 1989) — Gen. Arthur Exon says he was told Roswell was an alien craft recovery.

See every 1989 event on the UAP Timeline →

Further reading

References