The mission, code-named Zuma, was shrouded in secrecy from the start. A SpaceX rocket was to blast off from Florida before delivering a military satellite into orbit.
Even its existence was a carefully guarded secret. Details only emerged in paperwork submitted days before its original launch date in November.
So what to make of anonymous briefings by American officials after Sunday’s launch claiming the satellite was lost after it either failed to separate from the rocket or something went wrong with the launcher.
SpaceX has pushed back against the explanations, saying it did everything right, leaving amateur satellite watchers with a burning question: either Elon Musk’s space exploration company has just lost billions of dollars of top-secret military hardware or someone really does not want you to know about America’s newest satellite.
An American official, speaking anonymously to Bloomberg, insisted the rocket had failed. Yet later, two officials said the satellite failed to separate from the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket and is assumed to have broken up or plunged into the sea.
The satellite is assumed to be "a write-off", one of the officials told Reuters.
Marco Langbroek, a Dutch academic and part-time space watcher who tracked public information on Zuma, said the information remained “hearsay” and that shifting claims had left him sceptical of the explanations so far.
“The reports initially said that the Falcon 9 failed, and that certainly is incorrect. It didn't, as the observations from Sudan show,” he said, “and as SpaceX has stated.”
Remarkably, a pilot flying just north of Khartoum snapped a photograph of the Falcon 9 rocket that was delivering the payload.
“It started with a greenish light in the top of my front window. At first I thought it was a reflection from some light source behind me, but it turned out not to be,” said Peter Horstink, the pilot of a 747-400 freighter, in an e-mail published on Dr Langbroek’s SatTrackCam blog.
His photograph shows a mesmerising blue spiral, an image which Dr Langbroek said was consistent with the upper section of the rocket as it depressurised and vented fuel before re-entering the earth’s atmosphere.
That suggests the upper stage of the rocket achieved orbit, he added.
Read more: All eyes on mystery payload being launched into space
Furthermore, the Joint Space Operations Centre of the US Department of Space, which detects man-made objects orbiting Earth, logged a new “payload” entry after the Zuma launch.
“So something reached orbit for at least one full revolution, otherwise this catalogue entry would not have happened,” said Dr Langbroek.
SpaceX has also disputed briefings that its rocket failed. James Gleeson, its spokesman, said initially: “We do not comment on missions of this nature; but as of right now reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally.”
That is aerospace engineering speak for things going according to plan.
On Tuesday, the company pushed back harder.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president, released a statement saying the Falcon 9 rocket “did everything correctly” on Sunday night and any other suggestion was “categorically false”.
It leaves as many questions as answers.
No one knows what the satellite’s role, intended mission or even which US agency was responsible for it.
A video of the mission was narrated by a SpaceX employee without offering details of the payload. The feed was cut before the satellite was due to be deployed, much like during other classified launches.
Northrop Grumman, the military contractor which built the satellite for an as yet undisclosed US agency, said it could not comment on classified missions.
For now, SpaceX says its busy programme of launches remains on schedule. Last year it recorded 18 launches and is planning even more for 2018.
Its new, more powerful rocket, the Falcon Heavy, is already on its launch pad at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre awaiting an engine test firing this week.
It is slated to launch by month’s end, although that date may well be pushed back once testing is complete. It has already been loaded with Mr Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster, a cheeky replacement for the usual “boilerplate satellite” — essentially a hunk of metal of the size and weight of a normal payload — used for test flights.
Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi
Director: Kangana Ranaut, Krish Jagarlamudi
Producer: Zee Studios, Kamal Jain
Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Ankita Lokhande, Danny Denzongpa, Atul Kulkarni
Rating: 2.5/5
Innotech Profile
Date started: 2013
Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari
Based: Muscat, Oman
Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies
Size: 15 full-time employees
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exited through an agreement with a new investor to secure new funding that it under negotiation right now.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
SPAIN SQUAD
Goalkeepers Simon (Athletic Bilbao), De Gea (Manchester United), Sanchez (Brighton)
Defenders Gaya (Valencia), Alba (Barcelona), P Torres (Villarreal), Laporte (Manchester City), Garcia (Manchester City), D Llorente (Leeds), Azpilicueta (Chelsea)
Midfielders Busquets (Barcelona), Rodri (Manchester City), Pedri (Barcelona), Thiago (Liverpool), Koke (Atletico Madrid), Ruiz (Napoli), M Llorente (Atletico Madrid)
Forwards: Olmo (RB Leipzig), Oyarzabal (Real Sociedad), Morata (Juventus), Moreno (Villarreal), F Torres (Manchester City), Traore (Wolves), Sarabia (PSG)
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
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The%20specs
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Zayed Sustainability Prize
Other ways to buy used products in the UAE
UAE insurance firm Al Wathba National Insurance Company (AWNIC) last year launched an e-commerce website with a facility enabling users to buy car wrecks.
Bidders and potential buyers register on the online salvage car auction portal to view vehicles, review condition reports, or arrange physical surveys, and then start bidding for motors they plan to restore or harvest for parts.
Physical salvage car auctions are a common method for insurers around the world to move on heavily damaged vehicles, but AWNIC is one of the few UAE insurers to offer such services online.
For cars and less sizeable items such as bicycles and furniture, Dubizzle is arguably the best-known marketplace for pre-loved.
Founded in 2005, in recent years it has been joined by a plethora of Facebook community pages for shifting used goods, including Abu Dhabi Marketplace, Flea Market UAE and Arabian Ranches Souq Market while sites such as The Luxury Closet and Riot deal largely in second-hand fashion.
At the high-end of the pre-used spectrum, resellers such as Timepiece360.ae, WatchBox Middle East and Watches Market Dubai deal in authenticated second-hand luxury timepieces from brands such as Rolex, Hublot and Tag Heuer, with a warranty.
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
