Office of the Secretary of Defense: 027_Satellite_Flaring_Paper

All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)
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which simplifies to:
𝑅𝐿𝑂𝑆 = √2𝑅𝐸ℎ𝐴𝐿𝑇 + ℎ𝐴𝐿𝑇
2 . (3)
Since ℎ𝐴𝐿𝑇 ≪ 𝑅𝐸 , then
𝑑 ≈ 𝑅𝐿𝑂𝑆 . (4)
This relationship is plotted in Figure 15.
Figure 15: Projected shift in observation horizon (O1 to O2) as a function of observer altitude.
The latitude and longitude at position O2 (the new effective observation point for the airborne
observer) can be then estimated using the Haversine formula [17]. There are online calculators
available to find the terminal coordinates when given a starting point, bearing and range, e.g.,
https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/find-terminal-coordinates. Alternatively, one could use the ruler
tool in Google Earth to estimate the terminal coordinates.
The coordinates for O2 are used to determine the Sun’s altitude and the observer’s elevation look
angle to potentially see flares for a given day, time, airborne observer location, and aircraft bearing
(or azimuth look angle as noted in Footnote 3).
3 It is implied that the airborne observer is looking forward out of the aircraft cockpit, i.e., a pilot, thus, the aircraft
bearing and azimuth look angle are approximately in the same direction. If the observer were a passenger looking out
of a side window, then replace the aircraft bearing with the azimuth look angle of the observer as measured from true
North to project O1 to O2.027Page determined to be Unclassified
Reviewed by Chief of Staff, AARO
IAW FY24 NDAA, Section 1841(a)(1)(C)
Date: 2/14/2025